Strategic Risk Decision Making - Essay Example

STRATEGIC RISK DECISION MAKING: BBC CRISIS MANAGEMENT By Student’s Name Code + Course Name Professor’s Name University Cite, State Date (1894 words) Introduction Crisis communication strategies and management is an important facet in matters related to public relations since it assists in ensuring achievement of organisational goals and objectives. Nowadays, the level of media coverage for organisations under crisis conditions is indeed abundant (Tucker& Melewar, 2005). It is estimated that in the next five or so years, at least 83% of all organisations will experience a crisis that will act to negatively impact on their level of profits of a company by a figure between 20 to 30 percent; a study recently conducted by Oxford-Metrica, which operates as an independent adviser on risk, value and governance matters (Coombs, 2004). It is important to note that organisations could face a significant number of crisis conditions at any given moment of their operations. Modern crises are mostly related to such aspects as corporate misdeeds, product tampering as well as natural and environment failures. It is for this reason that organisations should devise and implement effective crisis management strategies as a way of ensuring that operations continue to run smoothly as desired (Coombs, 2004). The focus of this paper thus rests with examining the crisis situation at BBC and the manner of responses adopted for ensuring that the organisation could maintain operations and, also notes how SCCT could be adopted in this specific crisis. BBC Crisis BBC, a public-funded organisation, faced an intensive level of crisis during 2007, which was characterised by a significant number of editorial misjudgements on both live and pre-recorded programmes that came out as intentionally misleading the audience (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). These events unfolded through a significant series of phone-in competitions or rather facets that allowed a perspective of, but notably did in real sense allow audience participation within these programmes. Perfect examples of these misconceptions could be seen on children-related viewership like: “Blue Peter” and “Twice” as well as charity-based donors as “Children In Need” (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). The deception resulted to a substantial level of damage to the corporation’s public image for dishonesty and integrity as well as broadcasting in-excellence. By the end of July of 2007, a survey research indicated that at least 59% of all the public and especially loyal viewers felt that their trust towards the Broadcaster had been ruined, which was an enormous failure on the part of the firm’s most celebrated public reputation (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Although the already tainted image and trust was later successfully resolved, both the political and operational consequences of the event resulted to a challenge for the Corporation as well as its immediate personnel. Most of the personnel decided to turn on their culpable counterparts, senior managers for the sake of devising an effective response mechanism, depicting all of this as a flattering submission to the industry most viable competitors and thus, incapacitation of the existing working practice (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). It is important to note that the tension created, which serves well to depict a necessary response to a given failure that has been formulated against the impeding risk of an over-reaction, has an imminent implication for organisations-level trust restoration. Timeline of Events In the course of March 2007, while still the Corporation was fully engaged in the investigations related to newspaper allegations of faked broadcast of Saturday Kitchen, a loyal audience reported a much similar deception that involved its popular children programme Blue Peter (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Prior to all this, in one of its live popular TV show aired in November 27, proved that none of the potential audience could get through to the studio to participate in a certain phone-in charity competition. Subsequently, in another children-based TV show: “Blind Panic”, one of the Corporation’s junior staff, without the knowledge of the programme editor in place, requested a certain child that had visited the studio within the time to pretend he was a winner (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). In addition to the programme makers making efforts to cover up for what had happened, a researcher that was deemed responsible for the set of the programme was congratulated by the editor onset (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). The incident did not manage to attract attention from the higher management level and those within the editorial chain of command but it was later uncovered after mother to the boy raised an alarm; a dramatic event that compelled a response from the Corporation’s Director-General, Mark Thompson. Situation Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) & Immediate Response Strategies Employed SCCT is made up of three fundamental aspects that include; crisis situation, response strategies and a system that can fairly link crisis situations with their respective response strategies (Coombs, 2004). It is noted that the effectiveness and efficiency of communication strategies is mostly related to the attributes of a crisis situation. The intensive process of comprehending a crisis situation allows crisis management personnel to select the most necessary response strategy (Coombs, 2004). BBC has effectively adopted a SCCT response strategy in order to conduct immediate reparation of images as a way of reducing negative perception and, also prevent possible negative behavioural intentions. The Broadcaster has ensured to employ an accommodative response strategy that portrays a substantial concern for the victims involved, which in essence results to the Corporation being perceived as assuming responsibility for what had happened (Massey, 2001). In fact, despite the perception that trust repair indicates about making apologies before the conformation of the crisis facts as being problematic in nature, the “Blue Peter’s” programme presenters choose to make an on-air apology within a timeframe of one week of this incident thereby transforming it into a public alert while still no solution was given for it. Significantly, the Director-General, Thompson together with other most-senior mangers’ of the Corporation went ahead to offer apologies on behalf of BBC (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Employing the SCCT’s accommodative response strategy, these personnel offered an unequivocal public