This thesis explores how the legitimacy and reputation of firms that have experienced severe crises can be restored through the means of crisis management and crisis communication strategies. Our focus is on the airline industry, analyzing how three European airlines have communicated and acted towards important shareholders during and following a fatal airline accident. The airlines that have been compared are Air France, Spanair and SAS; an analysis of their press releases, press conferences, annual reports and websites has been conducted. We found that Air France and SAS communicated more information compared to Spanair and also showed that they had a clear strategy to uphold their legitimacy through the crisis. When dealing with a crisis many stakeholders have a high demand for information and if the airline satisfies this need in a satisfactory way they live up to the stakeholders expectations and gain legitimacy. Communicating a clear strategy as to how the airline is working towards improving flight safety can be seen as an important part of upholding the airline's legitimacy and reputation after an airline accident, something that especially Air France has done through clear safety communications through their annual report and website.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-144082 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Hansson, Anna, Vikström, Tomas |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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