Crisis Management at British Petroleum - Essay Example

FIRE SERVICE By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Crisis Management Response Strategies used by British Petroleum (BP) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) helped BP to organize strategies for crisis response by ascertaining if the strategy goal was to alter insights of the BP crisis. Notably, immediately the crisis hit, BP’s crisis team hard to work hard to avert the crisis from spreading to areas that are not affected as well as limiting the duration (An et al., 2011, p.73). During BP crisis, communication offered inimitable setbacks, especially when responding to the crisis. In this regard, the crisis team had to gather and process data internally so as to decide in the right source of action. On the other hand, stakeholders had to be notified concerning the crisis and the steps followed to handle it, which included offering information pertaining to BP’s advance toward recuperation (Coombs, 2000, p.37). This was done through effective tactics and strategy to steer clear of, or in any case reduce, the off-putting effect of breaking or pending crises. According to Coombs (2000), crisis response concentrates on the necessities not just of employees, but as well of external stakeholders: given that every worker is a crisis manager and a PR representative for the company. Some of the response strategies utilised during the BP crisis included: preparation of fundamental message, preparing draft and final editions of external and internal communications with every customer’s vital viewers, which include the media (normally "surreptitiously" but on infrequently served as speaker for BP customers). Furthermore, BP developed Internet-based crisis-response processes, which included crisis management through social media. Another strategy used was onsite or offsite oversights of client crisis response activities to the extent clients do not have specific capabilities in this area. Comprehensive programs were designed to: reduced the level of destruction; enhance prompt response from crisis team when they were responding to the situation; reduce the prevalence of the crisis/disaster (An et al., 2011, p.77). Furthermore, BP established a valuable and humanitarian training program for handling intriguing activities, and accomplished the desire for an education program that concentrated on practical and least-preventive mechanism that heightened knowledge of the negative impact of the crisis. Dominant, or Most Frequently Used, Crisis Communication Strategy from the SCCT Basically, BP’s SCCT consisted of three fundamental elements: the crisis response strategies, the crisis situation, as well as a system for coordinating both the crisis response strategies and crisis situation. According to Coombs (2007), the first SCCT’s core element considers the crisis cluster, whereby within the victim cluster such as environmental disaster, BP company was the crisis victim also; while based on the accidental cluster such as mega damage, BP company appeared to lack crisis goals in its activities; with regards to preventable cluster it was perceived that BP deliberately placed people in danger by taking inapt actions and violating numerous law/regulations. The subsequent SCCT’s core element, according to Coombs (2006) evaluates crisis response strategies (Coombs, 2007, p.165). In Bp case, strategies for crisis response were utilized to mend its depleting status, to decrease unconstructive influence and to avert off-putting behavioral goals. According to Thiessen and Ingenhoff (2011), response strategies that are more accommodative and which exhibits a superior concern for victims bring about the acuity of the concerned company taking bigger liability for the disaster. BP used the deny response preferences, which entailed strategies such as attacking the petitioner, whereby the confronted US government who claimed BP was responsible for the crisis), instead BP used scapegoat, whereby the company started blaming other companies for the crisis. In addition, BP employed diminish response alternatives which included strategies such as excusing themselves by denying their objective was to harm, rather they claimed they were incapable to manage crisis. Based on deal response options, BP strategies consisted of: innuendo, whereby BP managers applauded their stakeholders for the excellent job they had performed during the crisis (Coombs, 2007, p.171). Furthermore, BP crisis team managers expressed concern for the victims, offered monetary assistance to the victims, and offered apology by taking full liability for the crisis. BP most frequently used directed speaker During the BP crisis, the federal government delegates were most frequently used as direct speakers through BP’s social medial accounts and other external media outlets. Other speakers used but not frequently included representatives directly associated with BP Company in charge with the company’s communication, the company’s president, state officials, volunteers, activists, as well as other unidentifiable speakers (Walton et al., 2011, p.16). How did message strategies vary among speakers? A comprehensive examination of discrepancy was utilised to analyse mean differences among speakers based on how they used clusters for message strategy; implication of each message strategy was set at a level of 0.05. Afterwards, Walton et al. (2011) analysed every cluster, instead of entity message strategies single-handedly, given that the strategies’ aggregation in one message permits for enhanced disparity of speakers with inferior numbers. Yet, it was apparent that a number of the differences was characterised by the lower numbers. Nevertheless, it was imperative to examine since during the crisis BP desired to communicate their message strategy with various speakers depending on message value (Walton et al., 2011, p.17). Based on the deny cluster, the Analysis of variance (ANOVA) exhibited considerable disparities among groups of speakers. The results showed uppermost average mean scores among the BP’s volunteers and Company’s president, while the subsequent analysis of the ANOVA results disclosed the mean score of the president to be considerably elevated as compared to other groups of speaker, but with the exemption of the volunteers and activists. According to Walton et al. (2011), both the volunteers and activists had a considerably high mean as compared to other group of speaker except from that of the state officials and the president. In the third position was the state officials who undeniably had uppermost deny cluster strategies, closely followed by media, and then federal. Based on the diminish