My research paper is about the Walmart case. In 2006 Walmart had to sell all stores in Germany. Walmart made huge mistakes by entering the German market. There are a lot of Parts in this Case where you can write about. A lot of works were written about the cost calculation mistakes, which Walmart made. The Walmart case is such a vast history, so it is important to concrete the analysis. 

My research paper is an analysis of the cultural mistakes Walmart made. I will analyze the communication and the behaviour, which Walmart showed in Germany. Walmart tried to use behaviour patterns in Germany, which were completely out of place for this culture. 

To determine cultural differences between Germany and USA, I use Hofstede`s Cultural Dimension Theory. It will help to analyze the differences between the American and German culture. 

It will show why some behaviour patterns offended the German people and why it led to the failure of the Walmart stores in Germany, despite the cost problem and the problems with the unions. 

I structured my research paper in three main analysis steps: 

1. The Cross-Cultural Communication and Hofstede`s Theory 
2. Scores: USA vs. Germany 
3. Cultural Differences Germany and USA: Why Walmart failed with its communication style

To underline my Results, I will use Quotes from people who were employees and customers by Walmart and gave interviews to Newspapers. And I will underline my research with the work of scientists in cross-cultural communication and social science to describe why some behaviour patterns triggered scepticism and discomfort among Germans.

In 2008 Beijing had the honour to host the Summer Olympics, but there were organizations and people who were angered that China hosted the Summer Olympics because of their poor human rights records and the occupation of Tibet. By this situation, the French hypermarket Carrefour got suddenly in the middle of the protest without any advance warning.

They angered people started a protest. The protestors knew that they couldn’t protest directly in China, so they created disharmony during the Journey of Harmony or better called the torch tour. Disharmony occurred in the United States, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and France. In France, the protests were the most intense.
During the torch’s journey through Paris, protesters seemingly from the pro-Tibet camp tried to capture or extinguish the torch. This ended in a lot of critics from the mayor of Paris and its citizens.

The Chinese people were angered about this situation, especially against France. But for the Chinese people, it was the same problem. They could not protest directly in France, so they decided to boycott french companies in China. One of them was Carrefour. Carrefour is a French multinational corporation specialized in retail.
In the heat of battle, rumours started to spread that Carrefour and some of its Investors support Tibetan independence. People started to boycott Carrefour and protestors began to appear at Carrefour stores in different cities in China. The number of protestors ranged from hundreds to over a thousand. Carrefour China’s vice president Gean Luc Lhuillier said “We and all our employees feel regretful about what happened in Paris and support the Beijing Olympics 100 percent. “

Some burned French flags and spread online messages that people should come for large protest in front of consulates and embassy. Boycotters blocked some shoppers who wanted to enter one of the Carrefour stores and the people were hit by water bottles. Carrefour denied any support or involvement in the Tibetan issue and had its staff in its Chinese stores wear uniforms with the Chinese national flag and caps with Olympic insignia on it and the words “Beijing 2008” to show its support for the games.

Pro-China rallies and demonstrations happened in several cities in response to the relay protests, including London, Berlin and Los Angeles.

This blog is about a story that happened approximately 15 years ago… A German businessman was waiting in front of a building. The yard was full of cabs, cars and people running stressed around. The man was waiting, in 30 minutes an important business meeting with two men from China should start. He went to his office to see if everything is ready and look good. The man was quite nervous because he hadn’t seen his two guests in real life. At 10’o clock, he got the message that his guests from China are straight coming to his office now. To welcome them, the man gave both guests a handshake and told them to have a seat.

After a bit of small talk and talking about the project, the man asked if they want something to drink. The Chinese men were really friendly and said: “No, no, no, we are fine! “The Chinese men constantly were nodding and smiling while they were talking. The German businessman thought:” Okay! Then I will only have a glass of water. ”
At this point, the atmosphere got a little bit strange for the German businessman. The Chinese guests looked really insecure, and the man asked himself:” Why are they always smiling and nodding so weird. “

All of the participants in the room communicated really friendly! It was no problem to talk about the project. But the one German businessman was constantly feeling that something was really strange. The Chinese people nodded by facts on some points, which it was definitely the wrong part to nod about. After the meeting ended and the Chinese men left the office, the German businessman said to his partner:” Something was strange here “.
His partner said: “I can tell you why… “

When you offer Chinese people a drink, they always say NO, because it is their style of politeness, but you usually have to ask twice! In the Chinese business culture, everything is about to do not impose. That they were always smiling is because they do it every time in every situation. It is all about looking friendly in every situation. But sometimes, they smile and nod to hide their insecurity.

