In Search of a Scapegoat: The Global Corporate Blame Game

İnci Çinarli

doi:10.30935/ojcmt/5642

Abstract

Humanity has a long tradition of searching for means to cope with crisis situations and to manage the order of society. In our contemporary world, corporations with their complex global networking often face crises and need to minimise damage. This paper aims to identify why and how scapegoating is used as a strategy in crisis communication by global business. To this end, Situational Crisis Communication Theory has been used to analyse some recent corporate crises (e.g. Volkswagen AG’s handling of its emissions debacle and Costa Cruises’ fatally shipwrecked Costa Concordia). This study reveals that, even though slightly different from its ancient counterparts in its aims, scapegoating is a frequent tool of corporations seeking to mitigate their multi-causal crises. It also appraises the efficacy of this manoeuvre.

Highlights

Crises undoubtedly are not specific to our century, but they became ubiquitous due to conventional media and especially the social media in the recent years
After analysing the roots of this crisis communication strategy, two case study analyses will be conducted in order to identify why and how scapegoating is used as a strategy in crisis communication by global business
Humanity has a long tradition of searching for means to cope with crisis situations and to manage the order of society

Summary

Introduction

Crises undoubtedly are not specific to our century, but they became ubiquitous due to conventional media and especially the social media in the recent years. This article aims to identify the reasons and tactics in implementing ‘scapegoating’ strategies in the crisis communication process of the global business To this end, Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) has been used to analyse mainly two recent corporate crises: Volkswagen AG’s handling of its emissions debacle and Costa Cruises’ fatally shipwrecked Costa Concordia. Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) has been used to analyse mainly two recent corporate crises: Volkswagen AG’s handling of its emissions debacle and Costa Cruises’ fatally shipwrecked Costa Concordia These two corporate crises cases have a negative impact on their brand reputations, but have a wider negative impact on industrial scale, and even on the nation brand, especially in VW case

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion