Crisis Communication as an Important Aspect of Any Business Communication - Essay Example

Critical Analysis for Issue Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction Crisis communication is an important aspect of any business communication. Many a times the businesses have to face crisis situation. How the people of the company react to the situation and the communication that takes place from the company’s end especially the senior management of the company during the period of crisis has an effect on the stakeholders of the company and whether the crisis will spread or not. The matter of communication in crisis times is more essential and important in the present day perspective. This is due to the fact that the customers and stakeholders of the company now days are connected to each other by means of social media. So, a single wrong communication can have a severe damaging and far repelling impact on the future of the company. In the following pages the communication of the company that took place in the wake of the crisis of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 is analyzed. The flight crashed while attempting to land at San Francisco International Airport. The case addresses in particular the crisis communication effort that was undertaken by the company in communication with the key stakeholders of the company after the crash. The following essay accesses the social and traditional media communication in respect of the activities of Asiana in respect of the United States. The following essay analyzes the crisis communication that was undertaken by the company in respect of different theories in the field of crisis communication. The theories that are analyzed in the following pages are framing theory, Image repair strategy, Situation crisis communication theory, best practice theory and the impact of internet and social media. Discussion Asiana airlines are one of the two major airlines of South Korea. The head quarter of the company is located in the Asiana building in Seoul. The airline is a member of the star alliance. On Jul6, 2013 flight 214 of the airlines was travelling from South Korea to San Francisco international airport carrying aboard 307 people when it crash landed in San Francisco international airport. The main stakeholders of the incident are passengers and families of the victims of the injured, NTSB, SFO, Boeing, employees of the company, crew members, government of the two countries etc. The following pages discusses the crisis communication by the company. In dealing with the crisis and the communication that takes place from the part of the company in respect of the crisis that takes place on the part of the company several theories in respect of the crisis communication is applied in the following pages. One of the theories that relates to communication in the crisis period is the impact of the social media on crisis communication. Until recent period, the companies normally used PR in order to address the audience of the company through mass media such as TV, radio, magazine and newspapers. In this ‘one too many model’ the media was the deciding agent who determined whether the communication that they received on part of the company in respect to the response to the crisis was eligible to be published in their newspaper or magazine (Alfonso and Suzanne, 2008). In this era if the response was found to be newsworthy and published in the magazine or newspaper the audiences had no way to respond (Veil, Buehner and Palenchar, 2011). This has however changed with the introduction of the internet. Now a days the advent of peer media platform in the form of blog, social networking sites, and the virtual worlds means that group discussion has been replacing the one to many communication style. Now a day’s people expect the company to be trust worthy and to give appropriate response to the query that has been asked from them in respect of the crisis. The people want that the response of the people of the company should be humane, authentic and transparent that is delivered in a humane and compassionate way rather than the professional tone of a corporate. It is found that in this new age of the communication and the communication model although the main stream media has a role but it cannot be said that they still dominate the communication platform like they did earlier. In analyzing the crisis communication of Asiana Airlines in respect of the crisis that took place and the crash of the flight 214 at San Francisco it is found that the response by the company on the social media was not at all appropriate. The first mistake on part of the company was its slow response to the crisis and the crash. The crash had occurred around 11.27 Am and the first feed about the crash that was updated by the company was at 4.39 P.M. The press release that was released by the company via Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ was about 7 hours after the crisis had occurred (Ng and Effron, 2015). In that press release the airlines issued the statement that it was working to find the cause of the accident and the company could not provide any additional information at that point of time. The communication strategy that was followed by the company in the following days was also not at all satisfactory (Arthur. W. Page Society, 2015). The company was painfully slow in communication efforts that the company handled after the crash had occurred. Toll free emergency helpline that was set by the company for the passenger and their relatives so that they could have updates of the situation was done so after hours. The hotline no. was put on the website of the company 9 hours after the plane had crash landed. According to the report by Wall Street Journal it took the company three days to send the chief executive of the company and team of staffers to the crash site at San Francisco International Airport. In San Francisco the executive of the company met with the federal officials, apologized and called for a thorough investigation of the crash. The company is not appropriate in communication