Management Communication - Crisis Management

This report sheds light on the communication processes followed during times of crisis, including types of crisis, lessons learned, and communication strategies. It discusses the recipients of communication and the importance of a communication plan.

Running head: MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION - CRISIS MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION - CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The following report shed light on the communication processes that are generally followed
during the times of crisis. The report opened with a discussion on crisis, the types of crisis and
some examples of the organizational crisis that have been highlighted in the recent past. The
report further discussed the lessons that were learned from the crisis and the ways in which the
companies should prepare for resolving the crisis. The report finally neared its conclusion with
the discussion on the persons that the management should communicate with and the ways in
which the management should communicate during organizational crisis.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Body.....................................................................................................................................3
Communicating in times of crisis....................................................................................3
Communication content and reason.............................................................................3
Communication recipient and process.........................................................................5
Communicating a communication plan...........................................................................6
Communication content and reason.............................................................................6
Communication recipient and process.........................................................................6
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................7
References............................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Organizational crisis also refers to the harm towards the heath as well as the well-being
of the stakeholders of the organizations, both internal and external (Friedmann 2018). The crisis
within the organization might include any activity that are threatening to any major product line
or a specific unit of the business. The crisis within the organization might further discuss the
damage that might be faced in the organizational performance in terms of finance (Bundy et al.
2017). There are five major types of crisis that might be faced by the organization including
financial crisis, technological crisis, crisis of malevolence, natural crisis and crisis of
organizational misdeeds (Booth 2015). Two major examples of the organizational crisis might be
cited in the cases of the racial row that was faced by the airline company in China, Air China and
the accounting scandal that was faced by the famous retail organization of the United Kingdom,
Tesco PLC (Bbc.com 2016; Kizil and Kaşbaşı 2018).
Body
Communicating in times of crisis
Communication content and reason
The management of the business organizations should communicate a number of factors
that are relevant to the issues that the organization might face in the duration of their operations
within the given company. Fearn-Banks (2016) states that the major types of crisis that are faced
by the companies active within the international markets refer to the financial crises, the natural
crises and the crises that threatens the reputation and the good will of the concerned company.
The financial crises that is faced by the company should be communicated to both the
internal and the external stakeholders of the company. This is due to the fact that the financial

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crises within the company affects both the employees of the organization as well as the external
stakeholders of the organization like the governmental bodies that have been active within the
concerned political boundaries, the external shareholders of the organization as well as the
suppliers and the clientele of the organization (Dahles and Susilowati 2015). One major example
of the financial crisis that might be cited in this case is the crashing down of the stock market
within any given country. The crashing down of the stock market will result in the conditions
wherein the companies within the country would face a huge crisis in the financial sector.
The other major type of crises that might befall a company is the natural crises. The
management of the company should also communicate with the stakeholders the natural crises
that is being faced by the company. This would help the company to take care of the safety of the
staff of the organization as well as communicate to the clientele as well as the other concerned
external stakeholders the reason behind the inconsistency of the regularity of their services
(Coombs 2015). One major example of such a crisis might be cited in the tsunami that was faced
by Japan. The tsunami is one of the major natural crises that had hit the country. The tsunami had
resulted in a large amount of losses that were faced by the residents of the country as well as by
the various companies that had been present within the territorial boundaries of the country.
The threats to the reputation of any business organization is also one of the major types of
the crisis that is faced by the company. The management of the company as well as the public
relations department within the organization should maintain a greater concern for the various
issues that are discussed by the stakeholders of the company as well as the negative publicity that
might be attempted by the rivals of the organization (Doppelt 2017). The concerned management
as well as the public relations team should communicate the major factors and happenings of the
organization in the various social media platforms that are accessed by the organization (Lachlan

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et al. 2016). The majorly popular social media platform that is generally accessed by the
organizations all over the world is Facebook. The concerned management and the public
relations department within the organization might be advised to maintain regular activity on the
social media platform which in turn lead to the averting the crisis that is faced by the reputation
of the concerned business organization.
Communication recipient and process
The manager of the concerned organization should be communicating with the internal as
well as the external stakeholders of the organization. The major internal stakeholders of the
organization refer to the staff of the organization as well as the managerial staff as well as the
Chief Executive Officer of the organization (Gruber et al. 2015). The major modes of the
communication that need to be maintained for communicating with the staff of the organization
refer to the various training procedures that are followed by the concerned organizations
(Coombs 2015). The staff of the organization inclusive of the managerial employees as well as
the CEO of the organization might be advised to attend the meetings that are conducted within
the organization in order to deal with as well as ensure proper communication within the
workforce during the times of the crisis within the organization (Dahles and Susilowati 2015).
The company might also rely on the other technological media for the proper communication
among the internal stakeholders of the business concern. This might include the implementation
of the proper emails and memoranda that are being exchanged within the organization (Lachlan
et al. 2016). The exchange of the memoranda as well as the emails are generally used in case of
the communication among the managers and in some cases the CEO of the company as well.
The external stakeholders of the organization include the clientele of the organization as
well as the investors of the company. The major modes of communication that is used in case of