In Germany, when you do not understand something you will typically ask. That is something that Chinese people would never do in a business meeting. They will nod, no matter what you say. It is unpolite to ask and they don’t want us to think they cannot understand us, so they are nodding and smiling no matter what fact.

For the German man, who greeted the Chinese men and talked at the beginning of the meeting, it would have been better if he had searched about the Chinese norms at business meetings before the meeting starts. But it is not clear how important it really was to this certain time on corporate culture.

Because of globalization and the change of society’s structure, some dimensions could be different than in the 70s. So the scores may be different today. One vast different point is business organizations today. The companies are more multinational as in the 70s, the interaction with different cultures became more important. Some organizations learned to copy some behaviour patterns of other cultures to develop their own organizational structure. So the analysis of masculinity and femininity decision making could be different in some countries today. When we analyze individualism versus collectivism the globalization over the years is a significant point. The huge campaigns of companies that are selling “lifestyle “change the way of thinking in some cultures. For example, independent and individualistic images of western people are positively present on the internet. These may motivate young Chinese to be more individualistic than collectivistic. They now prefer a freedom lifestyle and seek for self-achievement. 

Since the internet is accessible everywhere and all contents are available online, such as movies, fashion, music, and commercials, it is the most distinct and easiest means of cultural exchange. This will change some scores. 

When we think about role models by femininity versus masculinity in some cultures, this point could have changed too. The household structure in some cultures developed over the years, or it developed backwards. When we think about uncertainty avoidance, it is clear that many countries want to take more risk to show they are a part of the world, all related to globalization. Some countries want to take more risk to develop and get more in the focus of the western world. So many countries fight for recognition. 

An interesting example would be the United Arab Emirates with its capital city Dubai. Within 30 or 40 years, Dubai developed into a world city. Most cities need 100 years or more to develop like that. Dubai is now a popular holiday spot for western culture. Dubai shows today how much business they can do and how much they can offer luxury. For a country where were a long time ago only desert, is that unbelievable. The United Arab Emirates shows that they can have a long-time orientation in business. They try to optimize this city for the future. The exciting thing is that Hofstede has by long-time orientation the score 0 for the United Arab Emirates, there is no score available. I think a country that developed in some parts so fast and did so much to get more attention in the western world cannot have a 0 by long-term orientation today. The Emirates were one of the poorest areas in the world until the 1960s, that is maybe the reason why the “old” Hofstede dimensions have no score there. Perhaps, the state wasn’t in enough demand to investigate.

For every part of the world, companies have different commercials. A commercial must fit the culture of a country and its behaviour patterns. In this blog the differences between Japanese and German commercials will be analyzed. For comparing advertising methods in these two countries, I choose McDonald’s with its commercials. Later on, a comparison with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory will follow. 

Japans commercials are full of colours, animation effects and loud voices. The voices are really high! When you look at particular scenes, you will see how full the picture is of effects and background illustrations. Sometimes you have a lot of people in the background, or you can say crowds! Japan is using every each tiny corner of a picture to fill it in. For Germany, this kind of design is not shared. For us Germans, these overloaded scenes are not enjoyable to watch. It is just too much. 

When we analyze the German commercial of McDonald’s, the differences are immediately seen. A calm way designs the whole set without any special effect or overloaded illustrations. The cuts are done softly. By the Japanese advertisements, the cuts were faster. The German McDonald’s commercial looks more realistic and based on honest thoughts. When you think about the fact that you want to eat dinner straight in the car, because it smells so good! 

In most Japanese adverts, the scenes based on entertaining and showing a performance. They are not so realistic, or you can say the scenes did not based on everyday life moments, like in the German advert. When we combine these findings with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, it is possible to find an explanation for the actions made by designing these films. The two dimensions, masculinity versus femininity and individualism versus collectivism, are essential to understand the differences. 

With a score of 67 by individualism versus collectivism, Germany belongs to the side of the individualists. Germans always try to self-optimize and loyalty based on personal preferences. Germany’s way of communicating and behaving is direct and honest, Germans like realistic situations. The man in the car tried not to eat the dinner; he tried to hold on the feeling of hunger until he is at home. But he could not. This shows a direct and realistic situation a lot to people have when they drive from McDonald’s home. A lot of people cannot wait and start eating in the car. The whole clip shows one individual and his fight to self-optimize himself by not eating the food. Sadly, he failed. But that shows how good McDonalds is; no one can wait to eat. 

