Understanding Crisis

Communication Theory and Practice

Ch02
Fink, Mitroff, Jack Welch
 Crisis Management: Fink’s Four Stages

Prodromal Crisis Stage Acute Crisis Stage

Warning—precursor Point of no return
Symptom —precrisis Crisis has occurred

Learning

Chronic Crisis Stage

Crisis Resolution Stage
Lingering on—perhaps
Patient is well/
indefinitely; period of self-
whole again
doubt; self-analysis
Mitroff’s model
Coombs model
Understanding Risk and CC
Media Theories and CC
Media Theories and CC
News Framing Theory
Focusing Events
Media Theories and CC
News Diffusion
Theories of Crisis Communication
 Corporate Apologia

 Crisis threatens social legitimacy because an

organization appears to be incompetent /violated
expectations.
 Violation is a character attack.
 Corporate Apologia

 Corporate apologia offers a

defense of the organization’s
reputation in an effort to
restore legitimacy.
 Corporate Apologia
Crisis Response Strategies
 Denial: the organization denies any wrongdoing.
 Counterattack: the organization denies wrongdoing
and claims the accuser is the one at fault.
 Differentiation: the organization attempts to distance
itself from guilt for the crisis. There is an admission
of responsibility but factors are identified that limit
the organization’s responsibility.
 Corporate Apologia
Crisis Response Strategies

 Apology: the organization accepts responsibility

and promises not to do it again.
 Legal: the organization allows the legal team to
handle the crisis and avoids public statements.
Image Repair
 Image Restoration Theory (IRT)

 Communication is goal directed.

 One goal of communication is to protect one’s
reputation .
 Dominant recommendation that emerges from IRT
research is that mortification (publicly accepting
responsibility for the crisis) is the preferred response
to a crisis.
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies
1. Denial
- simple denial: did not do it
- shift the blame: blame someone or
something
other than the organization
2. Evading responsibility  
- provocation: response to someone
else’s actions
- defeasibility: lack of information about
or control over the situation
- accidental: did not mean for it to
happen
- good intentions: actor meant well
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies

3. Reducing offensiveness:
- Bolstering: reminder of the actor’s positive
qualities
- Minimize offensiveness of the act: claim little
damage from the crisis
- Differentiation: compare act to similar ones
- Transcendence: place act in a different context
- Attack accuser: challenge those who say there
is a crisis
- Compensation: offer money or goods 
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies

4. Corrective action: restore

situation to pre-act status and/or
promise change and prevent a
repeat of the act.
5. Mortification: ask for forgiveness;
admit guilt and express regret.
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies

 Emphasis on the positive view of the organization’s

future and helping victims.
 Is about an organization creating a new direction
and sense of purpose after emerging from a crisis.
 Is an extension of accommodative strategies,
adjusting information, and compensation.
Discourse of Renewal
 Criteria for Renewal

1. Organization has a strong pre-crisis ethical

standard.
2. Constituency-organization pre-crisis relationships
are strong and favorable.
3. Focus on life beyond the crisis rather than seeking
to escape blame.
4. Desire to engage in effective crisis communication.
 Discourse of Renewal: Objectives

1. Organizational learning.
2. Ethical communication
3. Prospective versus
retrospective vision
4. Effective organizational rhetoric
 Situational Crisis Communication Theory

 SCCT provides guidance when crisis managers

have met their initial obligations and are starting to
address reputational assets.
 SCCT offers an evidence-based framework for
understanding how to maximize the reputational
protection afforded by post-crisis communication.
 Situational Crisis Communication Theory

 SCCT provides guidance for decision making in a

crisis should be supported by scientific evidence
from empirical research, rather than personal
preference and unscientific experience.
 SCCT identifies key facets of the crisis which
influence attributions about the crisis and the
reputations held by stakeholders.
 Situational Crisis Communication Theory

 SCCT emphasizes that crisis managers match their

reputation repair strategies to the reputational threat
of the crisis situation.
 Assessment according to SCCT

