Reference no: EM133206862

Case: You are the most recent addition to the management staff at ROBOTORIUM, having been with the company for just three years. You obtained a bachelor's degree in human resources from Ohio State University and a master's degree in communications from Florida State University. Prior to working with ROBOTORIUM, you handled public relations at a nonprofit organization for five years. You took this job because you thought it would be a personal challenge to represent a larger for-profit business.

Besides, you were raised by your dad using ROBOTORIUM products. Several months ago, you learned that the company had developed and was going to release a product that had some safety concerns. Most department heads were not concerned about the problem because of a lack of solid evidence that a danger existed. You have been somewhat monitoring the situation, although it has not been your highest priority due to recent union negotiations which are taking up a majority of your time. You wished you had paid more attention to this product, but you had assigned advertising of the Robo-Turbo-Mow to your assistant for pre-release sale orders. Recently, the CEO informed you that a corporate meeting is imminent.

As the Director of public relations, it is your responsibility to gain information about public opinion to present to the CEO. As you begin to collect this information, you find disturbing news. Many consumers do not trust ROBOTORIUM because of its handling of a defective robotic surgical arm which was alleged to cause the death of two patients five years' ago. At the time, the negative press and social media had caused ROBOTORIUM to take a step back and enhance their public relations campaign especially with their long-standing customers. Additionally, rumors are now circulating about ROBOTORIUM's product defects and have implied that a whistle-blower has come forward. ROBOTORIUM does not have a whistle-blower program set up, so you are unsure if this is accurate.

You know that a single negative event can wipe out a company's reputation and destroy favorable customer attitudes established through years of expensive advertising campaigns and other promotional efforts. In this situation you need to minimize the negative publicity, yet still address the media. You suddenly wish the company had developed a crisis plan before this happened. The CEO has called an all-hands emergency meeting at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. You are expected to bring all knowledge of this situation with you for discussion and creation of a comprehensive action plan.