What Is Crisis Communication

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract:

This paper analyses and evaluates the influence of culture on the impression management or image restoration techniques used by Toyota in their discursive responses to the Toyota accelerator pedal crisis that took place in 2009-2010. Toyota, in 2009, faced a tough crisis which led to many on road accidents in the US and due to international and cultural differences in the management, it could not respond quickly. The case of Toyota recall crisis has been chosen as it suits all the underpinning theories identified in the paper, namely, impression management by Goffman (year), Michael Foucault’s Discourse Analysis (year) and Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory (year) crisis communication theory has also been taken into consideration. A qualitative approach of using discourse analysis has been taken up to analyse the eight press releases and newspaper articles by/on Toyota to identify main themes related to their image management and assessing them through Hofstede’s five dimensional cultural model. The research will also identify the limitations of the theoretical underpinnings and research method used. Implications for public relations practitioners and suggestions for future research in terms of cross cultural communication during crisis for impression management/ image restoration of an organisation will also be discussed in the final segment of the research thesis.

Introduction

Toyota is an automobile brand headquartered in Japan and is functional since 1937. It has had a reputation for its reliable and safe cars and since 1980s it is known for customer satisfaction. However, due to a tragic accident on August 28, 2009, it faces crisis during August 2009- May 2010. The floor mat and accelerator pedal crisis came in light in August 2009 due to an accident when an 2009 lexus hit a car and accelerated out of control and hit an embankment, that led to fire. Toyota made a recall of 4.2 million vehicles the following month and in January 2010 a second recall was made of 2.3 million vehicles because of the same problem which now accounted for over 50 percent of Toyota US’s annual sales. By January 2010, 4.2 million vehicles were recalled because of the pedal entrapment problem and further 2.3 million vehicles for accelerator pedal issue (Brennan, 2010).

Based on poll data of Lightspeed Research (Steinberg, 2010), prior to recall of Toyota cars, there were had around 60% respondents in its favour but now only 23% think so. Presently the ratings for product reliability of Toyota brands have degraded from nearly 95% to 72%. Toyota’s reputation has been, to some extent, defamed undoubtedly particularly from the present and prior Toyota car owners’ perspectives. (Toyota . pdf)

Although, it is believed that Toyota emerged from the crisis successfully (Evolve, 2010). It was able to rebuild itself and the image of the company. However, since Toyota is an international organisation, the communication plan of this organisation must accommodate information and communication techniques adaptable to the different cultures.

Toyota suffered through the crisis due to the international and international cultural differences in the crisis management team, and hence their communication strategies. This served as a threat to Toyota’s image as Toyota Japan felt that an immediate response might not be necessary and hence, Toyota US could not respond quickly to their stakeholders. Toyota did respond later with image restoration discourse, as further evident in the paper, but the response should have been quicker because it was a critical situation where Toyota was responsible for vehicle related accidents and the stakeholders (mainly the customers) were apparently in danger. Therefore the research aims at examining the influence of culture on an organisation’s response discourse in order to manage its reputation/ image due to a crisis

Main research question: How did cross cultural communication influence Toyota’s response discourse in order to manage its reputation/ image due to the crisis?

The two sub questions formed after conducting the analysis of the broad themes generated by undertaking the research method for this research are:

Sub- Question 1: How did cross-cultural communication influence representation of Toyota’s crisis as a threat to its image?

Sub- Question 2: How did cross-cultural communication influence image/ impression management response strategies by Toyota?

Literature Review:

The following section deals with the review of literature and brings out various theories that suit the topic " influence of culture on the organisation’s image sustenance or image restoration using crisis response discourse" . The following theories are identified and explained as most suitable:

What is Crisis Communication?

Stakeholders make aggregate evaluation about how well an organization is meeting stakeholder’s expectations through its reputation based on its past behaviours (Wartick, 1992 ). Reputations are considered to be a valuable and an intangible asset widely. It is used in attracting new customers, generating investments, improving financial performances attracting talented employees and creating a competitive advantage for the organisation as such ( Carmeli and Tishler, 2005).

