Thinking Differently: Reputational Crises Resituated

This review of reputational crisis literature and practice finds that the challenges in contemporary crisis communication and strategy are predominantly borne out a company centric stakeholder model. Reputational crises require stakeholders to exist, for without stakeholders no action would be considered offensive and thus not develop into a reputational crisis. Yet most literature fails to acknowledge that stakeholders are salient to crises. Although for the purpose of the company’s survival, the crisis must be brought to an end and avoided in future, the method of successfully accomplishing this must at least in part be through the crisis stakeholders’ viewpoints. To accomplish this more holistic solution to solving reputational crises, the focus should be removed from the company and given to the crisis instead. This change of focus fits within the more recent revisions of stakeholder theory and through providing a more egalitarian approach to the company and its stakeholders, makes room not only for apologia to be more effective and genuine, but also allows us to see crisis stakeholders as salient to the crisis as the company is salient to the crisis. This strategy may also be more conducive to preventing future reputational crises.