  Can the organization be viewed as a victim of the

event?
  Does the event occur due to factors that are
unintentional or uncontrollable by the organization?
 Is the event preventable?
 SCCT and Communication

 Start with base of instructing and

adjusting information.
 Match the response to the
reputation threat posed by the
crisis.
 Assessing the Reputation Threat

 Two-steps process.
 Step one, identify the crisis
type — how crisis is being
framed.
 Three Categories of Crisis Types

• Victim crises: very weak crisis

responsibility.
• Accident crises: minimal crisis
responsibility.
• Intentional crises: strong crisis
responsibility.
 Victim Crises

 Natural disasters: acts of nature such as tornadoes

or earthquakes.
 Rumors: false and damaging information being
circulated about your organization.
 Workplace violence: attack by former or current
employee on current employees on-site.
 Product tampering/malevolence: external agent
causes damage to the organization.
 Accidental

 Challenges: stakeholders claim that the

organization is operating in an inappropriate
manner.
 Technical error accidents: equipment or technology
failure that causes an industrial accident.
 Technical error product harm: equipment or
technology failure that causes a product to be
defective or potentially harmful.
 Preventable Crises

 Human-error accidents: industrial accident caused

by human error.
 Human-error product harm: product is defective or
potentially harmful because of human error.
 Organizational misdeed: management actions that
put stakeholders at risk and/or violate the law.
 Assessing the Reputation Threat

 Step two, check for intensifiers

• Past crisis histories intensify threats
• Unfavorable prior reputation intensifies
threats
 Assessing the Reputation Threat

 SCCT rates crisis response strategies according to

accommodation — concern for victims
 The greater the reputational threat, the more
accommodative the crisis response strategy.
 Crisis Response Strategies in SCCT

Deny strategies: seek to eliminate crisis responsibility.

⁻ attack the accuser: confront person or group claiming a
crisis exists
⁻ denial: claim there is no crisis
⁻ scapegoat: blame someone else for the crisis.
Diminish strategies: seek to minimize the crisis
responsibility.
⁻ excuse: deny any intent to do harm and/or claim inability
to control the event
⁻ justification: seek to minimize perceptions of damage from
the event
 Crisis Response Strategies in SCCT

Rebuild strategies: seek to repair the reputation.

⁻ compensation: offer gifts or money to victims
⁻ apology: accept responsibility and ask for forgiveness
Reinforcing strategies.
⁻ bolstering: remind people of past good works by the
organization
⁻ ingratiation: praise people who help address the
event.
 SCCT’s Response Strategies

  Denial strategies “seek to remove any connection

between the crisis and the organization” (p. 156).
 Diminishment strategies seek “to reduce attributions
of organizational control over the crisis” (p. 156).
 Rebuilding strategies are designed to “improve the
organization’s reputation” (p. 156).
 SCCT’s Response Strategies

  Bolstering strategies supplement the other three

strategies by seeking to “build a positive connection
between the organization and the stakeholders” (p.
157).
 SCCT’s Response based on reputation threat

 1. Provide instructing information to all victims or

potential victims in the form of warnings and directions
for protecting themselves from harm.
 2. Provide adjusting information to victims by
expressing concern for them and providing corrective
action when possible (Note: for victim crises in an
organization with no crisis history or unfavorable prior
reputation).
 SCCT’s Response based on reputation
threat
  3. Use diminishment strategies for accidental crises
when there is no
crisis history or unfavorable prior reputation.
 4. Use diminishment strategies for victim crises when
there is a crisis history or unfavorable prior
reputation.
 SCCT’s Response based on reputation threat

 5. Use rebuilding strategies for accident crises when

there is a crisis history or unfavorable prior
reputation.
 6. Use rebuilding strategies for any preventable
crisis.
 7. Use denial strategies in rumor crises.
 8. Use denial strategies in challenges when the
challenge is unwarranted.
 SCCT’s Response based on reputation threat

 9. Use corrective action (adjusting information) in

challenges when
other stakeholders are likely to support the challenge.
 10. Use reinforcing strategies as supplements to
other response strategies.
 SCCT’s Response based on reputation threat

 11. The victimage response [when the organization is

clearly the victim in the crisis] strategy should only be
used with the victim cluster.
 12. To be consistent, do not mix denial strategies with
either diminishment or rebuilding strategies.
 13. Diminishment and rebuilding strategies can be used
in combination with one another.
Crisis happens more than
we imagine.