Crisis refers to a situation that has attained a critical stage (Darling et al., 2002 a). It can therefore be stated as an unfavourable time which is unstable where a decisive change on state of affairs is. A crisis is, therefore, an unstable time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is imminent (which can either be extremely adverse or extremely constructive effect)

The crisis unfavourably affects a cluster of stakeholders that comprises of members of the community, employees, consumers and stockholders. Reputations of an organization are damaged as crisis threatens and creates a negative image of the organization amongst the people. A significant role is played by the internet and media in this context. News reports help most stakeholders to learn about a crisis.(which one reference?). If no action is taken, the organisation’s reputation is threatened by the damage of crisis. In the crisis situation the reputational threat is formed through three factors: (1) "initial crisis responsibility", (2) "crisis history" and (3) "prior relational reputation" (Coombs, 1995). Initial crisis responsibility is defined as a function of how stakeholders acknowledge personal control for the crisis occurred in the organization (Coombs, 1995). Both crisis history and prior relational reputation pose a threat to the reputation of an organisation during and after a crisis. An unfavourable prior relational reputation adds to ascriptions of crisis responsibility thereby affecting the reputational threat indirectly. Reputational threat has a direct effect from two factors and is separate from crisis responsibility (Coombs, 2004a, b).

Culture and Communication

Culture has been defined by researchers and scholars in various ways. According to Hofstede (2004), culture is a differentiation of a group of people from others which is possible through communal or joint training of minds. It is also defined as the shared system of knowledge between a large category of people by Gudykunst and Kim (1992:13). For the purpose of the research, we aim to utilise cross-cultural communication, which is stated to involve comparison and contrast of the patterns of communication of people belonging to once culture with those belonging to another culture (Levine, Park, & Kim, 2007)

It is also suggested by Hofstede (1991) that dimensions can be used to figure out differences among countries or social systems. Hofstede’s framework preliminary provides a useful starting point for examining how culture impact crisis strategies. Hofstede (2001) has provided five dimensions to explain how cultures are different from eath other : (1) "power distance (from large to small)", (2) "masculinity/femininity", (3) "uncertainty avoidance (from weak to strong)", (4) "long-/short-term orientation", and (5) "individualism/collectivism".

Cultural dimensions emphasise on the way in which cultures are understood and managed in varied situations. These dimensions also bring in view the new considerable ways in restoring or maintaining an organization's image in association with the impression management theory.

When an organization is involved in a crisis the priorities of the stakeholders are affected by cultural differences. Thus, while shaping messages and response strategies it becomes important to look at these cultural differences.

While managing a crisis international companies must take multicultural audience into consideration and accurately create its message by considering these cultural differences.

Impression Management

In addition to the above mentioned theories, since the research talks about managing image or reputation, the closest theory that can be related is Goffman’s (1959) impression management. Impression management stems from Symbolic interactionism, which states that the individuals adjust their behaviour to the actions of others and on the basis of the meaning they attach to those actions (Blumer, 1963, 1969). People manage the impressions others have of them by communicating their desired impression to obtain particular outcomes in an interaction, argues Goffman(1959).

Stakeholders in an organization form an impression called corporate image. The formed image may have nature of a composite or relatively shared impression (Christensen et al., 2008; van Riel and Fombrun, 2007). It is also argued by Benoit and Pang (2008) that image act as an important asset for the organizations.

Impression management has been used as image and reputation management in the past by various academicians and PR practitioners (Benoit and Pang, 2008). Cornelissen (2011) argued that corporate image management is an essential component of corporate communication and suggests that corporate communication plays a detracting role in constructing a good, "official self-image" (Christensen et al., 2008, p. 92).

Building and sustaining onto a ‘good’ image with the stakeholders is necessary for organisations to successfully recuperate from the crisis (Massey, 2004). Hutton et al. (2001) argued that a good image acts as a pool of goodwill to gather support during a crisis. It is revealed through studies that organizations with good images have positive implications during crises (Dowling, 2001; Lyon and Cameron, 2004). To build and maintain international relations image plays an essential role (Zhang and Benoit, 2004). Massive efforts are needed to repair if there are any threats to this image (Benoit and Brinson, 1999).

Discourse Analysis as a theory and a research method:

Discourse analysis was used to explore the cultural influences on the image restoration techniques used by Toyota. Since the theory of discourse analysis cannot be separated from practice of discourse analysis as a research method, it is important to set out a theoretical framework for the analysis of influence of culture on the image restoration of an organisation.

As per Foucault (1972), discourse is a set of statements or events used to gain knowledge of a topic. Michael Foucault asserts that the discourse is used as a method of representing data where power or knowledge has been depicted using language. His work also deals with the creation of strong discourses by the ‘elites’ and those in power.

Phillips and Jrgensen (2002) state the discourse are not scientific use of language but a study of language that has meaning.

It becomes crucial to study the discourse/ rhetorics formation created via media as the media is one important way to access knowledge of the social world (Fowler 1991). Rhetorical manipulation by emphasising on what not to say but how to say may lead to concealing on negative outcomes by using persuasive language (Merkl-Davies & Brennan, 2007).

