Introduction
According to Dominic, Brahim & Ethne, (2008), Confidence image and crisis management are the concepts that are very fundamental to an organization and its business world environment. Any of the reputable organizations had at one time or the other to deal with situations that are directed towards rebuilding of their name and status of the image after it was destroyed.
The image of a company could be perceived wrongly by its customers due to the varied perceptions that have suddenly been brought into light concerning the ills that the particular party has been doing behind bars. Engaging in an activity that does create a deceit for the sake of trying to gain more in terms of profits by an organization paints a picture of having greed for financial stability yet the implications that the products would cause the consumers are neglected, such actions do bring down the customer confidence on the usage of the particular products produced by the enterprise.
Customer confidence on the companies products would lower the cognitive dissonance that do arise after buying of the good and service offered by the company but it would be discouraging and the trust that was their would be lost if the consumer realize that the benefits that were being sought are not attained by using the products simply because the producer used wrong information just to make sales while in actual sense the benefits that were being implied cannot be attained by use of the good.
Such a scenario would lead to dissatisfaction on the party of the consumers and low sales on the producer side and when faced by such a crisis then it has to look for the ways out of it. Crisis management is the undertaking where the organization faced by a situation that will have long term effects in its operation does work towards getting out of the problem. The events here could be unpredictable yet they will be causing threats to the particular enterprise, the stake holder’s are the general public that surrounds the company. Joan, 1999 argues that, Crisis is a process that actually does the redefining of quality and standards aimed at the changing of the aged methodologies that are no longer useful but they have become obsolete.
Such systems were brought into place and directed towards growth of sales but in the midst of the whole saga it’s realized they are deceptive. The abstract is actually talking of how to regain the customer confidence after its battered, rebuilding of the image after it’s destroyed and the systems of coming into reality with the scandal and devising the means of getting out of it. In the abstract a lot of situations are talked of and their implication on the overall business factor effects to a company. As an example the effects that followed Toshiba Company after making a sale of its machine to the Far East were very demeaning to the sustainability of the company because the sale of their products was banned in both the United States and in Japan.
Beyond Toshiba, the abstract also does describe the situation that was faced by both the Chrysler Company and Volvo Corporation in the line of production. Chrysler Company limited was accused of selling old vehicles in the name and price of new yet they were actually used before being brought to the mall. They were also blamed for the removal of certain gadgets (Odometers) that was vital for the functioning of the cars.
A case study used to bring down the company is where a manage drove one of the cars and on his way he had an accident. This vehicle was the repaired and brought back for sale as anew product yet it had been used and damaged. Such an issue was illegal in the federal law and the corporation had to incur the expenses that were associated with it. Volvo Corporation on the other hand was accused of wrongly giving perceptions of the overall qualities of their vehicles yet in reality they did produce such a product (Rossi & Blum, 1969).
In their advertisement, they showed a vehicle that sustained being ran over by a truck while other vehicles were smashed. It was argued that this whole thing was a dramatization of the Vermont accident but Volvo tried to create a deceit out of it and encourage customers to buy into their product. These and other scandals are discussed in details in the abstract and the ways out proposed according to law.
Main Body
Under the subsection the case studies are brought into full concerning what actually happened and their implications and solutions that followed. The Toshiba case, Chrysler and Volvo are discussed individually as per the abstract and al the related undertaking brought into light. According to the Chrysler managing chairman, Lee Taccossa their taking the vehicles for a road test is without droughts right but the removal of the Odometers was idea that is well defined as being lousy.
Within the course of the road test as Taccossa calls it, their was a heavy rain storm and this made the car to hit a large water puddle and it had a slid that brought it out of the road by one of its side and later the vehicle was repaired and brought to the market as new. Afterwards the corporation did face a lot of negative publicity and it had to make advertisement efforts that would rebuild the image that was now damaged. To make it through the, corporation did major on defense discourse which implied that the corporation had agreed that it acted in manner that was not in line with the public morals and values.
In the Chrysler corporation defense discourse, it responded to the indictment by working towards invalidating the charges through the disputing of the issues that were said. Chrysler Corporation tried to imply that the whole thing was about testing of the cars and this wasn’t illegal though they had to accept that there was a mistake in one way or the other and they did not act in time to stop the issue (Rosa & Stuart, 2006).