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the external stakeholders relate to the advertisements that are shared over the various media, the
public relations that are maintained by the concerned company (Harrison 2016). In case of the
investors of the company, the majorly relied communication channel should be the one that
involves the direct communication with the concerned investors of the organization.
Communicating a communication plan
Communication content and reason
In order to deal with the proper communication within the organization, the management
of the organization should be advised to discuss the nature of the crisis that is being faced by the
organization in discussion. The managers should communicate with the staff of the organization
the nature of the concerned crisis during the meeting as well as outline the various ways in which
the concerned company might deal with the situations that have been threatening the stability of
the organizational performance. The managers of the organization might also ask the concerned
staff to put forth their suggestions in order to deal with the crisis situation that is faced by the
concerned organization (Fearn-Banks 2016). This in turn leads to the conditions wherein the
engagement of the concerned employees within the organization is increased. The increase of the
employee engagement within the company has often led to the retention of the employees of the
organization. The increase in the employee engagement would also help the concerned
organization to overcome the crisis situation in a proper manner through the implementation of a
plausible crisis management plan (Dahles and Susilowati 2015). The mangers might also be
advised to communicate the crisis plan to the staff and welcome the suggestions from the staff as
well.

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Communication recipient and process
The crisis plan should be communicated to both the internal as well as the external
stakeholders of the organization. The internal recipients of the communication that is undertaken
on the crisis plan refers to the people who have been serving the organization in the lower levels
of the organizational hierarchy as well as the employees who have been serving at the
managerial levels. The crisis plan should also be communicated to the CEO of the company as
well (Doppelt 2017). The major communicational instruments that are recommended for the
usage in the given organization refer to the meetings, training sessions and the emails that are
circulated among the organizational workforce as well as the CEO of the company (Gruber et al.
2015). This helps in the proper maintenance of the records that are required for later references.
The company should also convey the plans for mitigating the crisis to the external stakeholders
of the organization which includes majorly the investors of the company as well as the concerned
clients (Harrison 2016). The major modes of communication that should be used in this case
refers to the direct communication with the concerned investors as well as the public relations of
the concerned organization.
Conclusion
Thus, from the above discussion it might be discussed that the multitude of organizations
that have been active within the international markets might require to develop on the skills of
crisis management. This would help them gain an advantage over the other companies that have
been their competitors. The crisis management of the organization is majorly known to help the
company to survive through the critical periods that they might face in their due course of
operation. In situations of organizational crisis, the management is should implement a plan for

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evaluating the degree of the crisis as well as assist in averting similar kinds of crisis in the future
days.

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References
Bbc.com 2016. Air China magazine sorry for London slur. [online] BBC News. Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-37307602 [Accessed 11 Feb. 2019].
Booth, S.A., 2015. Crisis management strategy: Competition and change in modern enterprises.
Routledge.
Bundy, J., Pfarrer, M.D., Short, C.E. and Coombs, W.T., 2017. Crises and crisis management:
Integration, interpretation, and research development. Journal of Management, 43(6), pp.1661-
1692.
Coombs, W.T., 2015. The value of communication during a crisis: Insights from strategic
communication research. Business Horizons, 58(2), pp.141-148.
Dahles, H. and Susilowati, T.P., 2015. Business resilience in times of growth and crisis. Annals
of Tourism Research, 51, pp.34-50.
Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Fearn-Banks, K., 2016. Crisis communications: A casebook approach. Routledge.
Friedmann, J., 2018. The crisis of transition: a critique of strategies of crisis management. In Life
space and economic space (pp. 40-68). Routledge.
Gruber, D.A., Smerek, R.E., Thomas-Hunt, M.C. and James, E.H., 2015. The real-time power of
Twitter: Crisis management and leadership in an age of social media. Business Horizons, 58(2),
pp.163-172.

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Harrison, S. ed., 2016. Disasters and the media: Managing crisis communications. Springer.
Kizil, C. and Kaşbaşı, B., 2018. Accounting Scandals and Eye-Catching Frauds: USA-Japan
Comparison by Considering the Role of Auditing. Journal of Asian Research, 2(3).
Lachlan, K.A., Spence, P.R., Lin, X., Najarian, K. and Del Greco, M., 2016. Social media and
crisis management: CERC, search strategies, and Twitter content. Computers in Human
Behavior, 54, pp.647-652.