Fairclough’s ‘critical discourse analysis’ is exceptionally interested in the way how it reflects and regenerates the power order of society and this theory fits into the larger structure of the society. Eventually Fairclough’s interest is to know "how power operates within the society" (Taylor in Wetherall 2001a:316). Instead of analysing how words and grammar are used in certain circumstances and settings, it can be seen as "a study of the refractive aspects of language...". As critical discourse analysis is concerned with power and inequalities within society, it is very ‘critical’ (Taylor in Wetherall 2001a:316). Fairclough was mainly interested in examining the way in which language is linked to the real world through critical discourse analysis or, it can be said that "the main aim of critical discourse analysis is to examine the links between language use and social practice" (Phillips and Jorgensen 2002:69). Van Dijk (1988) emphasizes that there is a need for presence of a theoretical framework to perform discourse analysis which in case of this research is Goffman’s impression management and Hofstede’s five dimensional cultural model.

Methodology

In order to determine how culture plays a role in understanding crisis, a qualitative case study approach was taken up. Qualitative research was used because it allows an in depth study at the sample of analysis and proves to be more insightful in some ways than quantitative studies (Wimmer and Dominick 2006). Through case study of Toyota’s recent accelerator pedal crisis, it is viable to analyse and offer conclusions about the manner in which culture (of the owners) influenced the crisis response of Toyota and helped it manage the image threatening crisis though discourse. Yin (2003) states that a case study is useful when one has to contribute to the knowledge of any organisational phenomena or any other related phenomena. Case studies generally focus on the contemporary issues and used when there is no or limited amount of control over the events.

To examine how the culture impacts the impression management (image restoration) discourse, Toyota’s accelerator pedal crisis case was taken into account which lasted from August 2009 to May 2010. This case is suitable for this research as Toyota is a multinational company owned by the Japanese and faced crisis in a foreign cultured country, America. Also, this case met all the cases of testing theories. The advantage with case study data collection is that it provides opportunity to use as many different sources of data and evidences (Yin, 2003). Hence, the case study involves looking at the Toyota’s official press releases, and company statements between the months of August 2009 and May 2010. Both the press releases and company statements are analysed through a rhetorical analysis. As aforementioned, discourse/ rhetorical analysis is used to analyse texts by determining not only what message has conveyed but also, why a message has been conveyed (Graff, 2010).

The messages given out by Toyota’s headquarters were mainly criticised due to lack of a timed response because Toyota USA had to wait for the final word from headquarters in Japan (source???). Therefore, by looking at the Toyota’s official statements and the way they were interpreted (rhetorical analysis), it will be possible to assess how the culture plays a role in understanding the crisis and formulation of image restoration key messages.

Judgmental or purposive sampling was used for collecting the articles and press releases. Purposive sampling is a type of convinience sampling where the elements from population or databases are selected purposively based on the the discretion of the researcher (Celik, year?) A preliminary sample of eight articles (including 4 press releases, and 4 newspaper articles) published during August 2009 and May 2010 was taken. This number was chosen to keep the research manageable and reasonably represent the amount of press releases and newspaper articles in equal amounts and standards for the discourse analysis. These articles and press releases were collected using Nexis database, that offers full-text database of news and business articles drawn from over 29,000 sources, provided by UCLan e-database. This was the most objective approach for the selection process as to determines the themes, these 8 press releases and articles (Appendix 1) were identified through detailed reading to identify if they match the consistency of cultural aspect to impression management theory.

Also, in order to interpret how American media interpreted the messages relayed by the Japanese headquarters, The articles from various newspapers of New York Times, Wall street journal and The CNN online news are collected and examined.

As a part of the rhetorical analysis, themes will be revealed from Toyota’s press releases and company statements using rhetorical analysis pertaining to Impression management theory, Hofstede’s theory of how cultural dimensions influence message creation and interpretation, and looked for inconsistencies between Toyota in US and Japan. Since the two countries belong to two different cultures, the discrepancies that rose during the crisis allow an analysis of how culture affects impression management. Patterns from each culture will emerge when we look at the characteristics of Hofstede’s dimensions in the messages from Japan and the U.S. The research, hence, aims to apply cultural dimensions of Hofstede to impression management theory using discourse analysis.

Limitations of the Research method:

Since the research undertaken is a qualitative analysis of a case study, it is prone to research bias from the researcher. The articles and speeches were chosen by the discretion of the researcher, which can also lead to bias. Also, the sample size is too small and was used to make the research manageable. In addition to it, the press releases included in the research for analysis are from the US sources, and are going to be discussed in terms of relational cultural differences between the US and Japan. Language was a barrier to determine and analyse Japanese articles as well. Lastly, the research focuses only on textual material for discourse analysis, where as there were various advertisements, interpersonal communication, etc that played an important role to overcome the crisis.