Over the past two decades, I cannot think of one instance where a Japanese company has done a good job managing a crisis. The pattern is all too familiar, typically involving slow initial response, minimizing the problem, foot dragging on the product recall, poor communication with the public about the problem and too little compassion and concern for consumers adversely affected by the product.Under the big umbrella of the Asian culture, Toyota's corporate culture (and those of other companies as well) has been deeply impacted by the belief that crises should be solved asap w/o losing the company's face. Face work here is a big deal. Even with modern technologies and management models incorporated, Japanese corporations kept their traditional values in issue management process. Toyota eventually made a good gesture to apologize. Yet I am not optimistic how the European and American customers will say.
Social media here works as an agent for Toyota. By communicating through media conference, the video clip got distributed all over the world through news websites, YouTube, Twitter, and all. This bridged the communication gaps between companies and consumers.
In the end of the video, Toyota's President Mr. Toyoda used his not-quite-fluent English to express his concern to the customers, "so please believe me, we always customers first, customers first priority..." Despite the incredible delay of the apology, Toyota made its way to spread its messages to its stakeholders and to express their concerns of consumers.
With a gloomy future ahead, the Toyota fiasco should have taught many Japanese companies, as well as corporations worldwide, a good lesson about crisis communication.
Toyota's Apologies through media conference [Video]
5 comments:
Japanese companies really need to consider their ways dealing with crisis. Only apologize and recall will not turn things around, though my car is not in the recall list.
@ Charlie
Glad that you car is not in the recall list!
Gee, what a mess... From the video, it was quite obvious that the typical Japanese taciturnity wasn't well received by Western stakeholders. I mean responding by doing (recall)is fundamental, but responding by communicating is integral- speak up and admit a mistake.
I think this is a good example of some of the problems that arise with international business. Perhaps Toyota believed that they did a sufficent job. However, from a western culture viewpoint it was poor. I think there will be alot of similar situations (with organizations and governments from around the world) for the next few years until a standard of crisis commnication is established and upheld by all. Nice post!
It goes to show how culture affects our perceptions. As international PR practitioners, or even PR practitioners, we really need to understand how culture will impact our message. I think we did a reading for IPR today which explains how globalization and glocalization are impacting how we relay information to our publics - and this is a good example of needing to understand who your stakeholders are. Very interesting how this message became so viral through social media - it goes to show how much of an impact it's making in our society.
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