Lecture 4 Flashcards
(21 cards)
What does the Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 tell us?
- Businesses are the most trusted institution
- Media is the least trusted
- Most industry sectors remain trusted, except for social media
- Scientists and teachers are trusted more than institutional leaders
What is corporate reputation?
- Long-term
- How a company is perceived by its key stakeholders
- What people think about and how they see the organization (often as an outsider)
What is corporate image?
- Short-term perception of a company held by the public at a certain moment of time
- Often based on one experience
- Image can change quickly
What is corporate identity?
- Inside the company
- Who the company says it is
- Based on values, mission, and culture
How to build trust in a company?
- Identify and engage key stakeholders
- Secure powerful and impactful media coverage
- Develop thought leadership opportunities
- Promote the corporate brand through socially responsible initiatives
- Manage issues and crisis situations effectively
What are the three attributes in the Stakeholder Salience Model?
- Power → Can they influence the organization?
- Legitimacy → Does the organization fit the stakeholders’ beliefs, values, and expectations?
- Urgency → Does the issue need immediate attention?
What is symbolism in the Birkigt and Stadler model?
- What you see is what you get
- e.g. logo, colours, design
- IKEA: blue and yellow logo, Swedish names, minimalist design
What is communication in the Birkigt and Stadler model?
- What the organization does in its communication
- IKEA: friendly, informal, slogans
What is behaviour in the Birkigt and Stadler model?
- How they treat each other and their customers
- IKEA: affordable pricing, DIY model
What are the three toolkit elements?
- Vision → What senior management wants the organization to become (goals & direction)
- Culture → Values and beliefs shared by employees (what it feels like to work there)
- Image → How stakeholders (e.g. customers, media, public) view the organization
Why is corporate identity important?
- To be aware of ‘what is our identity?’
- Strategically showing itself (the company) in a positive light
- Build, maintain and protect strong relationships with stakeholders
- Leads stakeholders to accepting and supporting the organization
- You will be the first they (the stakeholders) think of
What are the advantages of investing in corporate image?
- Distinctiveness → Stakeholders recognize and have a clear picture of the organization
- Employees → Helps raise motivation and creates a ‘we’ feeling
- Impact → Being favored may have impact on performance
- Consistency → Be consistent in images and messages
Stakeholder types in Stakeholder Saliance Model
Dormant (latent = power)
Discretionary (latent = legitimacy)
Demanding (latent = urgency)
Dominant (Expectant = power + legitimacy)
Dependent (Expactant = legitimacy + urgency)
Dangerous (Expectant = urgency + power)
Definitive (all three = power + legitimacy + urgency) –> key stakeholders
What is a crisis?
- A crisis is a significant threat to operations that can have long-term,
negative consequences to the company or organization involved
(Coombs, 2014, p. 3) - Disasters: events that are sudden, seriously disrupt routines or systems,
require new courses of action to cope with the disruption, and pose a
danger to values and social goals (Coombs, 2015) - Problem: “all crisis are problems, but not all problems are crises”. PR
professional should try to solve a problem or issue before it escaletes.
What are the three stages of crisis communication?
- Precrisis: Warning signs appear, and the company moves to try to
eliminate or reduce the risk (be prepared with a crisis plan) - Crisis impact: The actual crisis is underway, and your focus is on managing the
situation and providing support to those impacted by the crisis - Crisis recovery: The goal is to return to business as usual as fast as possible while making good on your promises and critically examining the company’s response to see how it might be improved. Also important: repairing damage to corporate reputation.
Explain the Image Restoration Theory (Benoit) and Situational Crisis Communication Theory (Coombs)
Image Restoration Theory focuses on what type of communication strategy an organization can use.
Situational Crisis Communication Theory focusus on the type of crisis and how much responsibility the public assigns to the organization.
What are the ingredients that contribute to crisis responsibility?
effectiveness of crisis response
strategies:
* crisis type
* crisis history
* prior relationship reputation
What 3 clusters does crisis type have?
- Victim cluster: the organization is also a victim of the crisis.
- Accidental cluster: the organizational actions leading to the crisis were
unintentional. - Preventable cluster: the organization knowingly placed people at risk,
took inappropriate actions or violated a
law/regulation.
Explain the crisis type matrix
- Faux pas (paracrisis): A mistake made by organization, withut bad intent (Internal + Unintentional)
- Accident: Something goes wrong due to forces outside of the organization’s control (External + Unintentional)
- Transgression: The organization knowingly violates rules or behaves unethically (Internal + Intentional)
- Terrorism: The organization is attacked by someone else, often maliciously (External + Intentional)
What is the reputational capital?
Reputational capital (buffer effect)
If your reputation was strong before the crisis, you have a “halo effect” or reputational buffer:
* Stakeholders are more likely to trust you
* You’re given more benefit of the doubt
* Damage is less severe
What are the response strategies?
- Deny strategies: used when organization is not at faullt (reject blame, deny, blame someone else or attack the accuser)
- Diminish strategies: used when crisis happened, but wasn’t that bad, or wasn’t organization’s fault (explain, justify or minimize, do not admit guilt)
- Rebuild strategies: used when the organization is responsible (full responsibility, repair trust, apologize and offer compensation)
- Bolstering strategies: extra tools you can use alongside other responses (gain sympathy)
