Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

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.