with even the employees of the company. The company does not mention the crew members that were affected by the tragedy or how will they be compensated. The social media communication on part of the company can be said to be failure on the part of the company due to several facts. Although the company responded within 24 hours of the crisis, the stakeholders of the company considered this as an inacceptable slow response time (Arthur. W. Page Society, 2015). This is due to the fact that before the company could report anything about the crash to the concerned stakeholders, others like NTSB, SFO, Boeing and some journalism houses and even in some cases people in the social media had given quite a few no. of updates about the crash. In the days following the crash while the no. of followers of the company on twitter and face book increased many a time and the concerned people asked a no. of questions related to the crash the company did not put up a human face and did not answer the queries of the people. The communication approach that was followed by the company was clearly ‘one too many’ rather than ‘many to many’ as is the model that is practiced now days. The fact that the company was slow in sending their CEO to the crash site was also criticized by the stakeholders of the company. It was also found that post crisis the company did not respond to the queries of the journalists in relation to the crisis and the CEO too did not answer the questions of the media. While analyzing the crisis communication behavior that was practiced by Asiana post the crash of the flight 214 it is found that unlike as the norm in America where Crisis mangers help the companies develop elaborate plans far ahead of the crisis in order to prepare them well for managing the crisis when it actually came. Unlike the norm that is followed in the United States it was found that Asiana Airlines was inefficient in handling the crisis. It was found that the company lacked the services of a spokesperson that would be efficient in handing the post crisis communication for the company. One of the public relation approaches that aim to connect different theories in relation to public relation under one big umbrella is framing theory. Framing theory actually provides a very useful umbrella that can be used to analyze things that occur in public relations (Hallahan, 1999). In addition to the traditional approach that focuses on the issue of how a message is created, framing theory is rather connected on a conceptual basis to the psychological process that determines the use of information by the people to make judgments and drawing conclusion. In terms of the property of the message the framing restricts the no. of conclusions that people can make out of a message. Frames are used to reflect the judgments that are made by the message creators or framers. Framing is abroad concept and there is no. of citations regarding the matter. Broadly framing can be subdivided into 7 different models. These models are Situations, Choices, Attributes, and Actions, Responsibility, Issues and news. In respect of the crisis communication strategy that was followed by Asiana post the crash of their flight in San Francisco it is found that the communication effort that was adopted by the company was mainly targeted to Korea and Koreans. In the time following the crisis the CEO of the Asiana Airlines issued a number of statements to the stakeholders of the company based in Korea. In fact the crisis management effort that the company took after the crisis was highly appreciated by the stakeholders in Korea. Yet it is the same company that failed miserable in crisis communication in the United States. This is perhaps due to the fact that the way in which Koreans manage crisis is significantly different from the crisis management practice in the United States. For instance it is quite natural that post the crisis the companies in the United States do not hesitate to take help from professionals outside the company to help manage the crisis situation companies in the Korea do not engage in this practice. This is probably the reason that explains the unwillingness on the part of the company to receive help from outside experts to manage crisis when it was offered so. One key issue in case of a crisis is the fact that at the time of the crisis the image of the business is put at stake. Image is an essential component of an organization that the organization builds over decades. In the present era when the notion that image is a single impression that is used by the consumers or individuals, it is still believed that image is an essential component in the act of public relations. Firms make take approaches that are preventive and restorative of the image of the firm (Benoit, 1997). In view of the image issue the problem that is commonly identified is the fact that it does not matter whether the firm is really guilty or not what really matters is how the stakeholders think about the firm. If the stakeholders think that the firm is responsible for the event then the firm should take measure so as to prevent the damage that has occurred to the image due to the issue (Blaney, Benoit and Brazeal, 2002). In preventing an image issue there is several responses that can come on the part of the firm. These are denial, Shifting of the blame, Evasion of the responsibility on the part of the firm by means of defense, provocation, accident or good intention; Reduction of the offensiveness of the event by means of bolstering, transcendence, differentiation and minimization; attacking the accuser, taking corrective action, compensation or by means of mortification (Burns and Bruner, 2000). In case of Asiana Airlines it is found that the company has followed the strategy of denial after the case has happened. The CEO of the company arrived at the site of the crash after several days and the response of the company was related to the denial of responsibility on the part of the company. The CEO of the company said that the company was taking steps to train the pilots and workforce of the company. However