Search results

This case study analyzes Countrywide Financial’s responses to its recent financial crisis and illustrates the use of communication theory and image restoration strategies by utilizing several crisis response frameworks. The study uses a critical analysis methodology to examine the communication strategies employed by Countrywide, a large mortgage lending company in order to attempt to restore its image. The authors look at excerpts from media stories, carefully examine the language used by company representatives in response to the banking crisis, and categorize the corporate communications into various strategies as defined in the crisis communication literature. Countrywide faced several crisis situations during the period of this study, including the subprime mortgage crisis, public criticism of its CEO’s executive compensation package, allegations of insider trading, and financial difficulties. Corporate responses are critical in determining what amount of damage is done to the firm’s image during a crisis. Countrywide responded to these situations most often using the strategies of image bolstering, reducing the credibility of its accuser, and minimizing the crisis (Benoit, 1995). Through these communications, the company attempted to appear well established and untarnished. It also criticized the media, the courts, and the regulators in an attempt to reduce their credibility. Countrywide made no deliberate attempt to admit fault or to take measures to prevent the problem from reoccurring.

Image restoration theory has become a dominant paradigm for examining corporate communication in times of crises. However, much insight gleaned from scholarly research in this area remains descriptive – simply recounting how certain corporations or companies communicated during times of crisis – rather than prescriptive. Therefore, to provide more direct guidance to corporations and organizations, this paper offers the first empirical test of Benoit's five image restoration strategies vis‐à‐vis each other simultaneously within the context of a single crisis situation.

An experimental investigation that measures consumers' reactions to differentially manipulated crisis‐communication messages. Methods of data analysis include ANOVA and post hoc comparisons of means.

Results indicate that the strategy of reducing the offensiveness of the event consistently led to higher reputation‐related perceptions of a company than did the other four strategies – denial, evasion of responsibility, corrective action, and mortification – when implemented during a product‐harm crisis situation.

Findings have direct implications for corporate communicators and the organizations they represent in developing and implementing crisis‐communication strategies.

This paper offers an original test of all image restoration strategies within the context of a single crisis. In addition to providing clearer guidelines to practitioners, such inquiry also accelerates the transfer of image restoration theory from the realm of retrospection and description to that of prescription and inference.

In 2015, Malaysia’s investment vehicle, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), came under international scrutiny after it amassed a debt of US$11 billion (10.3 billion) (Wright & Clark, 2015), which it had difficulty repaying. More disturbingly, investigators found that US$700 million (658 million) was transferred into the personal bank account of Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, founder and chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board (Wright & Clark, 2015). Najib was also accused of embezzling state money (Reuters, 2015) and damaging the image of the country (“Najib tried to bribe me”, 2015). This chapter aims to examine the strategies used by the Malaysian prime minister to repair his image in the 1MDB scandal, the effectiveness of these strategies, and how these impacted Malaysia’s public diplomacy efforts in restoring the country’s image and reputation. Findings showed that the prime minister denied wrongdoing, and simultaneously bolstered his position and promised to turn 1MDB around. In contrast to the current explication of Benoit and Pang’s (2008) image repair strategies, Najib’s way of attacking the accusers sheds light into how image repair strategies may be operationalized in the Asian context. A new image repair strategy – diversion – is proposed to be added to the existing framework.

One explicit leadership role the chief executive officer (CEO) can play during crisis is to assume the role of being the organization's spokesperson. What remains unclear is at what point of the crisis should the CEO step up and how does that impact crisis communication? The purpose of this paper is to examine this question.

The meta‐analysis method is used to combine different data in various studies of one topic into one comprehensive study. More than 30 crises are meta‐analyzed.

The CEO needs to step up to revise earlier statements or when the integrity of the organization is questioned. Additionally, the CEO should step up at the beginning of the crisis if the crisis pertains to organizational transgression or when the crisis becomes unbearable to organizational reputation. As counter‐intuitive as it may, CEOs should refrain from stepping up at the height of the crisis.

It is an exploratory study. Some cases have lesser information to analyze than others.

Instructive for both corporate communications practitioners and CEOs as they have a framework to guide them on when the CEOs should step up, and when the presence of corporate communications would suffice.

Little has been studied to clarify the exact nature, role, and impact of the CEO as organization spokesperson in crises. This paper provides the initial template.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the differences in image repair strategies adopted by two governments that operate in the Western and Asian societies when faced with similar crises.

Textual analyses are presented of communication of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Morakot by the Taiwanese and US governments, respectively.

Faced with similar accusations of slow response, the Asian culture, represented by the Taiwanese Government, used predominantly mortification and corrective action strategies. The Western culture, represented by the US Government, used predominantly bolstering and defeasibility and a mixed bag of other strategies such as shifting the blame and attack the accuser.

A limitation of the study is that it depends on news reports, instead of news releases and speeches, for analysis. However, given the rapidity and volatility in the unfolding drama of each of the two crises, many of the comments made were to the media and not in prepared speeches. It is a limitation the authors accept.

