Corporate Sustainability Crisis Management: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Corporate sustainability crises involve imbalances of a company’s goal system and related actions that appear to relevant stakeholders to be one-sidedly directed at achieving economic profit at the expense of environmental or social goals. Such crises can substantially jeopardize the company’s existence unless suitable strategies of crisis management are applied. In addition to reactive measures, such strategies also include forward-looking means capable of preventing lasting crises or mitigating crisis aggravation. This paper suggests a framework for managing corporate sustainability crises with reference to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), focusing on general conditions and crisis phases for managing a crisis effectively and efficiently. It becomes clear that companies can successfully cope with various crisis situations through the use of active and reactive CSR when taking into account the temporal fit, content fit, stakeholder fit, and corporate fit of the measures envisaged. Several management implications for crisis resolution are derived.