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ABSTRACT
In 2013, the global dairy company Fonterra recalled its potentially contaminated Whey Protein Concentrates (WPC 80). This recall crisis led to a drop in sales in China not only for Fonterra but also all dairy products originating in New Zealand. We adopted the Cultural Discourse Studies approach (Shi, 2015) to present a holistic analysis of Fonterra’s crisis communication behavior with regard to this crisis. We treat Fonterra’s reactions to the recall crisis as a discursive/communicative event with multiple elements and focus on its cultural orientation. Though Fonterra reacted to the crisis in a professional manner, it ignored special concerns from the Chinese market and was clearly deficient in intercultural understanding and in communicating with the public. This resulted in an ineffective and asymmetrical communication and consequently its short-term failure. This paper enriches current crisis communication literature by providing a cultural discourse studies’ paradigm in addition to discussing crisis communication in a global context.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Dantong Zhao is a lecturer at School of International Studies, University of International Business and Economics, China. Her research interests include cultural discourse studies, crisis communication and corporate communication.
Krishnamurthy Sriramesh is a professor at the College of Media, Communication and Information, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. He is recognized for his scholarship on global public relations as well as research on the impact of culture on public relations, corporate social responsibility, public relations for development, and strategic public relations management.