Impact of strategic public relations on cris Research Paper

Impact of strategic public relations on cris - Research Paper Example The unpreparedness of organizations for crisis management often implies they get caught off guard when a crisis occurs, meaning the response to and the handling of such a crisis would obviously be in jeopardy (American Petroleum Institute, 2008). In fact, that crises occur at any time from different sources such as human error, management incompetence, industrial accidents and natural disasters makes it rather difficult to foresee. In fact, most management teams, upon creating crises, deny the existence of the said crises, resulting in the accumulation and explosion of problems and the subsequent public uproar. An extensive literature review has revealed that it is the responsibility of managers, junior personnel, and owners to employ whatever means and resources at their disposal to prevent and solver crises before they cause extensive damages to a company’s reputation, productivity, profitability and survival (Parry et al., 2006). The mainly cited techniques of solving industrial and organizational crises are self-confidence, skills/competences and absorption of public fear/anger. All these strategies should be geared towards reducing or entirely eliminating the harm to an organization’s income and reputation. In fact, brilliant managers and owners may even manage and solve crises without the public hearing about the crisis. However, once a crisis becomes a public issue, strategic Public Relations (PR) is highly recommended for addressing such an issue. This literature review section explores the numerous PR strategies that the oil and gas industry stakeholders apply to mai ntain and improve their reputation when faced with crises. Because information travels quite fast in the contemporary society, crisis management planning has become a useful tool for the gas and oil industry, which is rather crisis-prone. It is, thus, imperative that