Företags hantering av kris En studie av Volkswagens agerande under dieselgate

Sammanfattning: A plan for crisis management is one of the most important strategies a company can implement. However, less than one third of all companies have one in place before crisis strikes. Volkswagen is one of the world's biggest automobile producers, 2015 VW got into a predicament with dieselgate, when it was discovered that the company was installing software in cars that was manipulating emission readings. With the goal to conduct research about the phenomenon of crisis management empirical evidence was collected from Volkswagens homepage, sustainability report and newspaper articles about dieselgate. Furthermore, different theories from scientific articles were collected and put in a digital context to fit the analysis of how companies should react according to those theories and compare to how VW handled the crisis. Different theories like conformity, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory were applied to investigate how companies can manage a crisis or information in a way that will satisfy interested parties and assure that the problem is being resolved. The conclusion to be drawn here is that Volkswagen managed dieselgate in an effective way. They used different strategies to control the flow of information and contain the spreading of rumors. VW has shown a willingness to change and take steps in the right direction. Furthermore, did the company make a show of transparency, to further minimize risk of rumors occurring. Volkswagen took into consideration the needs of their different interested parties, which in turn helped to instill trustworthiness again. In the end an argument can be made, that VW came though the crisis with losses, but a lot of positive outlooks on the future, both from economic and sustainability standpoints.