The choice made by the chairman on the terminologies to use is very technical because the current reference of the whole saga as a mistake does give the corporation the benefit of getting a less impacting charge and in their perspectives that are longer placed the image of the corporation would be regained. Toshiba Corporation on the other hand was disclosed of its secret business where it had sold a top secret milling machine to the Soviet Union. The acquiring of such a computerized machine did to a greater degree bring down the technological variance between the United state of America and the soviet union and it was claimed that the action was a creating a very big security threat to the parties and the world at large.
This technological transfer was argued that it enable the production of the submarines that were quieter and which were not detectable by the American sonar and in the long run this was to cost America a significant amount of money. Due to this the members of the senate did not hesitate to vote for between two to five years barn of the Toshiba products sale to the unite states of America. Toshiba as a result faced a lot of profit reduction and they opted to address the issue but then segregated itself from the whole saga and laid the blame on the Toshiba Machine Company which is a subsidiary of the bigger organization.
Toshiba Company accepted its wrong doing by its subsidiary but did not name the actual wrong that was done and this ac would bring down costs that would have been incurred. In the Volvo corporation woes, it was argued that the corporation had engaged itself in the usage of deceptive advertisement for the sake of rising their profits and sales. The deceit is said to have came from the usage of the Vermont truck accident that saw the Volvo station wagon withstand in a series of overruns by the monster truck.
While on the other side the vehicle brand other than Volvo succumbed to the initial overrun. The chairman argued that the impression was that Volvo had presented a car crushing event and this was instead according to the court a clear dramatization of the much related Vermont accident which resulted to a violation of the trading act on deceit. Due to the naming of the event as a car crushing one, the Volvo Corporation was charged for deceit by the attorney who instead referred the synergy as a drama made with the guidelines of the Vermont accident. To ease the charges the Volvo Corporation restated the terminologies to relieve it from being looked at as there was the intention to commit the deceit.
The company had to through the chairman to define the terminologies and the issues that were surrounding it and to ensure that in their apologia it did show that it had no intention of making a lie to encourage the potential customers to prefer their Volvo station wagon at the expense of the other models of vehicles (Albert, 2005).Given the cases above, it s well shown that the crisis communication and management is a situational and circumstantial management which is meant to offset an implication that has to been created through making of a blunder in the line of duty.
Due to such thing the organizations image is tampered with and this does deny future business because the clients are no longer having the willingness that was there before to use the products. Image is a fundamental trait that an organization stands on and without which it meant to go down. Image that has been destroyed can be recovered by use of the image repair discourse and the related theories. The repairing of an image is dependant on the discourses that are discussed in the abstract and their implications defined well.
The image discourse theory is a very useful method of creating a comprehension of the image of a business and its growth after a crisis or initially when a enterprise is getting into business that requires public presentation. The corporate image crisis varies from one unit to another and this make them to use different types of mechanisms to make up of their image.
Corporate crisis is brought into existence by either as an organization being held accountable for an undertaking whereby a company is made to account for its actions in the court of law and defend itself on the matter. Such accusations calls for a lot of publicity and the present future and potential clients may tend to restrain from the operations of the company until the matters are settled (Kristi, 2006).
Secondly the corporate image would also be destroyed by having the unit accounting for the action which it took and in the corporate world it’s illegal and unacceptable. Despite all that has to be defined and defended the most crucial part of dealing with a bad image is the perceptions that clients have concerning the whole thing and this depends on what the salient audience perceives concerning the matter, they can either believe the action in actual sense was offensive or not and this is what shall determine the magnitude of the damage that the corporate image shall suffer. The image restoration is a more preferred theory when compared to the prior theories of apologia and accepting accountability.
Some of the very common image restoration systems include any of the following. It can be a denial method of being involved in the act by actually convincing the general public that the accusations and the allegation are just word of mouth and have no base of support or causing the company the sorrows. As an example, when the coca cola company was accused of having subsidized its price of selling the soft drinks to MacDonald’s for the sake of making them stick to their products as alleged by one of its competitors, they actually defended themselves by denying any of the said doings. The company did make a simple denial of having not subsidized prices to the MacDonald’s corporation and it was free from the charges and fines that were associated with the whole issue.
Allegations had to be dropped on the basis that they had no substantial details that were necessary for the sake of bringing the Coca cola Company into accountability of their actions. Denial method of restoring the image is enact able through a simple method of denying the involvement with the action the just like the Coca-Cola Company denied the allegations that were put up by the Pepsi Corporation.
