Aim: The aim of this study was to analyse how corporations can learn from past issues and corporate crises and to see how they use this knowledge in the management of subsequent issues and corporate crises. Furthermore, the influence of media on the possible intensification of the issue or corporate crisis, but also its impact on the company’s usage of knowledge management, was to be analysed. Method: The study was carried out through a case study method, in the hope of being able to analyze how a company makes use of knowledge management in the communication that occurs during issues and corporate crises. A semi-structured interview was conducted, with the head of public relations of the chosen company as a respondent. The purpose of the interview was to analyze the underlying factors behind a specific way of communicating. Content analysis was made on both press releases, to quantify and see if communication evolved over time, but also in news articles, to see how media's portrayal of different situations had changed with time. Result & conclusions: The study has shown a tendency for companies to use knowledge management in order to make the communication of issues, especially those that are fairly routine and continuous, more effective than beforehand. The more issues a company undergoes, the greater the possibility is of being able to use knowledge management. Another tendency that this study has shown support for is that as much as a company can make use of knowledge management to improve their communications, the media also tends to use knowledge management to facilitate their exposé of issues and corporate crises. This was visualized by the result that media to a greater extent today publishes articles that only contains the information that the company has published in their press releases, as compared to in the beginning of the period being studied, when the media to a greater extent brought in other types of information, which was not depicted in the company’s press releases.

Purpose: The study aims to analyze how companies can learn from past communications in critical situations and during corporate crisis, and see how they use this knowledge in the management of subsequent critical situations and corporate crisis. Furthermore, the media is analyzed to see how the newspaper industry chooses to reflect an organization and its actions, and also to see if the pressure through articles in the newspapers has an impact on the extent of the situation. Method: A qualitative case study of Sweden’s largest food company, ICA Sverige AB, where knowledgeable people in media management within the company are interviewed using semi-structured interviews, with support of quantitative methods by a collection of articles from the news press. Theories: Concepts, theories and models in crisis management and communication has been applied to relevant data. These comprise Knowledge Management, a communication template in crisis management, The Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and the model Content of crisis communication. Empiric: Based on the quantitative data consisting of articles from four Swedish news sources: Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet and Expressen, a semi-structured interview guide was created and carried out with the person within ICA who possesses knowledge of the subject area. Conclusion: ICA has during the priod studied exhibited to have used the concept of Knowledge Management in the development of their routines regarding product recalls at product defects. The relationships between ICA and the media have shown improvements, which has resulted in ICA percieve the media coverage as balanced, true and fair.

Facebook´s importance has grown significantly regarding crisis communication. A deficiency concerning what types of companies has been investigated earlier and how their crisis communication should be carried out on Facebook, has been identified. The aim of this study is to examine the crisis communication of a smaller company on Facebook and explore how this communication has been received by the company’s recipients. We apply an explorative approach on to a case study in order to answer the aim. The posts of the company and the comments of the Facebook users were coded and analyzed to see whether the crisis communication of the company had resulted in a positive, negative or neutral outcome. Based on this study it can be stated that no association between the communication of the company and the reactions of the Facebook users can be identified. This lack of association is due to more contributory factors than the ones investigated in this paper.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att söka djupare förståelse kring hur företag agerar vid företagskriser, vilka strategier de tar till sig. Vidare syftar studien till att bidra till djupare förståelse kring hur kriskommunikation tas emot av konsumenter på sociala medier. Metod: En kvalitativ fallstudie har tillämpats på fyra företag som har genomgått en publik företagskris. Den samlade empirin grundar sig på sekundärdata som har framställts genom en E-forskningsmetod. För att undersöka konsumentresponsen har 100 slumpmässiga kommentarer valts från respektive kommentarsfält för att sedan presenteras i ett ordmoln där de mest kommenterade orden illustreras. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Den teoretiska referensramen innefattar teorierna: Corporate Apologia, Image Repair Theory och Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Slutsats: Studiens slutsats ger indikationer på att företag ber om ursäkt för händelsen och kommunicerar ut alla beslut som tas rörande den. Det går att antyda att konsumenter reagerar varierande på kriskommunikation där företag enbart ber om ursäkt för den händelsen. Det går även att antyda att konsumenterna till största del har en generellt positiv bild av kriskommunikation där företag kommunicerar ut en handlingsplan, i samband med att företaget tidigare har bett om ursäkt för händelsen. / Purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine how companies use external communication, through different communication strategies during a corporate crisis. Furthermore how customers respond to the company's crisis communication.   Methodology: A qualitative case study was applied to four companies that have undergone a corporate crisis. The empirical data is based on secondary data that have been collected through an E-science methodology. To examine the customer response on the crisis communication, 100 random comments were selected from each comment section. The response is presented in a wordcloud where the most frequently used words are illustrated in the cloud. Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework includes the theories: Corporate Apologia, Image Repair Theory and Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Conclusion: The conclusion provides indications that companies apologize for the incident and communicate all decisions made regarding it. It can be suggested that consumers react differently to crisis communication where companies only apologize for that event. It can also be suggested that consumers for the most part have a generally positive image of crisis communication where companies communicate an action plan, in addition to that the company previously has apologized for the incident.

Företag blir idag mer exponerade för negativ publicitet än tidigare i och med digitaliseringens framfart. Det är därför viktigt för företag att veta hur de ska hantera den negativa publiciteten som mottages för att sedan kunna förebygga en kris och sitt företagsrykte genom väl genomtänkta strategier. Tidigare forskning jämför hur företag inom samma bransch förebygger och hanterar en företagskris. Däremot, att undersöka hur företag i olika branscher förebygger en kris är outforskat och det behövs vidare forskning kring detta ämne. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilka strategier företag i olika branscher arbetar med för att förebygga en företagskris för att se huruvida olika branscher använder sig av samma strategier.  Studien har använt sig av en kvalitativ studie genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex fallföretag varav två företag är verksamma inom samma bransch: bank-, el- och telekommunikationsbranschen.  Resultatet visar att företagen strävar efter samma mål genom samma strategier men utförandet kan skilja sig åt efterom de har olika förutsättningar beroende på bransch. Genom studien har en analysmodell skapats för att visa företag de olika strategier som kan appliceras vid förebyggandet av en kris och sambandet mellan att arbeta proaktivt och reaktivt med varumärket, kundlojalitet och krishantering. Studien bidrar till att ge företag oavsett bransch praktiska lösningar som kan tillämpas i praktiken då företagen i de olika branscherna använder sig av samma strategier vid förebyggandet och under en kris. / Companies today are more exposed to negative publicity than ever before due to digitalization. It is important for companies to know how to manage the negative publicity that is received in order to be able to prevent a crisis and reputation through well-thought-out strategies. Previous research shows how companies within the same industry prevent and manage a crisis. However, investigating how companies in different industries prevent a crisis is unexplored and further research is needed on this topic. This study aims to highlight which strategies companies in different industries use to prevent a corporate crisis to see whether different industries use the same strategies.  The study has used a qualitative study where the primary data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with six case companies, two of which are active in the same industry: banking, electrical and telecommunications industry. The result shows that the companies strive for the same goals through the same strategies, but the execution may differ because they have different conditions depending on the industry. Through the study, an analysis model has been created to show how companies the different strategies that can be applied in order to prevent a crisis as well as the connection between working proactive and reactive with the brand, customer loyalty and crisis management which contributes to providing companies, regardless of industry, with practical solutions that can be applied in practice.