cluster, results from ANOVA disclosed considerable inconsistencies among groups of speakers. For instance the speakers who were directly associated with BP or in control of the BP communication recorded the lowest mean score. A further analysis of ANOVA results disclosed that these scores were considerably lower as compared to speakers from media, and federal government (Walton et al., 2011, p.17). What’s more, there were no major considerable inconsistencies that were discerned among other groups (the president, state officials, and activists) founded on the statistical examinations. Importantly, despite the fact that the mean scores for a number of the outlined groups of speakers were extremely towering when compared to other groups of speakers, wherein the little number of occurrences required uppermost mean scores to be regarded valuable. How message strategies vary overtime Based on the examinations intended to recognize variance over time, Walton et al. (2011) divided a crisis timeline into ten periods, the first period to the ninth all lasted fifteen days, and the last= period lasted for one week. Walton et al. (2011) selected the ten-day period due to expediency surrounded by the crisis, given that acknowledgment of the professed crisis level by BP was unfeasible. In this regard, the P1 to P9 window offered a means to examine variances in message strategy and changes every 14 days. During the first fifteen of the disaster, Walton et al. (2011) note that BP posted more than 180 tweets, in the subsequent fifteen days the tweets posted equaled 464, in the third fifteen days 125 tweets were posted,. In the P4 up to P10, 54, 76, 95, 43, 45, 45, and 10 tweets were posted in that order. According to Walton et al. (2011), from P2, which had the uppermost 15-day period to the P9, there number of tweet posted online reduced drastically. For instance, the average number of tweets posted daily mounted from 12/day in first period to more than 30/ day in the second period: this indicates that when the crisis started the need for response from the company was extremely high, but as the crisis became stable and the prospect for a rapid resolution disappeared, the tweets posted daily declined progressively, and ultimately at (P9) the average number of tweets reduced to 3/day. In general following the first blast of tweets in the period between P1 and P3, the information revealed a stable and steep trend of decline (Walton et al., 2011, p.19) How did the organisation follow the SCCT model in response strategy selection? According to Walton et al. (2011), the resolution of cluster application relies on magnitude of the crisis in sight; thus the SCCT paradigm suggests varying strategies for distinct types of crises as well as the liability ascription. Based on the BP oil spill, it was uncertain (particularly in the early hours of the disaster) whether the accident occurred due to mechanical failure (an unintentional crisis with stumpy BP ascription of liability) or human carelessness (an avoidable crisis with sky-scraping ascription of liability). According to Walton et al. (2011), a preventable cluster consists of crises types that recommend tough ascriptions of crisis liability to the organisation as well as severe threat on the company’s reputation. Coombs’ SCCT paradigm posits that crises within the preventable cluster must employ deal and diminish clusters-based response strategies. This is because both the diminish cluster as well as the deal cluster represented more than 92 percent of the entire communication strategies utilised. Apparently, whether it was deliberate or not, the way BP responded to the oil spill crisis was as if it was preventable (Walton et al., 2011, p.22). Critical evaluation of the communication response in connection with its success in protecting the reputation of the organisation and what I could have done differently to improve the outcome Coombs (2000) posit that the actions used during the phases of crisis response are knowledgeable by the crisis-connected data as well as information collected during the phase of crisis recognition. Based on BP crisis the instituted crisis team worked hard to control the damage so as to go back to business immediately. Personally, I know communication is vital in reducing the period of the disaster given that it is the core of the main response, updating stakeholders, management of the company’s reputation, and offering recorded data. Basically, the main response permitted the BP crisis team to reinstate a feeling of organizational power based on the crisis as well as to communicate concern for victims. It has come to my attention that managing the crisis early averts gossips and assumption from unnecessarily increasing the disaster damage. Furthermore, the crisis response has to be rapid and reliable and still remain open to communicate the organization’s stakeholders. In this regard, Coombs (2007) posits that crisis communication is best for solving any looming reputational damage connected with the disaster. As outlined in the SCCT model, crisis response strategies influence the perception of stakeholder’s pertaining to the disaster as well as the company involved. Additionally, the disaster itself can restrict the category of crisis response strategies to be applied successfully. In this regard, the crisis team managers must choose the best crisis response strategies, which concur with the company’s crisis situation. According to Coombs (2007), SCCT model offers roadmaps, not unconditional regulations, to assist disaster managers choose the most efficacious crisis responses for defending the organization’s reputational resources when in any crisis situation. Furthermore, the Business Continuity Plan permits a company to remain operation while in a crisis and to resume normal business processes hastily. Crisis team leader should always be in touch with pertinent stakeholders, and explain to them how the Business Continuity Plan influences their communication with the company. Crisis managers other than the initial response possess an array of recorded information that they should convey to stakeholders, which includes delivering the beforehand pledged update and information concerning the advancement of the crisis management endeavors (Coombs & Holladay, 2002, p.169). Undoubtedly, recurrent, collaborative communication among the stakeholder and the business organization during a crisis offers a platform for approving organizational-stakeholder correlation. Finally, recollection of communication significance with stakeholders during crisis could have aided the BP’s crisis team in their attempt to control and to recuperate from the disaster. References Read More