With a score of 66, Germany is considered a masculine society. Germans have a lot of self-esteem in every task or situation. This fits again to the situation in the advert. When you connect “masculine” to business actions, it means that performance is highly valued, status is often shown and people rather live in order to work. But by designing the advert Germany is more feminine, the advert is slow and calm. 

Japan scores 46 on the individualism dimension. This means that Japan belongs to a more collective culture. It is not as collective as china maybe, but the harmony of a group is more important than the individual itself. That is seen in the Japanese adverts. Every time there are many people, everything is done to impress a particular group of interests. 

With 95 points, Japan is one of the most masculine societies in the world. The adverts are aggressive with all the effects and loud voices. It is fast and in one clip two people were in a fight, which Burger might better. In a high masculine culture, everything is about being better than the competitor. The way they rise the Burger in the adverts is for a German a little bit “overloaded”. The German advert shows this rising of McDonald’s Burgers more softly and harmonious. It fits that Japanese people want to perform and always have a special presentation, that is why all the effects are made.

Intercultural communication essentially means communication across different cultural boundaries. To intercultural communication belongs multicultural communication and cross-cultural communication. Multicultural refers to how a group or team is communicating, which consists of people with different nationalities. Cross-cultural communication means comparing two or more different cultures. It examines the varying communication styles of different cultural groups.

Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions belong to the study field of cross-cultural communication. In 1980 Geert Hofstede was working on a data Set about the values of people located in more than fifty countries around the world. These people worked by the large multinational company International Business Machines (IBM). By this case study, Hofstede developed four dimensions of national cultural differences. These dimensions are power distance (from small to large), collectivism versus individualism, femininity versus masculinity and uncertainty avoidance (from weak to strong). Each country in the model is characterized by a score on each of the four dimensions. With Hofstede’s dimensions, it is possible to compare different cultures’ characteristics and analyze behaviour patterns.

Later in the 1980s, one other dimension was added through Harris Bond from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hofstede named the `fifth dimension` long-term vs. short-term orientation. In 2010 a sixth dimension was developed by Michael Minkov and is defined as indulgence versus restraint. The book Cultures and Organizations by Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov describes, how exactly this dimensions are used to analyze culture in its different habitats like work, school and at home. It is possible to understand the cultural identity in a whole country with it. 

Sources: https://www.hofstede-insights.com

WHAT IS INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION?

Cultures and Organizations by Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010)

A man is kneeling and begging in front of a salesman. The man is begging him to accept his expired coupon. But the salesman is not accepting his request… But McDonald’s is for everyone the hero because McDonald’s has coupons with a validity of a whole year!…

The voice-over to this scene was: “McDonald’s understands people are sad when they miss a good opportunity, so the company is offering discounts 365 days a year.”

This text passage was a TV commercial in 2005. This commercial affects McDonald’s image in China immensely. China is a country that has extreme pride, and its social recognition in the world is based on its relentless willingness to perform. When someone is trying to harm that image, China as a country and Chinas` population turns immediately into a war mode. 

McDonald’s headquarter in China regretted any possible misunderstanding that the advertisement might have caused. “We meant to inform consumers that McDonald’s would offer delicious food to our customers all year round by adopting humorous and attractive techniques. “

But for all hardworking and proud Chinese people, this statement meant nothing. In a Chinese article was written “”What a shame the commercial portrayed Chinese consumers as willing to bend to such petty interests!” said a lady surnamed Yuan, who complained to a consumer’s petition hotline. “

McDonalds was hurting Chinas’ culture with this commercial on every stage. Immediately it was stopped from being screened on the TV. Usually, before you start a campaign as a company, you think about a country’s culture where you pull this campaign of. A mistake like that can cost a company a lot of customers and a lot amount of money. Every culture needs a different way of communication and style of advertisement. It is clear that culture affects communication. McDonald’s advertisement in China was the best example. 

Source: 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-06/22/content_453571.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-06/23/content_453733.htm

Corporate communication defines the whole communication in a company, from the company to its stakeholder and about the company. So it contains the communication management of the entire company, internal and external. Corporate communication is needed to create a positive image, increase the company’s value, and get society’s acceptance. It should help to get the company’s goals with a good communication activity. 