They are not always easy to see unless

they affect our own lives.
 Is a Crisis Plan Needed?

 Does anyone really believe

a plan is not needed?
 In time, you will deal with
a disaster. Will you be
ready?
 Functions of Crisis Communications

 Environmental scanning and spanning

 Crisis response
 Crisis resolution
 Organizational learning
 Functions :Environmental
Scanning
 (Monitoring and maintaining external relationships:
collecting information, building relationships with
external stakeholders)
 Sense-making of information
 Issue management
 Spanning agency, organization and community
boundaries
 Risk communication
 Functions: Crisis Response

 (Planning for and managing crises)

 Uncertainty reduction, providing information and
 interpretations, warnings, evacuations notices,
product recalls
 Coordination with key stakeholder and response
agencies
 Information dissemination
 Promoting strategic ambiguity
 Functions: Crisis Resolution

 (Restructuring, repairing and maintaining

relationships after a crisis)
 Defensive messages
 Explanatory messages
 Image restoration
 Renewal
 Grieving and memorializing
 Functions: Organizational learning

 (Emerging from a crisis with enhanced knowledge,

relationships and capacity)
 Dialogue
 Networks and relationships
 Understanding and norms
 1- The Breaking Crisis

 Control seems to be slipping out of the system

(company).

 Lack of solid detail about the crisis. Hard-to-

provide information demanded by the media,
analysts and others.

 Temptation to resort to a short-term focus, to

panic and to speculate.

 For a period of time, everyone loses perspective.

 2- Spread and Intensification of Crisis

 Speculation and reports develop in the absence

of hard facts.
 Third parties- regulators, scientists and other
experts – add weight to the climate of opinion.
 Corporate management comes under intense
inspection from internal and external groups.
 3- Rebuilding Needs

 To manage reputation. There are opportunities

in a crisis to build positive perceptions that
remaining beyond the crisis period.

 The system embarks on a long-term programme

to tackle management issues and
communication problems that worsened the
crisis.
 Problems and Challenges in Crisis
Decision-Making
 Surprise and hesitation. The shock of a crisis can create
a delay in response that allows your critics and the
media to fill the gap with negative comment and
speculation.

 Pressure and stress must be channelled by the discipline

of a crisis strategy.

 Mistaking information distribution for communication.

 Treating key audiences as “challengers”.

 Problems and Challenges in
Crisis Decision-Making

 Good crisis management is essential, but never a

substitute for daily risk management processes.

 Risk management processes should apply to all

stakeholders, although depth and detail may depend
on the transaction and stakeholder.
 Managing Business Crises

 Identify areas of vulnerability

 Form crisis teams
 Develop plans
 Crisis drill
 Review and feedback
 Crisis Communications
Despite a solid risk management process, there will
be problems because we cannot predict all crisis
events and protect against them.
Be prepared to deal with a crisis event and take
action immediately – identifying and assessing issues
and options and obtaining expert advice as needed.
 Crisis Communications
 Identify communication team
 Identify spokesperson
 Train and educate your spokesperson
 Develop communication protocols
 Identify and know your audience
 Develop talking points
 Monitor, monitor and monitor
 Crisis Communications
 Good communication is the heart of any crisis
management plan.
 Communication should reduce tension, demonstrate a
corporate commitment to correct the problem and take
control of the information flow.
 Crisis communications involves communicating with a
variety of constitutes: the media, employees,
neighbours, investors, regulators and lawmakers.
 After the Crisis

 Take some time

 Review and revamp procedures
 Be prepared for the next crisis!
Ethical guidelines for successful
outcomes