Crisis Communication in Croatian Business Organizations

Abstract

Effective management of the communication process is an important factor of successful crisis management in business organizations. Effective communication implies an uninterrupted flow of all relevant information in all directions and at all levels of a business organization, as well as communication with its external environment. In crisis situations the management has to quickly answer these questions: What happened? How it happened? How to act during crisis? What to do so that the crisis is not repeated? Each filtering, deforming or reduction of information can lead to disastrous consequences.

Pre-prepared crisis communication plans and the encouragement of the open and honest communication with all stakeholders inside and outside of a business organization are an indispensable part of successful crisis management. The goal of the research is to analyze the management of communication processes in crisis situations in Croatian business organizations, i.e. to investigate the extent to which attention is paid to the crisis communication between a business organization and its public. Research shall be conducted through a survey on the multiple stratified samples of Croatian business organizations.