Corporate communication was developed approximately in the 80s or mid-90s. Some scientists wrote it was in the 70s, so the opinions of when corporate communication developed to an official management function is different. The following definition describes shortly what the main exercise of corporate communication is. “Corporate communication is the total communication activity generated by a company to achieve its planned objectives. “(Jackson, 1987, as cited in van Riel/Fombrun 2007: 25)

A good example of excellent corporate communication is Bayer AG. Bayer succeeded by building a high value, corporate identity and getting respect from its stakeholder, despite its failed business deals or times! On some days, Bayer sees as unbreakable. 

When people think about chemistry, they always think about colossal power stations and lots of dark and poisonous fog. Bayer tries to communicate against this, with vast success. For a few years, Bayer has the slogan. “Science for a better life.” With the keywords: 

Optimistic

// Inspiring positivity: yes, we can create a better tomorrow.

Passionate

// Where our sense of duty and enthusiasm combine.

Visionary

// Acting as leader and being confident in driving progress.

Bayer did it to ground this identity in the heads of their stakeholder. Because Bayer succeeds with these messages and its communication, their value is one of Germany’s highest. Of course, there are bad and good years, but the corporate communication is doing a great job. These messages are known around the world because the communication is always global. You can say Bayer earned acceptance and has a positive image.  

The employees getting the feeling, they are creating this “better life “for all of us, and the society gets the view that the chemical industry is not only about dark and poisonous fog, it can be colorful, and it helps us to live the life we know. A good impression gives Bayer’s website. 

Source: Website Bayer; Schmidt, C. M. (2016). Crossmedia-Kommunikation in kulturbedingten Handlungsräumen. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-658-11076-5.pdf

Corporate social responsibility means the company is taking responsibility for sustainable business practices. Companies should take on social responsibility. CSR is divided into theoretical and practical approaches. CSR should serve as a management function, and values ​​should be grounded in the company through this approach. The different functions are to be applied in all areas of the company.

A company as a whole body should show in every area a sustainable economic and social responsibility. A guideline named iso 26,000 should help with the implementation of CSR in large companies. This is a guide that provides guidance and recommendations on how organizations of any kind should behave so that they can be viewed as socially responsible.

However, there are also fallacies with CSR. When it comes to corporate social responsibility, everyone thinks of management processes in the largest companies in the world. But this is not the case, there are approaches for small and medium-sized companies. CSR should also be applied there, always with the background knowledge that it should be about taking on sustainable responsibility, no matter how big the company is.

A lot of factors play a role in CSR. Also communication, because values ​​and responsibility not only have to be written or organized, it also has to be communicated. A big part of successfully applying this management is communication. There is research on different instruments on how CSR can be integrated into corporate communication.

There are many examples to see that the theoretical approaches of corporate social responsibility are also can put into practice. In every business area there are examples for great CSR. I choose as an example Porsche. 

As one of the biggest companies in Germany, Porsche needs to be sustainable by its production. Porsche wanted to make its supply chains more sustainable. So they developed a three-step-tool in 2019. In the first step, the supply chains are checked with regard to their social and ecological standards. In the second step, possible risks are discussed together and possible solutions are developed. On this basis, a final evaluation of the supplier can take place in the last step. This is one of many examples how companies want to take responsibility for the environment and society. 

Source: Schneider, A. & Schmidpeter, R. (2012). Corporate Social Responsibility. Verantwortungsvolle Unternehmensführung in Theorie und Praxis. Berlin: Springer. https://books.google.de/books?id=4dN5BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA19&hl=de&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

The sum of the characteristics of a company represents the corporate identity. The concept of corporate identity is based on the assumption that companies as social systems are perceived as people and can act in a similar way. In this respect, the company is assigned a quasi-human personality.

The corporate identity is thus the company`s self-image. The question to define corporate identity is: Who do we want to be. The determinates of corporate identity are the visual identity symbols and other icons and forms of behaviour.

Organizational identity describes the understanding and claims of employees and outsiders of the character of an organization that distinguishes it from its peers or rivals. The question to define organizational identity is: Who are we? And How will someone recognize us? The determinates of organizational identity are the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics of the organization. The dimensions of the judgment of organizational identity are stakeholders’ understanding and claims of organizational character traits as conditioned by the image of the industry or group of organizations that the organization is thought to be a member of.

It is possible to have multiple identities there are two strategic concepts: The multiplicity of identities within an organization. And the Identity Synergy: How well multiple identities complement each other. But to have multiple identities could get worse when the identities maybe cause conflicts.

I think in some points Nestlé has a mismatched corporate identity and organizational identity. Nestlé says in their corporate identity, they want to stand up for good human rights, work conditions, and environmental protection. They are very interested in the health of the environment and human beings. But, by some investigative research, it comes out that Nestlé is not holding their promises, especially in the areas of human rights, work conditions and environmental protection. An example of that is the movie: dirty chocolate.

Corporate Branding should stabilize a brand, increase its value and ground the brand in the heads of their stakeholder. That is the main task of Corporate Branding. The key to reach that aim is to have good strategic marketing and creative communication. If a company can perform that, the Corporate Brand can make around 50 percent of the whole company value.

The most popular examples for good Corporate Branding are „Tempo“ and „Zewa“. You only have to think about your everyday life. Nobody asks you: “May I have some kitchen roll.“ The people are asking: “May I have some Zewa.“ 

That is proof of how good Corporate Branding is working. Zewa is definitely „burned“ in the heads of the society. If you reach the moment that people use your product name for a normal object, instead of the own object name, then you have made it! Another example would be „Tempo“. Everybody is saying „Tempo“ instead of „tissue“. 

I choose another example for excellent Corporate Branding. I choose the Brand „Hunter“. Hunter is an English brand from 1856. Hunter is known for its legendary boots. Hunters’ history has a bit similarities to Thomas Burberrys brand and his Trenchcoats. Hunter describes its philosophy as follows: 

„Hunter was born out of the british passion for invention. The spirit of Hunter is based on the desire to discover news. We take the path that others do not dare to take[…]. Since 1856 we have Equipped people who want to follow their own way. If you are a born pioneer, you always live an age of new discoveries.“ 

In the last 15 years, Hunter reached the aim of grounding the brand in the heads of their stakeholder. People are not saying anymore: „Oh look, she or he is wearing nice rubber boots.“ 

The people now say: „OH LOOK, she is wearing HUNTERS!“ 

That is an excellent example of Corporate Branding. Hunter is known in our age as a luxury brand for outdoor clothing, like (rubber) shoes, (rain) jackets and accessories. More and more Hunter is growing in the Asian and American Market. 

Tetra Pak is a company that creates packages for liquid food. Tetra Pak worked together with Nestlé. In 2005 both companies had to face a crisis because of the fabric isopropylthioxanthane (ITX). ITX is an ink used to print the labels on liquid milk cartons. In 2005 this ink was found in infant milk in Italy. Nestlé recalled the milk from a certain region in Italy, the products were removed from store shelves. The whole procedure was not published. On November 9th two million liters of milk were seized by Italian authorities.

It is clear what anger will be in public when this problem will be in the media. Nestlé should have acted quickly and at least they should have made it public in Italy immediately, but the media published it before them. A problem was that the case was known in September and Nestlé acted first in November! It is known that in crises where children can be affected or human beings in general the emotional stage of anger can be very enormous, so it is a duty to communicate truthful and direct. It was a huge mistake that Nestlé did not do that.

In this crisis different organizations communicated against, about, and with each other. The Italian Health Ministery, Nestlé, Tetra Pak and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This process is called Rhetorical Arena. Tetra Pak and Nestlé mentioned that ITX was not harmful according to a Statement from the EFSA “[…] it is not likely to present a health risk at the levels reported.“

Meanwhile, Nestlé communicated against the Italien Health Ministery. Nestlé said the Italian Government was creating an unnecessary uproar, “It’s nothing. It’s a storm in a teacup. There is no risk to safety”. The debate between Nestlé and the Italian Government developed in a not serious manner, when the Health Minister Francesco Storace talked about Nestlé CEO Brabeck-Lernathe and accused him of lying.
Then the EFSA caused confusion when they said they were not claiming that ITX was safe, only that the agency had not yet fully assessed the risk of ITX. They gave the advice with respect to possible health risk associated with ITX in April 2006! The communication between the organizations went obviously really heated and muddled and went over months!

On Friday 13th of November 2015, three terrorist attacks took place at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, at the Bataclan theatre in the middle of Paris, and different restaurants and cafés in the city. 

At the Stade de France three terrorists did suicide with bombs in front of the stadium. At the Bataclan 90 people were killed by a mass shooting. More than 40 people were killed at the restaurants near the Rue de la Fontaine-au-Roi. 416 people got injured that night. The terrorist attack was the deadliest since the second world war. The attack was commited by nine terrorists. It was an act of war by the Islamic State. 