Strategies reflected Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance and power distance dimensions. These dimensions should be considered when designing communication strategies in different cultures so as to be culturally sensitive and relevant.

Few, if any, studies on image repair theory have addressed the role of culture in strategies used. This study fills the gap by integrating Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the proposition that corporate social responsibility reporting could be viewed as both an outcome of, and part of reputation risk management processes.

The paper draws heavily on management research. In addition, an image restoration framework is introduced.

The concept of reputation risk management could assist in the understanding of corporate social responsibility reporting practice.

This paper explores the link between reputation risk management and existing theorising in social accounting.

Ireland is viewed as the shining base for Catholicism. That image is shattered as survivors revealed the abuse in the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, and sexual abuse by priests. This study aims to examine image repair efforts by the Pope during his August 2018 visit.

Examined against the Letter of His Holiness released days earlier, this study evaluates all the Pope's speeches during his visit to Ireland using the image repair theory (Benoit and Pang, 2008) as its theoretical lens.

Pope Francis used the evasion of responsibility strategy to address the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes scandal and denial, corrective action and mortification for sex abuse crisis.

Addresses call by Ferguson et al. (2018) to examine the consistency and effectiveness of strategies.

Beyond rhetoric, stakeholders would be looking to organizational leaders to provide relief and concrete steps to recover from their pain.

A leader's narratives represent the organization's narratives; thus, insights from this study can help leaders plan what they should say when conducting image repair. It is not just their own reputations that are on the line but, in this case, it is also the reputations of the people they represent

Over the past decade, governments around the world have implemented open government data (OGD) policies to make their data publicly available, with collaboration and citizen engagement being one of the main goals. However, even though a lot of data is published, only a few citizens are aware of its existence and usefulness. The purpose of this paper is to identify the requirements for an application that raises awareness of Open Government Data (OGD) to citizens.

This study followed a design research science approach to collect citizens’ requirements for the design of such an application through interviews with 10 citizens and evaluated through user testing with 25 citizens.

This study identified and validated 11 requirements that can be implemented to raise citizens’ awareness of OGD. The most useful are listing OGD reuses with information about data used and receiving notification when a new OGD reuse is released. Furthermore, the evaluation results provided evidence of the effectiveness of using an application to improve OGD awareness to citizens.

This research provides requirements that can be used by developers to implement a usable tool to raise citizen awareness or by researchers to evaluate applications whose objective is to raise citizen awareness. Finally, it provides a mobile application that can used by developers to showcase their OGD reuses or by researchers to aware citizens of OGD through real-world examples.

The paper aims to test Benoit's five image restoration strategies to examine how each strategy impacts perceptions of the organization‐public relationship (OPR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It also examines how the strategy used impacts the credibility of the source cited in the crisis response message.

An experiment measures stakeholders' reactions to the different crisis messages and the messages' impact on perceptions of the OPR, CSR, and source credibility measures.

Results indicate the reducing the offensiveness strategy led to higher perceptions of the OPR and CSR. The image restoration strategy employed does impact stakeholders' perceptions of the credibility of the source.

The paper indicates organizations should try to bolster, minimize, transcend, and differentiate when preparing crisis messages during a product recall crisis. These types of messages protect the OPR and perceptions of CSR.

It adds to the experimental literature (whereas previous research uses cases studies). It expands Dardis and Haigh by examining the impact image restoration strategies have on OPR and CSR. It also extends current literature by examining the source of the message and how the image restoration strategy employed impacts the credibility of the source.

This paper seeks to investigate Philip Morris's responses to a decade‐long crisis through the analysis of its CEO's speeches. It also aims to reveal the rich potential of corporate speeches as examples of crisis management strategies.

In total, 67 speeches of Philip Morris's CEO are analyzed using centering resonance analysis. The data are also cluster‐ and factor‐analyzed. Combining quantitative and qualitative examination of the dataset provides a broader understanding of the organization's rhetoric strategies.

Philip Morris's CEO crafted specific frames and image repair strategies to fit different stages of the crisis. The frames and restorations strategies used are, respectively: profitable multinational bolstering, minimization, and attack the accuser (1994‐1996); litigation target, transcendence (1997‐1998); and corporate good citizen, bolstering and transcendence (1999‐2001).

The paper highlights the significance of corporate speeches as a fully controlled form of corporate discourse that reveals strategic frames and communication tactics. Future research should concentrate on comparing such messages with other important actors' discourse.

The paper draws attention to the role of lawyers and other actors in defining crisis management strategies as well as emphasizing that corporate values may not be accepted by the entire society, yet may meet the expectations of specific stakeholders.

This paper combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to investigate a rich source of corporate communication: top management speeches. The study underscores how rhetoric strategies can play for time during crisis, but are limited in changing inherently bad products into socially acceptable ones.