apology that took cognizant of the audience’s trust levels while still emphasising the incident had solely resulted from an error of judgment as opposed to deliberate deceit. In essence, Thompson formulated and publicly announced a senior-level independent review of the matter. The response strategy is deemed to be incisive for the phase of a failure given that it set out an acknowledgement of the incident at hand as well as provides an unambiguous portrayal of imminent regret, which is also linked to a demonstrable desire to comprehend that which had occurred in order to formulate a remedial decision (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). All of the aforementioned factors depict indicators related to aspect of capacity, compassion as well as integrity for that matter. It is also important to note that the Corporation also adopted a deal response option strategy so that the crisis managers choose to show concern for the viewers; compassion, regret; so that BBC indicate that it feels bad for what had happened, and also an apology so that full responsibility is assumed (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Particularly, BBC adopted a pre-emptive apology since they assumed fill responsibility most notably because it felt like the right thing to execute and also perhaps because litigious consequences were much more unlikely in this incident. BBC, through an all-personnel email platform from the Director-General, Thompson on July 13, 2007, condemned the incidents prior to restating a much recent demand for any possible incident despite of their significance level and backdated to 2005, to be declared “a matter of top priority” (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). In a week later, the Corporations’ Trust indicated that was fully committed to conducting a diagnosis that further revealed more than six other notable incidents that resulted to viewers’ deception. Reforming Interventions in Relation to SCCT’s Accommodative Response Strategy As a result of these incidents, BBC set out an extensive platform of reformation interventions that were strategically put in place to prevent possible future recurrence. They include the following; First, a provision of a communication criterion to all staff members through such items as bulletins and meetings emphasising the need for BBC values and a formal policy of zero tolerance for deception (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Secondly, there would be an imminent suspension of all phone-ins as well as interactive competitions. Thirdly, obligatory training on matters related to editorial ethics for all of entire staff that were involved in the incident. In addition to this, the Corporation also ensured to conduct a review of all public-based material resources to be an imminent subject to formal editorial compliances (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Of particular interest, the aforementioned response measures and interventions are deemed to be vehemently strong on aspects related to distrust regulation as well as trustworthiness elements as well. In July 18, 2007, the Director-General, Thompson inadvertently appeared on internal televised broadcast meant to reach out to all BBC staff, through interviews on most of national media platforms as well as engaged in an internal email to all personnel. The communications emphasised on the need for reassuring the viewers on maintaining their trust to the Corporation while it made sure to strengthen this necessary element through commitment to the new policies in place (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Prior to the incident, BBC enjoyed a greater level of positive reputation within the media industry both within the UK and the world over as well as significant consumer base. The reputation was tainted but after the immediate accommodative response strategy, the trustworthiness index amongst the viewers stabilised. In fact, the speaker; BBC senior manager, Mark Thompson informed the staff that there was a need for protecting the Corporation’s reputation for benevolence reasons and integrity since it was a far better imperative as opposed to operational capacity (Dietz, & Gillespie, 2012). Following this line of reasoning, it can be noted that BBC still remains to be operate under elements of accuracy and honesty. Culpable staffs within the organisations were all offered an amnesty, which served to encourage others to own up on their past vices. From this incident, the crisis situation and response strategy has been matched effectively. It can be noted that strategies for reparation of trust both internally and externally are fairly interconnected. A perfect example of this interconnectedness can be seen when BBC and most of its closest rivals working together to launch a significant number of effective standards and policies aimed at operationalising audience interactivities while most leaders and other stakeholders continue to ascertain that they have learned on possible outcomes for such incidents in the future. Thus, the internal as well as external review of progress coupled with stakeholder trust clearly postulates a commitment to recovering and augmentation of honesty and trustworthiness. Possible Recommendations The accommodative response strategy made by the Director-General, Mark Thompson was indeed effective and well-executed. The response was indeed effective in restoring the Corporations’ consumer base as well as trustworthiness and thus, presumed to be the best preferential response. However, as a crisis manager of this incident, I would have opted to establish additional frameworks and options for the response at hand. First, it would be proper to engage the social media on the incident at hand. Through such social platforms as Twitter and Facebook, BBC senior managers would have engaged different stakeholders on a dialogue and probably publish their pre-vetted information to inform them on impeding issues at hand (Massey, 2001). Additionally, I would also engage the professional advice from industry expert to try and neutralise the matter. References List Coombs, W. T. 2004. “Impact of past crisis on current crisis communications: Insights from situational crisis communication theory”. Journal of Business Communication, 41: 265-289 Dietz, G & Gillespie, N. 2012. The recovery of trust: Case studies of organisational failures and trust repair, Occasional Paper 5, p.4-36 Massey, J Eric. 2001. “Managing Organizational Legitimacy: Communications Strategies for Organizations in Crisis”. Journal of Business Communication, 38: 153-183 Tucker, L & Melewar, TC 2005. “Corporate Reputation and Crisis Management: The Threat and Manageability of Anti-corporatism”. Corporate Reputations Review, 7(4): 377-388. Read More