Crisis Communication Management: A Case Study Research: Organizational Communication Within a Cooperative in Disarray

• In Event: Organizational Communication Research Escalator - Extended Session (Part 1)

Abstract

This research seeks to analyze what communication and information strategies have been used during the unsuccessful crisis management throughout the bankruptcy of Fagor Electrical Appliances S.Coop (flagship of Mondragon Corporation, one of the largest groups of cooperatives in the world) and the relocation of its 1,915 workers in 2013, Spain. This project concerns discovering the handling of internal and external communication, along with the interactions between different actors involved: executives, employers, suppliers, and journalists. The study is based upon in-depth interviews with key managers, and focus groups among workers and journalists. Chief executives and communication managers debated questions of organizational communication in a corporation hard hit by a bankruptcy. As preliminary results we will highlight the extremely passive communication (sit-out strategy, lack of clarity and mixed messages) during the acute onset of the crisis and the low level of proactive communication in the course of the crisis.

Author

• Itsaso Manias-Muñoz, University of the Basque Country