Same Crisis, Different Responses: Case Studies of How Multiple Competing Corporations Responded to the Same Explosion-Related Crises

It is common for multiple organizations in an industry to simultaneously face the same crisis. Few studies, however, have focused on multiple organizations’ different crisis management programs and their consequences in response to the same crisis. Two cases of serial explosions of electric devices in South Korea (i.e., rice cookers) and in the U.S. (i.e., laptop batteries) were carefully examined based on situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2002) and contingency theory of conflict management (Cancel et al., 1999). Analyzing the cases, this study explored how multiple organizations cope with each of these same incidents and how one organization’s crisis management may influence another competing organization’s responses. The results highlight that competition in the business environment and public perception of crisis responsibility led involving corporate organizations to different crisis response decisions regarding the same crisis.

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