Economic Crises and Financial Disasters: The Role of Business Communication

Abstract

Turmoil has rocked the business world this year. Two major global investment banks, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, collapsed. Facing bankruptcy, the world's largest insurance company, AIG, was bought out by taxpayers. The biggest bank failure in U.S. history occurred when federal regulators seized Washington Mutual. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a stock market index, has plunged by more than a third this year, decimating retirement funds and college savings. Rates of unemployment and home foreclosures have skyrocketed. Earlier this month, the U.S. Congress passed a $700 billion bailout to try to revive the credit markets and the larger economy. In the wake of this global economic crisis, some of those responsible were summoned to testify under oath before Congressional committees to explain to the public what went wrong. What they said opened a window onto the thought processes and communication abilities of major business leaders. Many of them denied responsibility, failed to explain what occurred, and undermined their own credibility; as a result they were pilloried by Congress and the media (Becker & White, 2008;Dodd, 2008).But how are these people connected to those of us who teach and do research in business communication? Unfortunately, these are our alumni, our former students. Most of them took our courses, graduated from our colleges and universities, attended our executive seminars, and sought our consulting advice. They certainly are experienced practitioners of business communication. Did we fail them or did they fail us? Are we as an

Metaphoric moral framing and image-text relations in the op-ed genre

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Understanding and Preventing Dysfunctional Behavior in Organizations

“…The Société Générale bank case (Allen, 2008) highlighted the fraudulent and deviant behavior by Jerome Kerviel which resulted in losses of US$7.2 billion (€4.9 billion). The Lehman Brothers collapse was argued to be the result of a culture of hubris, imprudence, corruption, and fraudulent behavior (Gaffney, 2009; Jameson, 2009). The knock-on effect of the Lehman Brothers failure created a contagion effect that affected other banking institutions.…”

Comparing leaders across contexts, culture, and time: Computerized content analysis of leader–follower communications

“…What leaders say, and what leaders say they do, often provide critical insights into interpersonal, group, and organizational issues. As Jameson (2009) points out, recent economic crises, business scandals, and financial disasters are often more communication problems than either ethical or technical problems. In the current paper, we argue that the study of leadership communications across different contexts and historical time periods can augment our understanding of the communication processes that underlie outcomes that are not commonly examined from the lens of leader communications.…”