Things can get worse

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the circumstances in which a crisis response strategy can compound a crisis, especially a corporate scandal, as evidenced by the case of AWB Limited, where the organisational damage of the “cover‐up” escalated the scandal further and caused additional damage to the company.Design/methodology/approach – The AWB case study provides a unique insight into the application of theories and research on crisis and reputation management and the specific challenges and risks of corporate scandals.Findings – As a specific form of crisis, corporate scandals can easily descend into a secondary or “double crisis” if incorrectly managed, or even mismanaged.Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that the information provided to the Australian Government's Royal Commission and other documents relating to the management of the scandal by the company further embarrassed AWB and exposed the inappropriateness of the original defensive apologia crisis response str...

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