Research On Corporate Image Restoration Strategies In Specific Crisis Situation

Recently, researchers have moved from a focus on the process as a whole to more specific insights into the roll communication plays in the crisis management process. Most of the domestic crisis communication studies describe emphatically on general principles of 'how to cope with crises', neglecting the different types and situations. Based on the rhetorical approach theories of crisis communication, this research takes the 'war of words' between Danone and Wahaha as a specific case, and tries to find out what image restoration strategies corporations used to control the crisis in specific situation, as well as what caused the dissatisfaction of the medias and other stakeholders, even the public. Describing the theory of image restoration strategies as an approach for understanding corporate crisis situations, the results can be used by practitioners to help design messages during crises and by critics or educators to critically evaluate messages produced during crises. This is also the starting point of this dissertation.This dissertation mainly uses two basic study methods, the literature analysis and a case study, supplemented by a content analysis of the related reports. By analysis, the study draws certain conclusions as follows: (1)When corporations are accused of unethical behavior by external actors, in the standards situation, reducing offensiveness of event and attack accuser are the most common used strategies. (2)There are new crisis response strategies beyond Benoit's image restoration strategies in this case. (3)Transcendence is the most difficult and complicated communicative option. (4)When corporations are accused of unethical behavior by external actors, in the standards situation, the image restoration strategies used by the corporations coincide with the researcher's suggestions. (5)The application of image restoration strategies is closely related to the public relation strategies, such as the agenda building, news sources strategies. (6)When selecting the image restoration strategies, corporations also take the possible post- reaction of the opponents into consideration.Recommendations for utilizing these strategies are emerging from this research. These ideas are organized under five main aspects as follows: (l)The relevance of crisis situation and strategies shows that corporations should select the image restoration strategies according to the clearly understanding of specific crisis situation. (2)The application of Image Restoration Strategies should be flexibly adjusted in Chinese context. (3)It is vital to clearly identify the salient stakeholders as the chief communication targets. (4)Select the image restoration strategies according to the dissemination object and the communication channel, and most importantly ensure the consistency of the crisis discourse at the same time. (5)The application of image restoration strategies integrated into the 'Two-Way Symmetrical Model' may obtain a favorable effect.