Psychology

Negative Public Relations Disaster

Introduction

Public relation is a concept that all businesses have to deal with. This runs from online reviews to general consumer satisfaction. Dealing with negative events and news related to the business is part of public relations. A negative public relations disaster occurs when negative reviews or events threaten to impact a company’s brand reputation. Public relations are harmful at some point but how a company reacts to them determines the detrimental impact. Most businesses face negative public relations crises from executive scandals, bad reviews, and negative incidents that have a powerful impact on the company’s reputation. Organizations should focus on tactics of mitigating and handling the crisis with efficiency and ease.

Uber’s Negative Public Relations

Over the years, Uber has been hit by negative publicity and scandals linked to discrimination and sexual harassment claims. The PR disaster led to the company’s CEO resigning and straining relationships between the customer and the drivers. Uber has been plunged into more negative public relations with claims of spying on their competitors, underpaying drivers, and sexual harassment claims. In 2017, there were allegations of discrimination and harassment (O’Rourke, 2017). Susan Fowler, one of the engineers at Uber, revealed that her boss had been pestering her for sex (Becker, 2020). When Susan sent the screenshots from the company chat services, Uber agreed that this was sexual harassment but was not in a position to punish the boss, who was a high performer.

The negative public relations have impacted the company’s revenue and customer relations. For instance, in 2016, they had a net loss of about $2.8 million, forcing them to reduce the driver’s overall pay. Uber’s unending negative public relations significantly affect its rising losses. Other than the scandals that cost the company, Uber has had subsequent accusations and blunders that have ruined the reputation of the company from its start-up. If Uber could focus on positive PR strategies, it could contain the spread of negative news about the scandals and help regain its reputation.

Brand reputation issues put companies in danger of losing market share to their competitors immediately. For instance, Uber is facing struggles that have triggered consumers to question their reputation after continued reputation problems. The brand dilemma of Uber remains complicated even after its rocky start as a public company (Griffith, van Esch, and Trittenbach, 2018). Recently, investors have pressured the company to make money after its largest quarterly losses. The attempt of Uber to revamp its image following the crisis indicates the potential limitations of the company’s capability to win back the customers, however much they spend. Uber has joined the group of companies that have struggled with varying success to restore brands.

4C’s of Peace Making

Social psychologists have focused on four approaches that help eliminate negative publicity. The four C’s of peace-making include cooperation, contact, conciliation, and communication (Smith, 2020). The four C’s of peace-making includes the devotion to ending a public relations disaster to facilitate peacekeeping forces. Companies that focus on reaching peace through these elements are expected to uphold high standards of integrity, honesty, and maintaining respect for others around them. Contact entails putting people in close contact to lower their hostilities. The degree of contact a group or individuals have with each other could determine the failure or success of the peace-making process. Contact will create deeper relations, thus preventing the current thinking on negative publicity.

Cooperation entails working together to improve the environmental situation and lower related situations. Cooperation will allow the opposing groups to work together towards averting the common threat and build common interest and cohesiveness towards building Uber. Communication entails mediation, bargaining, and arbitration. For instance, the mediator will re-evaluate the perspective of the situation and help promote fair communication. Company crisis call for vital communication to restore and shelter the company’s reputation. Conciliation will help understand the conflicts and create connections between different stakeholders involved, thus leading initiatives that will respond to the violence.

The Concepts of Social Norms, Reciprocity Norm, and Social Responsibility Norm

Social norms are considered the cognitive representations of what is important to others. This is what people would typically feel, think and do in a certain situation, and they use these as points of reference to assess and guide their own feelings, thoughts, and behavior. For instance, social media can help an organization such as Uber to understand the behavior and attitudes of people and how they spread and identify messages that influence public relations. The reciprocity norm entails the human interaction rule that states that people ought to reciprocate the behavior of other people.

Uber can focus on a vital aspect of people’s motivation and returning good deeds to promote positive public relations. The reciprocity norm boosts cooperation by bringing about responsiveness to individuals. Social responsibility entails being accountable for actions and civic duty that will benefit the entire society. For instance, employing social responsibility communication in apology statements can be a significant role in reducing negative public relations. Social responsibility is an effective tool to help counter the negative influence of a crisis.

Conclusion

Negative public relations can result in a company losing its competition or customer. Online shaming and bad press impact the sales of a company, employee turnover, and employee turnover. Uber blunders, scandals, and PR disasters have led to negative publicity in recent years. The 4C’s of peace-making help in identifying the negative situations and creating solutions that will eliminate negative public relations. Relatively, social norms, reciprocity norms, and social responsibility norms are effective in reducing negative publicity.

References

Becker, P. A. (2020). Work alienation and Disengagement: Sexual harassment and Uber. The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Well-Being, 1-27.

Griffith, D. A., van Esch, P., & Trittenbach, M. (2018). Investigating the mediating effect of Uber’s sexual harassment case on its brand: Does it matter? Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 43, 111-118.

O’Rourke, M. (2017). The year at risk 2017. Risk Management, 64(11), 20-25.

Smith, R. D. (2020). Strategic planning for public relations. Routledge.