The terrorist attack can be defined as a Black Swan event. A Black Swan event describes a crisis where no one thought it would happen. A Black Swan event is a surprise and has extreme consequences for the injured people, organization, or a whole country. By a Black Swan event, people are convinced there was evidence to predict the event, or more or less a part of it. 

By the Paris attack, no one thought it would happen, especially on one thought there will be three different attacks from nine terrorists at the same time! That makes the Paris attacks from 2015 to a Black Swan event. 

The Problem with this event was, that in Paris month before Charlie Hebdo was attacked by terrorists from the Islamic State. The French police knew they had to fight against different terrorist cells based in their country. It is not published if the french police could have had a clue that a few of the nine terrorists will plan an attack. People believe that the attack could have been prevented or more or less the police could have arrested more terrorists before the attacks 2015 and 2016 in Nizza happened. Maybe both attacks could have been prevented, if the police have acted more quickly at the moment they knew the identity of terrorists in their country. 

When we want to analyze a relationship between two crisis communication theories. The Brent Spar is a great example. As a reminder: 

In 1995 Greenpace started a Seabattle, tiny boats against a 14.500 tons massive oil tank. It was a crisis that was weeks in the media. Until today the „Brent Spar“ is the object lesson for the badest crisis communication. Shell planned to sink the Brent Spar in the pacific. 100 tons of Oil and Saltcrust would go down with the Brent Spar. 

In this blog I will analyze the last steps of the crisis management from Shell. Shell started a vast campaign after the horrible fights on sea and in the media. This campaign was Shells trying to do image repair and what is better than a huge campaign for repairing an image. Shell tried with that to save their stakeholders. Until today they never really recover from that incident. Shell has a file with 135 sites of the incident, published on their website because they had to save the trust of their stakeholder. They had to make an excuse. They analyzed on themselves what went wrong in this timelapse. That is one amazing form of Corporate Apologia. In my opinion, I never saw a statement like that with 135 sites until the analysis of Brent Spar. 

But to concentrate more on the campaign: With the words “Wir haben Verstanden.“ Shell definitely used Corporate Apologia and admitted their guilt. They tried to convince the public and their stakeholder, that an incident like this will never happen again. So we have here a relationship between Corporate Apologia and Image Repair Theory. 

In 2010 Ergo had to face their biggest crisis. To be exact two crises.
In June 2007, the Ergo subsidiary Hamburg-Mannheimer invited its freelancers with the highest success rate to the historic Gellert thermal baths in Budapest as a reward for doing good business. According to an in-house study, one of the parties involved: “Around 60 to 70 women for the evening, 20 of them prostitutes and another 40 to 50 hostesses.”
The Handelsblatt published the article about their Sex-Party in 2011.

And that is not the only scandal. The trust of their customers has recently been put to a tough test, because Ergo not only discovered a sex party for Hamburg-Mannheimer representatives, but also mistakes in customer business. The insurer had incorrectly accounted for contracts and sold special accident policies using unfriendly methods.

Ergo did a huge campaign in the newspaper to say sorry to the public. In five newspapers they published the quote: “When people make mistakes, they apologize. When companies make mistakes, they do something about it. That’s why we do both.“

The contingency theory should explain how conflicts can be strategically managed so that both; organization and stakeholders benefit from the solution. According to the contingency theory Ergo chose the action-based-Accomodation. They promised not to organize parties like that again, and not to sell contracts in a way like they did. Ergo official said sorry to their stakeholders and the publicity.

When we look at the ICM matrix this crisis can be placed in the first Quadrant. The publicity was shocked and angry about both incidents. The only thing Ergo could have done was to launch a big apology campaign as soon as possible and they did it with high engagement.

When you use the threat appraisal model this crisis faced an internal and external threat, because of the fear to lose costumers and not only costumers. They were enough shocked workers, because of the fact, that this happened right before them, the sex-scandal and that colleagues worked with dubious methods. Not everyone liked it to still work for Ergo after that.

On the one hand, the Arcandor crisis was a victim crisis because of the Lehman Brothers disaster. Arcandor got insolvent through the financial crisis. On the other hand, it was an intentional cluster too. Maybe Arcandor could have been saved!

Arcandor AG was a trading and tourism group with headquarters in Essen with the three core business areas of retail (Karstadt), mail order (Primondo), and tourism (Thomas Cook).
Until 2007 Arcandor was called KarstadtQuelle. The vicious circle of Arcandor started when the credit insurer Euler Hermes limited the protection for deliveries of goods.

