Back in Time: Crisis Management (for Jan 23)

I missed this class. However, I have read a few books and articles on Crisis Management. I remember some situations that happened in America which were the center of controversy. Since I love hamburgers, one crisis that stuck out in my mind in America was with the National Cattleman's Beef Association Crisis in 2003.

The Situation
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that a cow tested positive for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in Washington State on December 23, 2003. Cows infected by BSE are too sick to walk and falling down is a key symptom of mad cow disease. Although "many cows were experiencing these symptoms, meat from hundreds of thousands of lame cows were being packed up and sent to supermarkets every year.”[1]
The Response
On Tuesday, December 2003, when the crisis broke, the NCBA Chief Executive Officer Terry Stokes immediately called emergency meeting of staff in the Denver and Washington, D.C., offices and with NCBA officers to activate the industry’s BSE response plan. According to plan, Washington, D.C., staff immediately contacted officials in the USDA secretary’s office, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the Food and Drug Administration. NCBA staff updated pre-prepared talking points, advisories and activated a special Web site located at www.bseinfo.org that contains volumes of credible scientific information on BSE.[2] NCBA also followed up with other communications techniques such as a press conference and a follow-up to all key affliates in the Beef industry.
Theories
In the NCBA crisis, there were two theories at work. The first of which is the Image Repair Theory. The theory states that the organization must first determine what is posing a threat to their image and then decide how and which publics need to be addressed in order to gain or maintain a positive light. [3] The beef industry had the unfortunate task of recovering themselves from what could have been the demise of an industry. Whenever there is some sort of outbreak of disease, people begin to question practices and safety of a company and whether they are doing or have been doing everything in their power to keep the consumer safe. With this crisis, the NCBA took the chance to reassure people that their meat was in fact safe and that the industry could adapt and change to make sure that the meat supply remained reliable.

The second theory was the situational crisis communication theory. The theory proposes two steps for evaluating crises and making the adequate response. First the crisis type must be identified, and then the performance history and crisis severity needs to be determined. In this case, we see that the crisis type could be easily identified as a public health concern. This matter could not be over looked because it had such potentially wide-spreading impact. Once the organization identified the issue, they were able to determine that it is a serious crisis and that it must be addressed with reassuring scientific data and messages. This theory also identifies the performance history of the organization. The NCBA had a history of preparation because of previous outbreaks of disease in beef industries around the world. This theory if utilized properly can show an organization just how to respond to various levels of crises based on where they have been and how they have dealt with and planned for them before.

Sources:

1. Arlene Weintraub and Janet Ginsburg. “A Bum Steer on Mad Cow Disease.” Academic Search Premier Issue 3865 (January 2004)
2. National Cattlemen's Beef Association (2004) Business Bulleting Archive: NCBA and its State Partners Respond to Crisis. Web Address: www.beefusa.org/NEWSNCBAandisstatepartnersrespondtocrisis3314.aspx. Date Visited: March 26,2008.
3. Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Crisis Communication (Mahwah, NJ: 2007), pg. 52.