Corporate Reputation Management In The Context Of Crisis Communication

Corporate crisis has great impact on corporate reputation and stakeholders’ trust toa corporation. However, under the complex environment, although crises happeneveryday, corporations are lack of crisis management ability to handle the crisis properly. Ifcrisis was properly handled, corporation’s reputation would be strengthened; on thecontrary, if crisis was not properly handled, the corporation’s reputation would be badlydamaged, sometimes, it would also be irreversible. Therefore, under the context ofcorporatecrisis, it is more and more important for reputation managers to apply propercommunication strategies to protect corporation’s reputation from the damage of crisis.This paper is a case study of the “business warfare” between360IT Company andTencent. It aims to study the situations facing the two corporations in this crisis, theircommunication strategies and their effect on corporate reputation. In other words, thispaper studies the dynamic relation of “crisis situations–communication strategies–effects” in order to provide strategic suggestions to corporations. On the bases ofanalysis and conclusion of the former theories and studies, this paper studies the mediacoverage of the crisis and figures out the situations and communication strategies of thetwo corporations by the method of content analysis. By questionnaires, this paper aimsto investigate the attitude of the stakeholders after the crisis. What are the factors thatinfluence stakeholders’judgment to the corporation’s reputation?According to the studies listed above, we find that “attack the accuser” and “deny”are the two most used strategies of360and QQ. Besides, we also find new strategiesthat are not included in Coombs’ strategies. Emotional factors are the most significantduring all the factors that influence stakeholders’judgment to the corporation’sreputation.