Identification of Issue
Crisis communication is an attempt to protect an organization’s reputation and maintain the public image. In different times, ventures face various challenges that can be considered as effect of crisis period. Initiative to protect a venture from negative effects of crisis is the development strategy including effective communication. The study has focused to deal with a specific issue in Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Company regarding its crisis communication and development of communication strategies. Based on this issue, the study has proceeded to evaluate the necessity of effective communication priority in favor of ABC Company. Recommendations have made to define the characteristics of strategic communication response on business crisis period. The problem statement of this study is to evaluate communicative approaches in order to protect the reputation of the company.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation has recently faced politics and outrage due to which the public broadcaster is now under investigation. An allegation has risen about the improper government influence and unethical political interference on the work process of this venture (hawaiipublicradio.org, 2018). Additionally, firing of its managing director due to such a reason has clearly questioned about the leadership and communication style in this venture. This can be implicated as a serious issue as the sudden investigation about business ethics and standard has direct impact on the employees. This crisis has not only affected the employees but also the stakeholders are equally worried about this issue. As an after effect customers are in complete doubt about its broadcasting channels.
The impact of crisis is serious in this sense as a lack of crisis communication may impact the overall business of this venture. In order to manage such a situation, it is necessary to control the negative aspects and make employees courageous to overcome the critical phase (Haumann et al. 2015). Employee turnover, low customer’s percentage is some of the negative effects that may provide a serious barrier to business expansion of this company.
Effective communication should be a priority for managers as it can help employees as well as stakeholders to overcome the crisis period. As suggested by Lundgren and McMakin (2018), an open communicative environment can help employees freely express their queries about different issues. Consistency in internal communication is helping to foster the work ethics in the selected venture. As for ABC Company, in the above-mentioned crisis, employees may feel worries about the job security, internal conflict, and political effect. Managers in this situation should highly responsive to clear the doubts and queries in their mind. It can help to solve their questions about this turmoil.
On the other hand, employee engagement should be enhanced if managers are careful enough about effective communication technique. Coombs (2015) said that, if managers provide enough space for employees and provide the opportunity to convey their thoughts it will bring improvement in this business process.
Company growth is another effect of communication skill of managerial persons. In the view point of Heide and Simonsson (2014), it facilitates a two-way communication in internal and external purposes of company. Effective external communication assists to ensure the ability of company for promoting goods, services in target market. Additionally, it can manage the marketing collaterals, press release and advertisements to improve company brand image. As for ABC Company, the venture has to deal with several outer circumstances in order to deal with the issue.
Priority on Effective Communication
An effective internal communication in this situation can empower its employees to make them aware of their responsibilities. Moreover, standard communicative approach is helpful to meet the goal of a company within the time (Hofenk et al. 2017).
Different types of crisis
Improper communication can bring several risks that can provide an adverse impact on a company. Liu and Fraustino (2014) said that, unless reviewing the situation, applying communication theory can make a situation worse than before.
In this model, communication activities should be done in a very effective way that can encourage, influence and convince people. According to Merkl-Davies and Brennan (2017), this model has specifically focused on human behavior and the structure of society on which communication standard depends. As for the selected venture, the same concepts can be applied to survive in the crisis period. Good communication standard can help to access a strong message from the managers which make them stay and supports the ventures are the critical situation.
Apart from the above concept string overview, messaging, feedback and medium are some related factors that can help to make stakeholders ensure its effective working process. In order to develop the communication strategy, managers of ABC firm can focus on mechanistic, systematic, critical, social and psychological well being. Mechanistic way of communication is not much effective as it is only a process of transmission of messages between a sender and receiver. On the other hand, Saebi and Foss (2015) explained that connect people with psychological viewpoint can be much effective to make receivers empathetic about a crisis. It is more than just a mechanical transmission and receiver can understand the emotion, reaction, and feeling of sender.
Though the development framework of communication is better supported with psychological viewpoint yet social circumstances need to be judged for the expected result. As for ABC Company, in the period of crisis, it should be better to conduct a systematic approach to stakeholders. Mazzei and Ravazzani (2015) said that it will help to define the situation in own way and reach a conclusion. Thus, managers can interpret the reason behind the issue and interpret the message in their own way with their subordinates
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above study that effective communication by managers is a necessary criterion to meet the organizational goal and objectives. Based on the recent issue of ABC Company, it is necessary to manage the situation with effective communicative behavior of managers. Based on the necessity of effective communication it can be said that both internal and external business process are equally benefited by this approach. There are different communicative strategies that are immensely helpful in crisis period of a venture. In order to protect the reputation of organisation defined strategies can be applied to overcome the crisis period. Application of open commutative strategy can help to empower the workers; they can gain confidence, belief and security in working in this organization. Managers are the responsible persons who can support and bring the unity among employees in order to protect the reputation of venture in crisis period.
Reference list
Coombs, W.T., 2015. The value of communication during a crisis: Insights from strategic communication research. Business Horizons, 58(2), pp.141-148.
Haumann, T., Güntürkün, P., Schons, L.M. and Wieseke, J., 2015. Engaging customers in coproduction processes: How value-enhancing and intensity-reducing communication strategies mitigate the negative effects of coproduction intensity. Journal of Marketing [Online] 79(6), pp.17-33. Available at: https://www.ama.org/publications/JournalOfMarketing/Pages/engaging-customers-coproduction-value-enhancing.aspx [Accessed on 2nd October 2018]
hawaiipublicradio.org (2018). Hawaiipublicradio. Available at: https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/post/asia-minute-politics-and-outrage-australian-broadcasting-corporation[Accessed on 2nd October 2018]
Heide, M. and Simonsson, C., 2014. Developing internal crisis communication: New roles and practices of communication professionals. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 19(2), pp.128-146.
Hofenk, D., van Birgelen, M., Bloemer, J. and Semeijn, J., 2017. How and When Retailers’ Sustainability Efforts Translate into Positive Consumer Responses: The Interplay Between Personal and Social Factors. Journal of Business Ethics, [Online] pp.1-20. Available at: https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3616-1[Accessed on 2nd October 2018]
Liu, B.F. and Fraustino, J.D., 2014. Beyond image repair: Suggestions for crisis communication theory development. Public Relations Review [Online] 40(3), pp.543-546. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/institution/Loyola_University_Maryland/department/Department_of_Communication/publications?nav=overview&ev=dep_pub [Accessed on 2nd October 2018]
Lundgren, R.E. and McMakin, A.H., 2018. Risk communication: A handbook for communicating environmental, safety, and health risks. Ed 2 US: John Wiley & Sons.
Mazzei, A. and Ravazzani, S., 2015. Internal crisis communication strategies to protect trust relationships: A study of Italian companies. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(3), pp.319-337.
Merkl-Davies, D.M. and Brennan, N.M., 2017. A theoretical framework of external accounting communication: Research perspectives, traditions, and theories. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 30(2), pp.433-469.
Saebi, T. and Foss, N.J., 2015. Business models for open innovation: Matching heterogeneous open innovation strategies with business model dimensions. European Management Journal, 33(3), pp.201-213.
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