Individual assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Individual - Assignment Example ValackienÄâ€" and VirbickaitÄâ€" (2011) define a crisis is a sudden or unplanned phenomenon that may impede on its major product line, have negative implications on its financial performance, harm its consumers or negatively affect its employees’ well-being, or taint public trust or reputation of the organization. Crises are unknown threats to system survival, often characterised by limited time of reaction and response through human intervention. Crises faced by organisations may be environmental, financial or technological. Organisations experience different forms of crises in contemporary business situations. In response, organizations adopt strategies to monitor, rectify, and balance the situations in an attempt maintain public trust. A crisis may cause loss in legitimacy, which occurs in diverse forms depending on the nature of the problem (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). Crises threaten the social and cultural values including common beliefs of stakeholders and public trust in the organization’s business (Miller, 2014). An organisation is termed legal if its actions are appropriate and comply with the socially applied norms, values and beliefs within the social domain. Stakeholders perceive crises as a breach to the organisational norms and values, therefore, eroding the organisation’s reputation and legitimacy. Crisis always strikes when the management of an organization is uncertain or prepared for them. Swift action, therefore, is necessary to respond the situation before they escalate to the worst. An example is the April 20th 2010 BP oil spill crisis in the Mexican Gulf during deep water drilling activity (Freudenburg & Gramling, 2011). The deep-water drilling rig explosion caused massive contamination of the seawater by of millions of gallons of unprocessed. In addition, since BP was the principal and key contributor to the technology behind the deep-sea oil drilling and was solely