Managing Business Crises: The CSR Perspective

Abstract

Crisis is the real test of the capabilities, of both the organizations as well as individuals. When time is hard, they are tempted to break the rules of the game, only to realize later that the harm done by their socially irresponsible behaviour while handling the crisis, outweigh the damage because of the crisis itself. The Spring of 2003 brought crisis on the MNCs in soft‐drinks and chocolate industries. In this paper, the action of three MNCs to get out of the crisis is analyzed from the CSR perspective, both theoretically and empirically. The actions of the company manufacturing chocolates are perceived as being socially responsible, while those manufacturing soft‐drinks are not perceived as being socially responsible. Although the MNCs are out of the crisis now, but people are able to differentiate between socially responsible behaviour and those actions, which are not. Such repeated actions may damage the company reputation and erode their competitive advantage in long run.

Citation

Sharma, T. and Narwal, M. (2006), "Managing Business Crises: The CSR Perspective", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 124-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb059242