Lecture 1
- Public relations - aims to establish and protect the reputation of a company or brand,
and to create mutual understanding between the organization and the public
- Reputation represents the overall emotional reactions of the public
- Corporate communication - the coordination of all communication with the overall
purpose of establishing good reputation with stakeholders who are relevant to the
company
- Public relations capture the attention of the public, and has always existed informally.
Used to be and still is connected to politics
- PR became formal in the industrial revolution when the advertisements first arrived
- Edward Bernays - the founding father of public relations, nephew of Freud. Known for
cigarette campaign and the bacon and eggs campaign
- History of PR:
1. 1980 - public relations start being recognized as a function the whole
organization benefits from but there is no consideration for the stakeholders.
2. 1990 - public relations become a crucial strategic tool for organizations to be
more profitable. Stakeholders are considered as someone who can be easily
controlled and managed
3. 2000 - stakeholders can be activated and become supporters for the
organizations. Organizations need to be more transparent and have genuine
behavior
4. Today - PR is more complex, technical, and precise. It is more divided into
different areas, and is driven by technological changes
,Lecture 2
- Stakeholders - any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement
of the organziatio’s purpose and objectives
- Secondary stakeholders - individuals who more broadly affect, or are affected, by the
organization's actions. For example, social media, the government..
- There are two strategic management:
1. The input-output model - the value of the organization is a pie, and only people
who own a slice matter. The main goal is to maximize profits.
2. The stakeholder model - includes corporate social responsibility, and is engaged
in social activities. Mutual dependence between organization and stakeholders,
mutual importance of shareholders and stakeholders
- The stakeholder salience model - helps organizations prioritize their stakeholders based
on their level of importance. Consists of three levels:
1. power - how powerful the stakeholders are versus the organization
2. Urgency - how urgent is action from the organization
3. Legitimacy - how legitimate are their claims
- Definitive stakeholders - stakeholders that have power, urgency, and legitimacy and
therefore are the most important stakeholders
- Low salience - If stakeholders only have one of the three levels (power, urgency, or
legitimacy) they are considered as less important. Discretionary (legitimacy), demanding
(urgency), dormant (power)
- Moderate - if stakeholders have two of the three levels (power, urgency, or legitimacy)
they are moderately important. Dominant (power+legitimacy), dependent
(legitimacy+urgency), dangerous (power+urgency)
- Communication design practice - attending to the practical reasoning involved in
recognizing the relevant problem to be resolved by changing the features of
communicative activities and thus the way people interact and reason with each other
- Create shared values - take into consideration the influence of the environment without
losing sense of purpose of the business is to return profit to shareholders. For example:
Nestle invests in the farmers so that their coffee is of higher quality of product and
better terms for farmers.
- Collaborative governance and open innovation - an approach where different
stakeholders work together to address common issues and make decisions collectively. It
emphasizes shared responsibility to achieve sustainable outcomes.
,Lecture 3
- Crisis - the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens expectancies of
stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate
negative outcomes
- Crisis requires immediate action from the organization because of public pressure,
intense media attention, or direct danger to employees or customers.
- A crisis can emerge from natural disasters or failures of the organization
- Characteristics of crisis:
➔ Low-probability event
➔ Can have a high-damage impact
➔ The causes can be unknown
➔ Resolving a crisis can be debatable
➔ Requires quick decision-making
➔ A threat to the organization by the stakeholders
- Original crisis type matrix - 4 types of crisis:
1. External + unintentional = faux pas - unintentional action which is transformed
into a crisis by an external actor. When an organization unintentionally commits a
social mistake that results in negative consequences. For example, a company
representative making an offensive comment during a public event
2. Internal + unintentional = accidents - unpredicted events or failures resulting in
harmful consequences. For example, accidents within the company that can lead
to human casualties
3. External + intentional = terrorism - intentional actions taken by external actors,
the goal is to harm the organization directly or indirectly. Examples can be
terrorist attacks on transportation system that cause fear and harm to the people
around
4. Internal + intentional = transgression - organization intentionally puts
stakeholders at risk. Unethical behavior by the organization. Example: corporate
scandals like fraud, embezzlement, or unethical business practices which damage
the reputation of the company
- Situational crisis communication theory - guides organizations in managing their
communication during a crisis. Choice of communication strategy should be based on
the type of crisis. There are three clusters of solutions:
1. Cluster 1: victim - the organization is a victim of the crisis along with the
stakeholders. Crisis responsibility is very low. Examples: natural disasters.
2. Cluster 2: accidental - all crises represent unintentional actions by the
organization. Crisis responsibility is moderate. Example: technological failure
, 3. Cluster 3: preventable - the organization purposefully places stakeholders at risk
or took inappropriate actions, crisis responsibility is significant. Examples:
company that purposefully puts people at risk.
- Organizational responsibility is also based on severity of the crisis and the organization's
performance of previous events
- Attribution theory - how individuals interpret and explain the causes of people’s
behavior. There can be internal and external attributions:
1. Internal (dispositional) attributions - an event or behavior is perceived to be
caused by factors within a person or organization (ability, effort)
2. External (situational) attributions - an even or behavior is perceived to be
caused by factors outside a person or organization (luck)
- Reputational capital - a measure of how much trust and respect people have for a
company, it's based on their reputation and how others see them. Crisis can decrease
reputation capital
- Stigmatizing - organization is perceived to possess a fundamental weakness that is
manifested through repeated failures and crises.
- Halo effect - minimizes damage of the crisis to the corporate reputation
- The formation of impressions:
1. Behavior related to morality (honesty-dishonesty) - negative behaviors are more
permanent than positive. Moral behavior is a norm.
2. Behavior related to competence (intelligence-stupidity) - positive behaviors are
more permanent than negative.
- When a crisis happens in a company, people look at the morality and the competence of
the company, usually people pay more attention to morality than competence
- Lack of morality is worse to show than lack of competences.
- A stronger internal cause (control) → a higher attribution of responsibility → a greater
threat to corporate reputation and corporate legitimacy
- Steps for crisis management:
1. Anticipation - the capacity of organizations to predict and prevent potential crisis
scenarios from arising before they have occurred.
2. Resilience - the ability to cope with a crisis once it occurs and confronts the
organization
- Contingency plans - the process of preparing for a potential crisis. Includes protocols
and procedures to guide an organization. Clarifies roles of members during a crisis.
Includes identifying risks, prioritizing risks, and considering unexpected turn of events
- Five stage framework:
1. Signal detection - benign alert to forms of warning
2. Preparation and prevention - formation of crisis and management plans