Ph Crisis

Managing a Product-Harm Crisis

Nikki L. Williams

Walden University

Managing a Product-Harm Crisis

Eventually most organizations are faced with a crisis situation they have to handle; which can range from miscommunication, harmful press, rumor control, or breakdowns in crisis communication response. This makes it imperative that all organizations be prepared to handle these situations accordingly as to not interrupt business flow. Crisis communication involves developing deliberate plans of action and training in communications with employees so that a corporation can predict and react rapidly and competently when faced with a crisis situation to evade harm to the business as a whole. Every business should have a proactive crisis plan in place even if there is no threat of a crisis; this will ensure that they can effectively bounce back.

A product-harm crises is a sudden disruption in a product's life sequence, which is caused by the manufacturer's neglect or product misuse by the consumer (Van Heerde & Dekimpe, 2007). As a result this could cause monetary loss for the organization and effect the overall brand. Four factors that involve product harm and affect consumers' responses to company crisis situations are the company's reputation and social responsibility, the company's response to the crisis, the number and degree of injuries and the external effects during and after the crisis (Vassilikopoulou1, Lepetsos, Siomkos, & Chatzipanagiotou, 2009).

One of the more notable scandals in recent history was the milk crisis in China which occurred in 2008; during this incident over 200,000 people were either hospitalized or died from a contamination in the milk (Naidu-Ghelani, 2013). Due to the length of time it took for an official response in the incident numerous consumers were affected and caused one of the largest food safety events in history (Chiu, 2011). The initial infection occurred during the summer however official did not make...