When we analyze the crisis regarding to the initial crisis responsibility and crisis history, the stakeholder thought that Arcandor was not responsible for the bankruptcy in the first line. They were a lot of stakeholders who tried to save Arcandor. In November 2008, the private bank Sal. Oppenheim granted Arcandor AG a loan of 20 million euros until April 2009, although one month before Arcandor was able to reach an agreement with two other banks to refinance its loans, because of debts worth 1,5 billion euros. At that point, they had to know that the company had vast problems.

In 2008, Arcandor had debts worth 2.5 billion euros. So Arcandor was responsible too that they got bankrupt no one can deny that.

In September 2008 the publicity knew that Arcandor needed loans because they were in debt, the question was what they are going to do and what was the problem. Arcandor made the statement: ”Contrary to our original planning, we have not yet made a decision, the reason being the turmoil in the banking sector “.

On the one hand, to this time, it is true that the banking sector had to face a crisis, but on the other hand, the turmoil occurred in some ways, because the banks had no idea how to save a company which is so in debt, while the whole financial system is collapsing.

Arcandor was doing a kind of victimage, which belongs to the bolstering crisis response strategies. They mentioned that the global financial crisis was responsible for their bankruptcy and that is the reason why everything went wrong.

The truth is, maybe Arcandor could have been saved. Not only the global financial crisis is responsible for the Arcandor crisis. All the debts no one talked about were responsible too! Maybe without all the debts, they could have found a company that saves them.

If I were Arcandor I would use the apology theory. In this situation, I am sure that would have been worked. They only had to be honest on the first day not month after that… They should have said something like: “We need help because we have too many debts and when we wait too long, we will go down because no one can help us through the global financial crisis.”

Seveso was a chemical accident in 1976. It happened in the chemical area from Icmesa, near of Milan in the town Seveso. Icmesa was owned by Givaudan a subsidiary company of Roche. The disaster was named by the city because Seveso, with a population of 17,000 in 1976, was the community most affected. 

On the 10th of July 1976, a reactor explodes because of a dioxide called Tetrachlordibenzodioxin (TCDD). This dioxide is a product caused by trichlorophenol. This chemical fabric was intended as an intermediate for hexachlorophene. Hexachlorophene is a disinfectant. 

The reactor massive overheated and then exploded, causing the aerial release of 6 tonnes of chemicals, the massive cloud full of poison settled over Seveso, Meda, Desio and Cesano Maderno. The explosion was approximately at 1 o`clock. One hour later 1.800 hectares were poisoned for years. 

In the following days, this accident became a terrible type two focusing event. It had to look like a horror movie scene. 

The poisoned areas were split into Zones. 3,300 animals, mostly poultry and rabbits, were found dead. In total fear, within two years over 80,000 animals had been slaughtered, to prevent TCDD entering the food chain. 15 children were quickly hospitalized with skin inflammation. By the end of August 1976, Zone A had been completely evacuated and fenced, 1,600 people of all ages had been examined and 447 were found to suffer from skin lesions or chloracne. Chloracne is caused through the poison and it looks like cysts and pustules. A health department advised pregnant women to abort their babies. 

First of all, I have to say Icmesa set up an emergency plan and they built advising centers to help people in the areas which is good, but the communication with the whole public and the crisis management was terrible and not truly. Maybe a problem was, that to this time, PR management especially crisis communication was non-existent in companies. Cases like Seveso are precedents for the development of crisis management. 

Although the factory management knew that TCDD had been released on the first day after the accident, they did not officially announce it until eight days later. The mother company Roche was informed internally of the accident and the substance released on July 12, but it was also not made public. Of course, it was a disaster to denial this situation. 

Roche Boss Adolf Jahn commented the death of the first humans with the statement: “The woman who sadly died suffered from asthma. The boy who was admitted to the hospital with liver damage had jaundice. Both cases have nothing to do with the Icmesa.“ I am still not sure who actually believed this. 

Approximately ten years were needed to repair the damage and to end the decontamination measures. The dismantling and demolition work began in the factory itself. At the beginning of 1982, the Italian started the disposal of the reactor contents. On September 24th of 1983, there was a lawsuit against a few workers and the production chief of Roche Jörg Sambeth. 

From 1981 to 1983, Icmesa paid the communities Desio (with 748,900 euros), Cesano Maderno (1.47 million euros), Meda (671,400 euros) and Seveso (7.75 million euros). In 1993, 850 citizens from the poisoned areas sued for compensation for the moral and biological damage they had suffered.

