A corporate crisis situation is an integral part of a company’s life cycle. On average, the probability that corporate manager will experience a corporate crisis situation within five years is almost as high as 82%. Multinational companies in particular face a higher potential because of their various external environments, extended media and respectively public interest in their actions, and consequently their dependence on different public opinions as well as the much wider impacts because of their publics’ spread. Well planned and organisationally integrated multinational crisis communication is a key success factor in a crisis situation. Yet existing models and frameworks in crisis communication are rather tactically than strategically oriented, lack in of the depth of the guidance they provide, and present limitations in their scope of application. In addition, publications on crisis communication provided by experts with practical experience mainly deal with a wide field of case studies and neglect scientific applications a holistic view on strategic multinational crisis communication is weak. The dissertation examines the nature of strategic multinational crisis communication and identifies their general organisational integration and coherences with corporate functions within a multinational environment. By following a theoretical analysis approach, deficiencies and weaknesses of existing crisis communication theories and the underlying literature will be identified. This is accomplished through constant comparison of these science-based bodies of data with current needs and requirements coming from practice (practice body of data) in multinational crisis communication. These results build the foundation for a new practice-related and scientifically supported theory in long term planned crisis communication for multinational companies. By reducing complexity through arranging and organising complexity, the first generation of a new strategic multinational crisis communication model will be developed based on the system-oriented approach. In the new theory, multinational companies will effectively and efficiently plan and organise those identified dimensions that are critical for successful multinational crisis communication in order to protect existing values and create new values.

Textprobe: Kapitel 2.2.2, MNCs’ Internal and External Environment: The complexity of the external and internal environment has an enormous influence on MNCs, regardless of which field or industry it relates to. Fields such as telecommunication technologies, computing, biotechnology, transportation, energy supply and medicine have grown and changed rapidly during the last twenty years. These changes resulted in new products and services, enhanced and adapted customer needs (for example through internet and mobile technologies), new marketing channels, and new competition for instance from the BRIC states. MNCs faced a continuously diversified business landscape which requires a massive amount of new resources, capabilities and competitive advantages . In the following the MNCs’ pressures and influences coming from these environmental factors will be categorised into Political, Economic, Social and Technological (PEST) clusters . Referring to the modes of internationalisation, pressure for local responsiveness or global integration (see figure 1, chapter 2.1) the author presents influencing factors on firms’ local or global alignment. The reasons for that emerge from risk management, which will be introduced in chapter 2.4 is concerned in arising risks from firms’ internal and external environment. Only by scanning those environments will a firm be able to identify and manage risks and avoid crisis situations which break out because of deficiencies in a firm’s risk management. Therefore, the more different environments a MNC has to scan and monitor, the higher the risk potential arising from these environments is. In other words, the more complex MNC’s environment is, the higher the risk potential is.

• Corporate Communication

• Systemic Approach

• Crisis Management

• multinational environment

Christian Fronz, M.Sc., wurde 1981 in Leipzig geboren. Nach seiner Berufsausbildung und seiner anschließenden sechsjährigen Tätigkeit im nationalen und internationalen Projektmanagement und Vertrieb bei einem globalen IT Unternehmen mit Sitz in den USA, entschied er sich 2006, seine Kompetenzen durch ein Wirtschaftsstudium weiter auszubauen. Er erlangte den Bachelor (B.A.) in Betriebswirtschaft mit eigenem Schwerpunkt in Controlling und Kommunikation an der Fachhochschule Mainz im Jahr 2009. Darauf folgend absolvierte er den Master of Science (M.Sc.) in International Business an der London South Bank University im Jahr 2011. Der Bezug zu strategischer Kommunikation und die daraus resultierende strategische und operative Ausrichtung von Start-Up’s bis hin zu multinationalen Unternehmen standen immer im Fokus des Autors. Seit Anfang 2011 promoviert Christian Fronz an der TU Berlin im Bereich Entrepreneurship, arbeitet als Assistent am Institut für Unternehmerisches Handeln (IUH) in Mainz, und ist zudem freiberuflich als Lehrbeauftragter tätig.