Denial can also be through the blame shifting, this is whereby an organization alleges that the actions that led to the destroying of the corporate image was as a responsibility of another corporation but not the one that is carrying the weight of the action on their shoulders wrongly. This is in a case such as the Valdez oil spill where the blame was laid on the coastal security personnel and the officials of state for the delay that led to the damages incurred as a result of oil spill. Under this case the Nixon Company could not have had a bad image if they had the authority to commence the immediate clean up of the coast or the application of chemicals that could have caused the effects of the spill to lessen without the delay.
The restoration of image can also be attained by tying to run away from the responsibilities that are surrounding the saga. This is a strategy that has four perspectives on the way it can be used to make a defense to company on the issues that could have led to the degrading of a company image. First, an organization may claim that the actions that are under a fuss were due to resettling of another pressing issue. Rosa, Gary& Stuart, (2006) argues that this is an issue where a corporation would claim that it move its business from a certain state onto another because the former had brought in mechanisms that had great impacts on their profit levels.
Secondly defeasibility can also be used as a way of evading responsibility and this refers to a situation whereby an establishment does allege of the information lack concerning some of the very crucial elements that are fundamental to a particular saga. The other option is whereby a company does say that the action was as a result of accident and there was no intention of being involved. This is a situation that does task the company and it only asks it to convince the public that the action actually did happen out of liking and any success on doing this does allow a reduction in the overall damages that could have occurred to the organizations image (Kristi,2006).
Lastly the evasion of a responsibility could be through claiming that the offensive behavior came up out of good intentions that the organization had in mind. Corporate image can also be built by having to work towards creating a reduced view of the magnitude of the offence. This is where an organization does revise it earlier actions that created a lot of satisfaction to the part of the public due to the involvement of the corporation fully.
An offense can also be lowered off the magnitude by having to bring down the feeling of negativity derived fro the whole saga. Such a case happened when the Exxon management team worked extra mile to downplay on the damage magnitude after the oil spillage. According to John& Carolyn, (1998), Other methods that are helpful to reduction of the offensiveness are differentiation which is the act of making uniqueness out of the earlier but same and stronger cases, an act that tries to place a situation in a perspective that is more acceptable which is referred to as transcendence and at last the accused party may opt to give a response that is negative for their attackers. Giving compensation is another mechanism of bringing down the offensiveness.
As restoration of the image is the goal here, corrective action can also be used to regain the same and this refers to an act whereby the involved party doe promise to make up for the wrongs done. Out of all the image restoration theories the mortification one is the most significant. This is a situation where the corporation seeks for forgiveness after making confession of the mistakes done. This involves sending out of the apologies to all those who are affected indirectly or directly by the situation at hand. This is a very risky undertaking on the other hand simply because it may lead to seeking of compensation by the affected members through a lawsuit (Timothy, 1980).
According to the particular type of the crisis it important for a company to make an effort of trying identifying its salient audience or audiences and devising the means that are vital to meet their expectations and forgetting the saga plus making them have a reload of the status of the corporate image. Timothy, (1980) also says that there are a varied number of audiences that are supposed to be catered for and not should be ignored or give little attention than the other. All audiences have great impacts to the recovering of the tarnished images and the part that is played by the one cannot be mandated on the other reason being their roles in the whole thing are varied, For instance, a company that is accused of dumping waste has at least five of capable types of audience.
To start it all, the company shall be wanting to deal with its accuser who is the environmental organizations that is the whistle blower to the calling of the damages that are realized due to the act of dumping the waste at the disputed location. This is an audience that requires a lot of attention and time to be able to fight them back with their claims and accusations. The next possible audiences in such a case are the company stakeholders who will be ready to task the company management of the act.
If the stakeholders are a government agency they shall be very fast to outlay charges to the corporation or even sanction the company. Such a stakeholder needs a lot of accountability on the part of the company and any of the actions that are going to be costly for the corporation they do demand for the reasons that may have led to the undertaking. The third possible group of the audience is the consumers. They at most times opt to boycott the company due external attacks it has been experiencing and the disturbances they do face.
A group of the local players would be able on their part decide to outlay the restrictions that shall be restricting the company from its operations. The aims and interests of these organizations do vary among themselves and they would be addressed according to their calling of accountability. In such a case the stakeholders would be concerned with the profits, environmental group with sustainability and conservation of the environment, the regulators would be bothering the laws of the land the local community shall be defending their communal welfare.
Due to the greater number of the audience information that is given could be useful to one group while on the other it has no value whatsoever. A corporation that is faced with the corporate image tarnishing would opt to favor one or more of the audiences and in such circumstances they shall have to priotize on their audience and they should appease the crucial group first and then later find time to handle the others but they should not at one time or the other ignore a group because it passive in its actions. Rossi& Blum (1969) argues that the initial stage in the process of repairing a tarnished image is responding to the charges that have been brought up.
