Did BP atone for its transgressions? Expanding theory of “ethical apology in crisis communication

• Main Authors: DIERS-LAWSON, Audra, PANG, Augustine
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2016
• Subjects: Crisis communication; image repair; Business and Corporate Communications; Organizational Behavior and Theory; Organizational Communication
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5955; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/6954/viewcontent/Diers_Lawson_et_al_2016_Journal_of_Contingencies_and_Crisis_Management__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Ethical communication during crisis response is often assessed by external perceptions of the organization's intentions, rather than an assessment of the organization's communicative behaviors. This can easily lead researchers to draw editorial conclusions about an organization's ethics in crisis response rather than accurately describing its communicative behaviors. The case of BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provides a prime example for the importance of accurately assessing the ethical content of an organization's crisis response because the ethics of BP's response have been discussed in news and academic sources; yet little direct examination of the ethical content in BP's response has occurred. The findings have implications for communication ethics, social media engagement, and crisis communication more generally.