Reputational Crises Unspun

This book reviews dominant crisis communication theories, which according to many scholars are either too narrow or broad for practical application to all types of reputational crises. Freeman, as the progenitor of modern stakeholder theory, has spent much time since the original publication trying to remove the primary focus from companies to that of achieving broader positive outcomes for organisations, populations, and the operating environment. This book embraces the ethos of Freeman’s revisions and applies it to crisis communication through placing the reputational crisis at the centre of a stakeholder map, where other literature places the company at the centre of the stakeholder map. This leaves the company experiencing the crisis situated with all other crisis stakeholders to develop solutions to the source of conflict, and as a result, the reputational crisis.

Removing the corporation from the centre allows for other stakeholders such as interest groups,politicians, media, and afflicted stakeholders, to legitimately work towards solving the crisis. This book uses a typology of apologia and builds upon it to create a means that allows corporate managers to genuinely apologise to crisis victims, without necessarily exposing the corporation to financial liability claims. The apologia construct developed herein is equally useful to CEO’s as it is in a domestic situation.

Consistent throughout this book is the philosophy that all reputational crises can be either solved, or significantly reduced in terms of impact. Examples used throughout relate to reader’s personal lives as well as structured powerful organisations.