There is no any organization that can resettle its charges without first having to create a favorable response to its audience as the first step. Its better to first try to remodel the attack, second would be trying to refocus its resources on other issues instead of having to try make a change in the nature of the alleges. On the third option a company would be forced to deal with a situation due to the magnitude of the attack and its importance to the audience of the corporation. The rhetorical situation as referred to in the abstract does have to perform some task for it to create change in the immediate environment.
Rhetoric is the act of creating a varied method of making changes of reality not by the use of energy but through the use of tactics to create discourses that are directed to creation of changes through mediation of the though and actions. The rhetor has to create change in the certainty through the introduction of a discourse of such a character that the audience listening shall be in thought and action so engaged that is becomes the reason uniting the changes. In such a perspective the rhetor has to create a persuasion to the audience which is the main reason that is making corporations to involve it as they embattle with their tarnished image.
Rhetoric does not just come in to effect changes altogether but their understanding is very vital to the effect that it brings into the real world. According to Maria, (2007), discourses do come into being because they are intentioned to create the room for utterances regarding some form of a condition or happening. According to Malinowski in his description of the fishermen in Trobriand Island, he says that the speech that keeps the people talking is as a result of the situation they are in. Each of the saying is bound up with a scene and this is influenced by the aim of the pursuit. A rhetorical situation is regarded as a natural contest of persona, events and relations and literally a push or drive, an exigency which strongly call for utterances from the people affected by the actions of another party and such a saying should be aimed at making completion of the activities that are fueled by context and situations that are calling for an action and as a result of creating a situational participation it does obtain its rhetorical trait ( Maria, 2007).
Conclusion
The image restoration strategies are the applicable through the triple stages of the processes as a whole undertaking. These include the initial steps taken before the crisis, realization of the crisis making and the availing proposals of the ways to learn on how to live with the crisis (Timothy, 1980). Crisis contingency plans are set before crisis and they intend to allocate the human resources that are responsible for dealing with the crisis and the resources they require to reduce the damage that a corporate image may suffer from. Human resources under this at most do have the most anticipatory crisis and do make plans on how to deal with the situation when it arises and this would be meant to ensure that the magnitude of the damage is minimized (Alex, 2007).
After the occurrence of a crisis it’s vital to clearly make an understanding of the actual nature of crisis and the related types of the listeners or audience. Initially a corporation should understand what they are being accused of and the nature of the seriousness of the much talked of act. After getting to the root of the saga the response that is made to address the issue should be made and enacted without further delays. Just before the responses are released its vita to try and determine the kind of public that one is addressing and tailor the answer to them to win their confidence (Richard,2007). From the article the theory of image repair discourse was discussed in detail and the ways out for any corporation that was facing problems with it image are well defined.
Crisis in communication solution proposals are also available and the details needed by the critics and people who practice corporate guidance on confidence, image and crisis management. Rhetorical time-honored theories are the argued not to have done more on the primitive sayings of throw the nets and others by Malinowski but they do concentrate with the speech units in a bigger perspective through the guidance of artistic principles and methodologies. The fact that rhetoric is situational means that a discourse that has the trait of rhetoric in nature do come into existence because it is a response to the circumstance just as the answer is directed to the question and any of speeches is given rhetorical significance by the matter on hand. Beyond this a rhetorical situation does come onto being as a must be for the discourse and reasonably because it rhetorical situations do come up and expense on time without getting a rhetorical utterance plus a situation definable as rhetorical in so far it calls for a discourse that is participatory with a situation and thus leading to change in the reality. Discourses are termed rhetorical so far they do play as a fitting feedback to a situation which is in need of it and welcomes it (Richard, 2007).
A situation does take account of the rhetorical response that neither the person nor the persuasion intended but the circumstance which is the source and the base of the activity has the mandate of ruling over others and delivering the responses that are favorable to the parties. The use of rhetorical situations when dealing with a tarnished organizational image is very crucial to the attainment if the intentions of the Corporation. Situations do need the responses that are pleasing to the audiences which are in the context that has the capability of restraining the organization from the blackmail and loss of business. Circumstances would be solved through the devising of responses that are aimed at resettling the matters that are facing the corporate The abstracts do give situations that are relative to the sustainability of business in the long term perspectives and that calls for the measure that do rebuild a corporate image after a tarnish and instills the confidence to the clients that is relative to make them believe in the actions of the corporation.
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