The Swiss Banks : a communication crisis management perspective

M.A.This study determines the role of crisis management in the dormant account crisis that faced three Swiss banks from 1995 until 2000. This research topic involving the Swiss banks was selected for numerous reasons. Firstly, there was an immense amount of media interest from around the world. Secondly, the geographical area that the crisis was focused in-the western world- is arguably the world's financial powerhouse. Thirdly, the issues surrounding the crisis itself were highly emotive and had its roots in the period shortly before World War Two. Fourthly, on closer investigation very little research had been done on Western corporate financial crises and most importantly, no research had been done on the way the Swiss banks managed their crisis. All of these issues combined provided a very interesting platform on which to begin researching the value of effective crisis management, from a strategic standpoint, for a western corporate financial company.To facilitate an effective and objective analysis of the case study, an extensive literature study had to be undertaken. The origins of public relations had to be researched to understand how the profession had developed. In addition, crisis management also had to be studied to understand how this discipline of public relations works. From there, the role of public relations had to be studied to comprehend exactly what should have been done, in terms of how crisis management is an element of public relations, for the Swiss banks before the crisis began.Following on from this it was established, from the literature study, that planning for a crisis is one of the foundations of crisis management.AThe most important aspects of and contributors to crisis planning were then considered. It was also established that crises have different stages that they pass through. This was then investigated as well as the relevant aspects needed to manage each stage. An important aspect encountered in each crisis is the media. The different parts of media training were studied. followed by arguably one of the most difficult aspects of crisis management- managing the media