Alan Jay Zaremba's Case Study: Organizational Communication At The Nuance Group

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There are many definitions for what is considered to be a crisis. Alan Jay Zaremba, author of the textbook ”Organizational Communication,” combines several definitions of the word to conclude that a crisis is “an incident that occurs unexpectedly, could damage an organization’s reputation, values, and/or performance, and requires effective communication. (Zaremba, 2010) In the case of the Nuance Group, their current situation completely blindsided the organization, was a nightmare for their reputation, and communication was now the key element in restoring their image. This was indeed a crisis.
The Nuance Group found itself in a dilemma when it was discovered they not only created a brochure with false information, but they distributed …show more content…

The crisis at the Nuance group appears to be a “Reputational” crisis. The case study states that the Nuance Group is “a successful management consulting company.” (Zaremba, 2010) In order to be successful, you must have a positive reputation, which was most likely the case with the Nuance Group. However, as Warren Buffet said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it”. (Tuttle, 2010) By publishing false information in their brochures, and distributing them to the public, the Nuance Group portrayed themselves as devious and untrustworthy, amongst other negative …show more content…

The Nuance Group can express their disbelief that their employees could act in such unethical ways. They could also use denial in the sense that they had no idea this was going on. This could help to portray them as victims rather than the bad guys. (Zaremba, 2010)
A third image restoration technique is compassion. By expressing empathy for the possible repercussions the false brochures could have had on all the stakeholders, the Nuance Group will portray itself as a considerate organization that knows how to recognize when they have made a mistake. (Zaremba, 2010)
The Nuance Group also needs to acknowledge the importance of responding quickly to the situation. Zaremba tells us on page 249, “All recommendations for crisis communicators emphasize the need for speedy reactions.” He goes on to explain that the first twenty-four hours of a crisis is the most critical. (Zaremba, 2010) It is within the first 24 hours that opinions are formed regardless of whether the organization has communicated anything. Although the Nuance Group needs some time to figure out the logistics of their crisis communication plan, they have a very short window to do

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