| Crisis has over the years,shown to be an inevitable part of every organization.Organizations have suffered in diverse ways from its damages in terms of performance and productivity,and it has become imperative for managers to ensure that crisis does not occur at all,or that even when they do,their adverse effects are minimized.Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders.Crisis management is considered as very critical by organizations because crisis is an event that happens suddenly without invitation causing a failure resulting in severe threats such as loss of shareholders and sometimes leading to the closure of the organization.The study aimed at recognizing the effects of crisis management strategies on the organizational performance of employees of Unilever Ghana Company.In the study,it is realized that internal and external crisis are inevitable which affects the performance of employees and then results in disruption of product ion and lower profits.In other words,the ability of an organization to successfully craft strategies to manage a crisis is what differentiate between organizations that are able to manage the unstable state of affairs from another organization that allows such horrible state to dampen its strategic objectives.A conscious effort is therefore made in this study to address the fundamental issue of how organizations can uphold and place value on good performance when confronted with critical situations from an open system's perspective of organizations because tackling crisis in an organization goes beyond developing just a crisis management plan,it has to do with crafting effective and efficient strategies and more attention being paid on performance management in practice via information,communication,peaceful dialogue and other approaches to resolving organizational crisis,in order to enhance overall performance.The researcher proposed some variables in the form of strategies to serve as the hypothesis of the study.Strategies like Service diversity strategy(which enhances better decision-making,higher creativity,innovation,greater success in marketing,better distribution of economic opportunity & competitive advantage),Geographical diversity strategy(which enhances defined coordination and proves to be very essential to global success),Competition strategy(which ensures higher generation of returns on investments),Fragmentation strategy(which gives full knowledge ofthe causes of crisis,its advantages and disadvantages)and Communication strategy(which can be used to predict and explain crisis,and then at the same time,used to enhance organizational performance)are believed by the researcher that,when properly managed,can help maintain tranquillity and good organizational performance even in the midst of crisis.The study is significant because it helps identify the threats that companies are bound to encounter in its operations and the company's ability to measure these threats and while observing them,find the most suitable strategies to make the right decisions at the right time to maximize benefits and opportunities in the light of these threats.It also draws on the strategy literature within the management discipline and extends it to crisis communication literature to examine how it can explain strategy formulation and selection in organizations during a crisis.The aim of the research is to find out the root causes of crisis,ascertain whether or not crisis is good for the organization,determine the effects of crisis management on organizational performance,analyse how managers find it challenging to effect the right strategies in a way that would not affect organizational performance and the operations of the organization even in the midst of crisis.In the end,the study will answer these research questions: What are the causes of crisis in an organization?What crisis management strategies are available to organizations should crisis occur?What is the relationship between organizational performance and crisis management?And,what are the challenges to effective crisis management in an organization?In this research,the independent variables that are going to be tested are service diversity strategy,geographical diversity strategy,competition strategy,fragmentation strategy and communication strategy to know whether they have any significant effect on organizational performance which is the dependent variable.Organizational performance can be affected negatively by poor crisis management strategies and/or challenges in implementing crisis strategies in an organization.In the same way,Organizational performance can gain much improvement if crisis is well managed and the various challenges to the effective management of crisis are dealt with or solved.The analysis focuses on three main outcomes,first,growth in market shares;second,fluctuations in profits;and third,revenues on investments.The site used for the study is Unilever Ghana Limited.Unilever Ghana Limited is a Ghana-based company.Its main activities include manufacturing of fast moving consumer goods(FMCG).The site was selected because it has been in existence for twenty-seven(27)years.Such a company offers a good case study as it would have undergone numerous crisis issues.To reach the full aim of the study,self-administrated questionnaires and interviews were used to collect the data.It was developed and distributed to a sample of 323 individuals.However,23 copies were excluded for not being suitable for statistical analysis,so that the number of questionable questionnaires eligible for statistical analysis equals 300 copies.This data has been analyzed using SPSS 16.The conclusions drawn from this study discovered that there are a number of crisis management strategies used by companies or organization which include crisis prevention,crisis resolution and communication of crisis strategies.The study also revealed that there exist challenges to the smooth implementation of crisis management strategies which include poor communication of Crisis Management Strategies and lack of leadership in the implementation of Crisis Management Strategies.After the hypotheses were tested,it was realized that communication strategy and service diversity strategy had significant effect on organizational performance of Unilever Ghana with p-values lesser than 0.05(0.00 and 0.012 respectively)The findings indicated that competition strategies,fragmentation strategies and geographical diversity strategies had no significance on the organizational performance of Unilever Ghana with p-values greater than 0.05(0.154,0.480 and0,541 respectively).The study equally established that taking all other factors at zero,a unit increase in variables Geographical Diversity Strategy(GDS),Communication Strategy(CMS),Competition Strategy(CPS),Fragmentation strategy(FMS)would prompt a(0.324,0.105,and 0.035)increment in organizational performance of Unilever Ghana respectively.Also,a unit increase in Service Diversity Strategy(SDS)and Competition Strategy(CPS)would prompt a(0.182 and 0.037)decrement in the organizational performance of Unilever Ghana.The study came up with recommendations that proved that,since there are many roots to crisis in any organization,it is recommended that Unilever set out rules to prevent conflicts or crisis that are likely to emanate.Also,there should be the need for concerted government and private efforts to reach appropriate solutions to mitigate crises facing organizations by providing a centre for the preparation of leaders and managers of companies and equip them with the necessary capacity to deal with crises.This will help regulate the occurrences of crisis in the organization and help reduce negative effects associated with crisis. |
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