when coming to the query of whether the pilots of the company were responsible for the accident and whether the pilots of the company actually lacked training the CEO said that pilots were adequately trained. It was also found in the post crisis period that the response on the part of the company was diverted to the issue of a news site falsely quoting different names for the pilots of the flight. This response on the part of the company was severely criticized as they had diverted from the burning issue that the company faced at that point of time. The company also offered compensation to the members of the family of the deceased travelers and the injured ones who were travelling in the specific flight. Another important fact in the analysis of the crisis and how it affects an organization is the situational crisis communication theory. As per this theory if the company has a history of past crisis then the threat on the reputation of the company that is put by the present crisis is increased many fold (Coombs, 2004). The past studies in this field suggested that the effect of the past crisis history is more pronounced if the present crisis has resulted from an intentional act by the organization. However present researches in this field point to the fact that if the organization has a history of crisis in the related field then the intensity of the reputational threat from the present crisis increases many fold even if the crisis arose due to victimization of the company and the company was actually not responsible for the crisis (Timothy and Holladay, 2002). It was found that the perception of the responsibility of the company was negatively correlated to the perception of the impact on the reputation of the company (Timothy and Holladay, 2006). As the past history of the crisis it is found that the company had experienced two major accidents in the past in its 25 long years of operation. The first major accident was related to 1993 when the flight 733 which was a Boeing 737-500 crashed due to poor weather conditions. The crash happened while the plane was approaching Mokpo Airport in South Korea. The crash killed 68 passengers out of the total 116 passengers who were on board. The crash also killed two of the crew members who were on board the flight. Another accident was faced by the company in July 2011 (Arthur Page Society, 2015). In that year a cargo plane that was operated by the company of the model Boeing 747-400F. The cargo plane crashed into the East China Sea there by killing the only two persons who were on board. It was reported that the plane crashed due to the occurrence on fire on board. In case of Asiana Airlines it was expected that the company would learn how to communicate effectively in the wake of the crisis and would do so effectively in the future incidents. However as was seen the company clearly did not learn its lessons quite right and this resulted in the fact that the company did not know how to communicate effectively in the wake of the recent crisis. Due to the past history of crisis that was associated with crisis that the company had to face in the wake of the earlier crashes the people blamed the company and said that the pilots who were entrusted with the flying of this aircraft did not have adequate experience. Whether this allegation is serious or false does not matter as long as the people believe that the company and its officials are somehow responsible for the events. The response of the company and the CEO was also not appropriate to the situation as although the company said that the pilots had received adequate training he did not answer the queries posted by the reporters which increased the doubt that he had something to hide. Conclusion After analyzing the post crisis communication on part of Asiana Airlines it is found that the communication that was used by the company was not at all appropriate. It was additionally found that all though the communication that was done by the company in Korea was highly appreciated it was not so with the stakeholders of the company in the United States. It is felt that this has happened primarily due to the fact that the corporate culture of the two countries namely Korea and the United States has a lot of difference from each other. However the company and the management on their part have failed to acknowledge this difference and take appropriate steps in this matter to resolve the issue. It is also found that the company follows practices that were followed by the companies in the United States in times that have long passed. For example the company follows one too many communication model while currently the practice is to follow the communication model of many to one. In respect of these facts it is recommended that the company should quickly update its communication strategy in order to engage in effective communication as a multinational organization in the 20th century. References Alfonso, G. H. and Suzanne, S. 2008. Crisis Communications Management on the Web: How Internet‐Based Technologies are Changing the Way Public Relations Professionals Handle Business Crises. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 16(3), pp. 143-153. Arthur. W. Page Society. 2015. The Need for Cultural Intelligence: An Analysis of Asiana Airlines response to the Crash Landing of Flight 214. [Online]. Available at < http://www.awpagesociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AsianaAirlinesCaseStudy.pdf > [Accessed on 29 May 2015]. Benoit, W. L. 1997. Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public relations review, 23(2), pp. 177-186. Blaney, J. R., Benoit, W. L. and Brazeal, L. M. 2002. Blowout!: Firestone’s image restoration campaign. 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Journal of contingencies and crisis management, 19(2), pp. 110-122. Ng, C. and Effron, L.,2015. Asiana airlines san Francisco plane crash interactive timeline. [Online]. Available at < http://abcnews.go.com/US/fullpage/asiana-airlines-san-francisco-plane-crash-interactive-timeline-19615893 > [Accessed on 29 May 2015]. Read More