Communication Strategy In Corporate Crisis Management Research

Chinese scholars started to study the problem of crisis management after SARS case in 2003. Crisis management became the most popular used term during this period. But the reality is that enterprise crisis break out much more frequently than before in recent years because of more complex environment, the development of science and technology, mature communication technologies of mass media and the awareness of consumers. These crisis have impacted much more scopes. This situation is testing all the enterprises in the process of crisis management communication.The crisis enterprises are suffering come from both inside and outside. Some of the crisis are coursed of objective reasons, others are coursed of subjective reasons. Enterprise leaders have to consider all the aspects, such as reasons, period, stakeholders when choosing the crisis communication strategy. The right communication strategy can reduce the danger and add opportunities to the crisis issue. Crisis Communication is not a easy question of stop-gap measures but a system problem. And the effect of communication are effective when turn methods to strategy.I have summarized the communication tactics to four sorts from two dimensions, which are attitude and action. And the four sorts are: cooperation, compromise, cover, compulsion. Analyzed the effectiveness of these four communication strategies in the form of actual cases study. The conclusion is as follows. The cooperation strategy could reduce the damage of crisis and restore a good image to the stakeholders. The compromise strategy can bring a little relief of crisis, but in a long-term the crisis will come back if there is no active have been done to eliminate the root of crisis. Cover strategy is not suit for a enterprise to use when suffering crisis. This kind of nonfeasance could make the public consider the crisis more serious and speculate the brand image of the company. Compulsion strategy doesn't work when public have no credence about the company. In some ways this strategy will accelerate the damage of crisis.