In 1980 Paolo Paoletti the production chief of Icmesa was shot in the city Monza.The only person who ever apologized for the terrible incident was Jörg Sambeth from Roche in 2005. Until today Seveso is an object lesson of how important crisis management is especially for chemical companies. Today because of Seveso they are existing guidelines the „Seveso Guidelines“ to prevent terrible incidents like that. 

Brent Spar ruined the image of Shell. It is one of the most spectacular image crisis the world have ever seen. In 1995 Greenpace started a seabattle; tiny boats against a 14.500 tons massive oil tank. Until today the „Brent Spar“ is the object lesson for the badest crisis communication. Shell planned to sink the Brent Spar in the pacific. 100 tons of Oil and Saltcrust would go down with the Brent Spar. 

The first mistake was, that Shell official announced they wanted to change and be the best example for an ecological company. At the same time people knew that they wanted to sink an oil tanker in the pacific. The vicious circle was definitely not to stop after that statement. 

The second vast mistake was to denial the problem with brent spar and to ignore the activits from Greenpeace. Maybe ignore is not exact the right word, when you saw the pictures of actvists attacked with water cannons. Should that repair an image? The German headquarter of Shell knew it would ruin them completely, but the UK said: “It is only a continental freak out“. While in the UK everyone denialed what was happening, the situation in Germany escalated on every stage. Shell gas stations were attacked, boycotted and tenants got detah threats. The headquarter in Germany really tried to de-escalate the situation, but the people were so mad that no argument could stop the anger.

Shell could do only one thing. Not to sink the Brent Spar, and of course, they did not. „David“ Greenpeace won against Shell the „Goliath“. One of the biggest Headlines was „Zershellt am Boykott.“ 

After that, Shell tried with everything they had to do image repair. But they never really recover from that incident. Today Shell has an file with 135 sites of the incident, published on their website. I was not able to find the picture of the huge campaign with the words: „Wir haben verstanden“ and the picture of the Brent Spar in the background. They tried to apologize with that, because they had to. It was a promise! With this campaign they promised not to throw their waste in the sea.

The most disturbing news is that according to the company’s own information, Shell wants to leave the remains of three old platforms with 11,000 tons of oil in the North Sea and not dispose of their toxic content on land in an environmentally friendly manner. I am lost for words. 

Corporate apologia refers to self-defense. It is used to defend an character attack. But not only personal characters can be attacked. It is also used to defend the reputation of organizations. Reputations can be defined as how people identify the organization.  With apologia manager can provide self-defense in response to attacks. 

The expansion of corporate apologia is enabled through the works of Hearit and the linkage to apologies. There are four strategies which can be used in apologia: denial, bolstering, differentiation and transcendence. Denial states that there are no grounds for the character attack and seeks to establish the attack as wrong. 

Bolstering are attempts by speakers to identify themselves with something their audience views as positive. The positive associations should reminded of the good things the company had done. 

Differentiation is a way to suspend judgment until all facts are presented. Then some  evidence will provided to design a different favorable interpretation of the facts in the case. 

Transcendence moves people away from the particulars of the case to a more abstract interpretation. The particulars are placed in a new context. The new context should allow people to see the particulars in a better light. The goal of transcendence is to create the feeling the company did something, because of something greater than himself or herself.

An example for bolstering is Trump, he is always bolstering. He denied the danger of Covid-19 and said that he instead created thousands of new jobs. Sea World was a company which denialed the facts about the blackfish documentation. An example of differentiation is someone who blames an act on a certain state of mind why something occurred, in an attempt to steer the audience’s blame away from that given person, maybe an politican.

On October, the 17th 2016 BASF had to face a horrible accident. One of the company`s supply line in the petrol deposit caught fire due to a cut from an angle grinder. The massive explosion happened, because the connected gas pipes were filled with ethylene and propylene. Five humans died and 28 were injured. 

Immediately BASF launched a press announcement. On their social media channels they took a stand on the accident. It was done in German and in English, which is indispensable for a global company. They wrote a long post on Facebook and answered every comment. Each hour updates were given to the current status of  the incident. 

BASF was available on their channels for every one for the whole time. A visible sign of corporate identity was set by a memorial place. Every person who wanted to commemorate the casualties had the opportunity to do so. That is a great example how companies should react to a massive accident like this in 2016.