Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Case Study

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
According to an online article from Thought Company, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill polluted the waters of Prince William Sound, coated more than a thousand miles of pristine coastline and killed hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, and animals. This crisis has become a symbol of human-caused environmental disasters all over the world. Many years after the accident, and despite billions of dollars spent on cleanup efforts, crude oil can still be found under the rocks and sand on the beaches of southwest Alaska, and the effects of the spill are still apparent in the lasting damage done to many native species. (West, 2017) This specific incident was a major crisis that acted as a prodrome for the oil industry. For the purpose of this assignment it is important that we take a look at the details of this event. From there, we will look at how Exxon handled the

The Exxon Corporation’s reputation was very obviously in trouble, but because they failed to gain control or even show an adequate amount of effort and concern, they caused even more problems for the company. There are a number of ways that Exxon could have handled this crisis, but they chose to run with a theory that did not help them in the long-run. The most obvious theory of communications used, probably unknowingly to Exxon, was the corporate apologia theory. This is a theory of bad taste and outright denial. Exxon could not deny that they caused this massive oil spill, but they did try and push off most of the blame and they did not do a good job of taking responsibility for their actions. The corporate apologia theory is one where the company is only interested in defending their reputation, but does not necessarily apologize, will deny most wrongdoing, and even accuses others for the incident. This is exactly what happened in the case of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil