A Way with Words Chasing a Definition for Corporate Public Apologies

A Way With Words Chasing A Definition For Corporate Public Apologies

A StockWell Communications Report by Nina M Chung February 2015 A Way With Words - Chasing a Definition for Corporate Public Apologies

AS SOCIAL INTERACTIONS GO, apologies are fairly fundamental, but nonetheless, they can be awfully complicated. Parents teach their children Foreword to apologise for every misdemeanor, because they want them to have good manners. But enter the corporate world and things are less straightforward. Lawyers worry that an apology equates to accepting responsibility and that inevitably means someone bringing a claim and damages being awarded. Some executives may argue that a particular event was not their fault and it is not for them to apologise. Newspapers all too often call for an apology. It was with this in mind that made the research proposal submitted by Nina Chung so compelling.

In 2014, we launched the StockWell LSE Polis research prize. Post-graduate students were asked to submit original research proposals on the topic of “Corporate Reputation, Media and Society”. The winner was chosen by a panel of judges that included:

Carolyn Esser, Senior Communications Officer at Europe, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Matthew Young, Group Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group; Kamal Ahmed, Business Editor at The BBC; Professor Charlie Beckett, Director of Polis and Head of the Media & Communications Department at LSE, and me.

Nina has done some fascinating research that raises fundamental questions about how those of us who seek to influence reputations, need to approach the thorny issue of apologies.

Anthony Silverman Partner London, 2015

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Contents

4 INTRODUCTION & KEY FINDINGS

6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

7 BIG APPROACHES TO APOLOGIES

13 THE ACT OF APOLOGY

28 CONCLUSION

29 METHODOLOGY & THANKS TO THE CONTRIBUTORS

30 REFERENCES

33 ABOUT THE RESEARCHER

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Introduction “What do I do to make you want me? What have I got to do to be heard? What do I say when it’s all over? And sorry seems to be the hardest word…”

Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word Elton John

ELTON JOHN MAY HAVE GIFTED THE BUSINESS WORLD a soundtrack Until now, studies of corporate public apologies in both media and academia when he sang this song 40 years ago. Once upon a time, the apology was a have been brief or short-sighted, specific to individual case studies or highly speech act between you and me. At face value, it is about a wrong, asking editorial. This study offers a broad, holistic approach combining interviews for forgiveness and moving on. But big companies seem unable to enjoy with senior executives (directing both communications and other functions) that simplicity. Under the bright lights of media scrutiny and atop low levels across a spectrum of industries; reviews of relevant academic literature and of public trust, the seemingly simple phrase of “I’m sorry” has become an commentary on the latest events and scandals. enigma. What does it mean? What does it imply? Audiences, reporters and business executives around the world are asking: What is an apology? This study’s depth comes through the interviews. Guaranteed complete anonymity, interviewees offered personal opinions on why apologies This research on corporate public apologies comes as society reexamines its were necessary, what they constituted, and what made them successful. entire relationship with business. StockWell regularly publishes research on They also explored the differences between private and public apologies. society’s changing expectations of companies and the deepening influence of The interviews were unique because respondents wore the shoes of both digitised media on business. Public apologies and the confusion around them potential giver and receiver of public apologies, allowing this report to fuse emerge out of this shifting landscape. corporate perspectives with audience research.

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Key

Apologies invoke morality and ethics. Findings Corporate apologies confirm “right” and “wrong” and uphold moral standards in society.

Apologies represent leadership. Apologies give companies a chance to lead their peer group in a new direction, but also indicate that today’s business leaders have more expectations to meet.

Apologies have many definitions. There is no universal formula for the occasion, timing and language of a perfect apology.

Ultimately, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Whether an apology or a non-apology “apology,” credibility comes when companies clearly explain how they will resolve the issues – and then do it.

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Executive Summary

WHAT ARE APOLOGIES? What are corporate public apologies? The aim of section explores several elements of an apology, including: Appropriateness this project was to explore real, on-the-ground answers to these questions. (Should we apologise), Timing (When to say it), Language (What to say) and Research was primarily qualitative, using interviews to garner insights on a Purpose (A conduit of change). Interviewees proposed a wide variety of topic often owned by third-party media observers.1 Interviewees included answers in each field. For example, they disagreed on whether apologies founders, directors and presidents in the fields of business, communications, mandated clear vocabulary like “sorry” or “apologise”. Some interviewees finance, global development, journalism and politics. They provided diverse praised apologies that reporters have attacked as non-apology “apologies.”2 responses to most questions, making their points of agreement all the more However, interviewees shared the crucial sentiment that whatever the significant. wording or timing, companies gained the holy grail of public trust by what they did, through and after their statements. The words of a public apology This report is divided into two main sections, Big Approaches to Apologies gained weight when they pointed to and proved a company’s actions. and The Act of Apology. Big Approaches analyses the overall attitudes interviewees held toward why or why not public apologies were necessary. This report concludes that the authenticity of apologies lies in the Most often, interviewees referred to standards of social morality, a complex actions and solutions that follow – even if that apology is not literally an and subjective idea. They also referred to leadership, specifically how a good “apology.” Additionally, interviewees made clear that corporate apologies apology can turn a company or employee into a shining example to lead their were basically a conversation about ethics, which meant that companies peers. should refer to “right” and “wrong” to explain themselves. Beyond this, interpretations of “correct” corporate public apologies varied enormously, The Act of Apology explains how widely apologies were defined. This as this report will reveal below.

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Big Approaches to Apologies

Morality & Ethics Leadership

THIS SECTION OF THE REPORT analyses the broad approaches interviewees used to understand public apologies. The context - financial? media trend? ethics? - within which interviewees set apologies informs the purpose, strategy and value (or lack thereof) they see in them.

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Morality & Ethics

“In the past year, something palpable has begun to change... I want “If it’s a genuine error, obviously there should be an apology and that’s to call it an awakening — an awakening to a larger perspective and a the best way of dealing with it.” bigger view of the role these companies play in the world.” Interviewee 10

Tony Schwartz “Companies are run by human beings... They therefore do bad things Columnist for The New York Times Dealbook blog 3 by accident, or even occasionally by design. So of course there is the need for them sometimes to apologise.” 11 OUT OF THE 13 INTERVIEWEES referred to ideas of “right” and Interviewee 12 “wrong” to explain why corporate public apologies were necessary. This pattern suggested that apologies are meant to put companies on the right SOME INTERVIEWEES traced the corporate public apology back to side of morality with their audience or consumers. Some interviewees were historical truths and did not see corporate apologies as particularly new to very specific, saying that companies should apologise after breaking their society. particular “social commitments” (e.g. food quality for a supermarket), but this specificity was not common. Most interviewees echoed studies in media and “This is something that we have been doing for a long time… it passed management academia that argue that the public defines socially acceptable the test of time for thousands of years, so it will continue to pass the companies by how well they stand within socially accepted moral codes.4 In test of time.” other words, companies had to stay “within the bounds and norms of society,” Interviewee 6 which numerous interviewees independently confirmed.5 “I have always felt... that the apology must have its roots right back “It’s an admission of wrongdoing.” to very early times when there were sacrificial rites. These things are Interviewee 11 quite deeply ingrained in human culture.” Interviewee 5 “You need to be good with ‘What’s the right thing to do?, am I truly sorry for what’s happened and how do I make it right?’ And that will IN MAY 2014 IN LONDON, a conference called “Inclusive Capitalism” take you down a proper course of action... the public relations aspect showcased the broad, ethical terms used to frame corporate behavior. For will fall into place, if you begin by doing the right thing.” example, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Interviewee 6 Lagarde said, “we need to ingrain a greater social consciousness—one

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that will seep into the financial world and forever change the way it does A HIGH-PROFILE EVENT proving this ambiguity was the voluntary exit business.” 6 Lagarde and Bank of England governor, Mark Carney were of Mozilla chief executive, Brendan Eich. After he entered office in March largely responding to the recent “series of scandals that have damaged 2014, news resurfaced that he had donated to an anti-gay marriage political the industry’s reputation” – the kind of scandals that contribute to recent campaign in the United States, an event that already had sparked controversy questions and public demands for apologies and admissions of guilt.7 The two years earlier. Nevertheless, public criticism of him and Mozilla began conference speakers appealed to a moral compass to navigate corporate recirculating within the week. In an exclusive interview with Cnet, Eich behavior, just as this study’s interviewees did to explain public apologies. apologised for an aspect of his donation, saying, “When people learned of the donation, they felt pain... I am sorry for causing that pain.” 8 He subsequently However, some interviewees acknowledged that defining “right” and stepped down, cutting his tenure to less than two weeks.9 Mozilla soon “wrong” is contentious. These interviewees realised that codes of morality apologised for their handling of the event, admitting, “We didn’t move fast are difficult to define and what the public thinks is moral, feels like a moving enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We target. It seemed that, apart from breaking the law, discerning what was must do better.” 10 socially unacceptable could vary in unexpected ways. “Social media has given people much more power to flag concerns…it “What is the acceptable ideology now in my business...Certainly in can actually be quite good for the business.” the West, there is an ill-defined set of beliefs and values that lead Interviewee 2 on to policy positions and policy standards which are acceptable or unacceptable.” Yet as the BBC summarises, the initial protest about his political views Interviewee 12 “quickly turned to howls that Mr Eich was being unjustly punished” for them.11 As Daily Telegraph blogger, Big Issue columnist and online magazine “The sense that public figures have to be held accountable in a broader Spiked editor, Brendan O’Neill poses, “The end result of all this hounding of sense for infringements which are not to do with illegality - it’s just witches with wicked opinions is the creation of a new culture of ‘You Can’t to do with conflicting social norms that are not directly relevant to Say That!’”12 This overall dichotomy serves as a reminder of how volatile the organisation’s activities… The tricky thing is that you’ve got these some social values are, especially in an age characterised by broader public ever-shifting definitions…” discussion and accessible communications. Interviewee 10

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MANY INTERVIEWEES were quick to acknowledge social media as the investigations. The families’ demands were “We want evidence. We want the enforcer of “transparency,” or public accessibility of corporate information. truth. We want our relatives.”15 But one research interviewee from this study Many felt there was a relationship between this transparency, corporate interpreted the events as problematic from the apology perspective, if the accountability and democracy more broadly, because whistleblowers could company actually had no solid information to give. The unsolved tension here now be anyone, anywhere. is a public that assumes companies are maliciously withholding information after a disaster, even when the companies themselves lack new or accurate “Whereas once upon a time you lived in a country or a culture, and information to share. Nevertheless, interviewees suggested that companies maybe even a regulatory or a legal regime, that allowed you to get must communicate some new data regularly to relate to an information- away with things, nowadays it doesn’t matter which country you’re hungry public. in, you can have media from another country scrutinising you. Plus the internet has enabled citizen journalism, so local people who didn’t “I think, as a good company, you need to let people know internally have voice get a voice.” and externally what it is that matters for them. Not necessarily Interviewee 12 everything that you do internally - that would be naive. But communicating what matters for public opinion in general terms in JEFF JARVIS, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR at City University of New York’s the most transparent and honest way - it always has good returns in Graduate School of Journalism, in his book ‘Public Parts’ equated corporate the long run.” and political publicness with more trust and morality, saying, “The greater Interviewee 4 a company’s control of a market, the more trust it must earn and one way to earn it is through transparency.” 13 He was also skeptical of corporate Then again, Jarvis’ advice for companies may be relatively extreme. Financial apologies, reminding readers that “press releases with crafted messages or Times business columnist, John Gapper noted the difference between the mea culpas when somebody screws up” are “not publicness; that’s PR.” 14 “transparency” buzzword and a company releasing everything it knows. In Gapper’s review of Jarvis’ previous book, ‘What Would Google Do?’, he called Jarvis’ demand for total transparency suggests that what the public wants Jarvis’s call for transparency “naïve in its enthusiasm for ‘openness’ and for is a total sharing of corporate information. A similar demand for public ripping up proven business models.” 16 One interviewee seemed to agree, release of all known facts played a significant role in the aftermath of the supporting companies using resources to be public and open, but specifically disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March 2014. Families of on issues that were salient. the Chinese passengers on board demanded an apology from the Malaysian government for not releasing factual or sufficient amounts of data from their

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Leadership

“Leadership is about bearing burdens and thinking beyond businesses. But it takes businesses a long time to even know that, even shareholder value.” when it affects their bottom line.” Interviewee 8 Lionel Barber Editor of The Financial Times 17 OTHER INTERVIEWEES CITED COMPANIES that suffered intensely negative coverage for specific social issues in the past, but bounced back by THE SECOND MAJOR IDEA to arise within this research was that of leading sector-wide responses to those scandals. One example mentioned leadership. Interviewees often said that a good apology symbolised courage was sportswear corporation Nike, which had faced over a decade of global and responsibility, which fostered respect from stakeholders in the long criticism regarding its human and labour rights practices. Then-CEO, Phil term. For some interviewees, an apology was even a chance to lead their Knight even admitted in a 1998 speech to journalists and trade union activists entire sector in a new direction. that “Nike products have become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse,” and promised to combat those abuses.18 “In the end it’s an act of leadership. I think accepting your mistakes as Some “disgruntled” investors even threatened a class action lawsuit against a corporation is the ultimate act of leadership.” Nike, claiming the company had misled them about its revenues and profits in Interviewee 4 the third period of 2001.19 On numerous fronts, the turn of the century was not Nike’s brightest time. “People don’t talk about businessmen or businesswomen, do they? They always talk about business ‘leaders’. So I think there is this Fourteen years later, however, one of this study’s interviewees used Nike creeping view that if you are, and I’m not necessarily talking about to highlight how companies transform and “clean up” both its own and its SMEs here, but if you are in charge of a large corporation, then competitors businesses. Other interviewees suggested that companies whether you want it or not, you’ve got a leadership position. And we facing intense public outrage actually had a “first mover advantage” after a expect a big corporation to be somewhere that opens its doors to scandal if they then moved to change their entire industry. McDonald’s was everyone and leads by example.” another example in the interviewee’s mind, heavy scandal in the 1990s was Interviewee 12 overcome by gradual long-term change, use of organic foods, and even the surprising reach out to a base of middle-class consumers. “The ones that are willing to take the risk and bear all and take the criticism and respond to it, and change, actually become better It should be noted that in both cases, interviewees did not recall any specific

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apologies, but purposeful, impressive improvements over time. What was suggested, “the Madoff case seemed to put an entire era on trial” and “put a more important to them than the apology was how a company changed and human face on those abstractions” of globalised financial mismanagement.21 improved its operations and practices.

AT THE SAME TIME, interviewees observed that the word “leadership” LARGE COMPANIES in advanced economies must remember that, for seemed very broadly defined, especially for CEOs. It seemed that chief better or worse, society has granted them the mantle of moral standing. This executives were expected to fill increasingly high qualifications, including means that their fall from grace may be made examples for everyone else. On moral ones. This meant growing numbers of situations when an apology had the flip side, as interviewees suggested, companies will lead their own efforts to be considered, either for the company or the CEO personally. at apology and self-reform will survive and thrive under these new and tense pressures. “[On the Mozilla resignation] the private, personal views of the CEO on a matter of social-political controversy shouldn’t necessarily have “[CEOs] are seen more as leaders now, and everything that goes with led to that kind of action. You know, these are sorts of things that are that. And they’re held to account to a degree that goes beyond what starting to become more relevant... The more there’s an expectation was the case a few decades ago in business. They’re held to a standard that people need to be held to a wider set of public virtues, it might almost of what you’d expect of democratically elected politicians. make those sorts of roles less attractive. That would mean society I think if a CEO breaches what’s seen as acceptable in public opinion… looses out through creative people who don’t necessarily conform in one of the dangers, of course, is it can define the company.” every way being excluded from roles.” Interviewee 12 Interviewee 10

MODERN COMPANIES have become “larger than life,” with people making them symbols of large societal ideals. This was verbalised in the 2009 trial of Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of NASDAQ, who was accused of running possibly the largest case of financial fraud in history. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison by Judge Denny Chin, who called Madoff’s conduct “extraordinarily evil” and said that the sentence for a man already 71 years old was symbolic and necessary to send the “strongest possible message” of deterrence to the rest of the industry.20 As The New York Times

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The Act “Sorry seems to be the easiest word.” Michael Hann of Apology The Guardian, June 2014 22 THERE IS CONFUSION over how to say “sorry.” In recent years, both the academic world and mainstream media have spent significant time exploring the word – why it succeeds here, fails there, what is heartfelt and what is not. On 3 February 2014, The New York Times made their interest in the topic Appropriateness clear when business journalist, Andrew Ross Sorkin, started a new “Apology Watch” column and Twitter campaign, to analyse how “just about every Timing day a chief executive, politician or other prominent figure is apologising for something.”23 Sorkin was seeking out public apologies, their authenticity, and Language what became of the companies in the aftermath. However, in an ironic twist, even he became embroiled in an apology-related outcry when a preexisting Purpose SorryWatch blog demanded an apology from the newspaper for not properly crediting them for the similar name and blog idea.24 No apology was given, a fact that gained attention by other Twitter observers over the next few months, around the time #ApologyWatch started falling in circulation anyway.

To paint the picture in numbers, the hashtag was circulated about 250 times in its first two months, but only about 25 times since then (as of mid-October, 2014). The column itself discussed only three business apologies, out of five examples total. These numbers beg the question of how frequent corporate public apologies are, relative to how intensely they are reported.

Was an apology from Apology Watch to SorryWatch necessary in the first

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place? And if it was, what should have happened afterwards? Interestingly, corporate responsibility for an incident. This was crucial, without a consistent these were the kind of before and after apology questions that interviewees narrative of responsibility, any resulting statement would be interpreted as focused on much more than specifics of the apology event itself. According to inauthentic, misleading, or purely image management. These interviewees them, there are a number of ingredients that need to be considered before a felt that some internal conversation needed to happen in the company itself. company sets out to say “sorry,” and one crucial ingredient that must come after. “If there’s any feeling internally, or there is no owning up to the responsibility that you’ve done something wrong, and you’re apologising for something, it will always come across as being…. Appropriateness: contextualised and not being true and not being fair and it will come across as being, I believe, not genuine.” Should We Apologise Interviewee 11

INTERVIEWEES AGREED that corporate wrongdoing mandated corporate “They need to convince themselves internally that what they’re doing apologies. It was figuring out what “wrongdoing” was, or where to draw the is absolutely necessary and it’s fixing the issue at the root cause line between corporate and CEO wrongdoing, that had grown complicated. level. They need to convince themselves first so they can convince the outside world that their actions, their intentions and their Interviewees offered some guidelines, though, to justify why they were not commitment are absolutely honest, and appropriate. It needs to be rushing out to formally apologise for every conceivable offense a stakeholder done with the goal, the intention to fix the problem more than trying presented. These considerations were like “Pause” buttons in the apology- to minimise the damage in terms of public image or credibility.” making process, that multiple interviewees felt either reduced or invalidated Interviewee 4 the need for an apology. These included a lack of internal agreement/guilt, unfair stakeholder claims, employee protection and strong prior reputations. “It’s no good rushing out something then discovering you can’t live up to it, or didn’t quite mean what you said…I don’t think it’s controversial. I think the risk is that [apologies] become overused.” Internal Agreement & Guilt Interviewee 2

SEVERAL INTERVIEWEES felt strongly that before any apology was uttered, “Sometimes they make the mistake - they apologise too early in the company staff and the apologising representative needed to accept the crisis, immediately, when in every crisis, as information comes in first,

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it’s unclear, ambiguous and often wrong. So you’ve got to be careful. “Obviously there are good things about [social media] in terms of You have to apologise when you’re confident that your company acted greater responsiveness, but it can also mean that organisations can inappropriately.” be more defensive or cowed in the face of criticism. Obviously if it’s Interviewee 6 a genuine error, and organisations are being more responsive, then that’s a good thing. But it can also make organisations less creative at BY EXTENSION, if there was no internal consensus that anyone had done taking risks.” anything wrong, there was no need for an apology. In fact, it was the exact Interviewee 10 wrong thing to do. Turning a company into an apology-issuing machine would belittle the apology and devalue the company’s integrity. An apology was worth some thought, and the actual acceptance of responsibility. Extreme / Unfair Stakeholder Claims

ONE INTERESTING CONTRIBUTION from interviewees was the AT THE SAME TIME, interviewees were concerned that businesses were observation that today’s culture of total transparency and constant being increasingly attacked in unfair ways, for illegitimate reasons, by very communications encouraged very short-term and volatile thinking in both specific stakeholders – in other words, less aggrieved, more greedy. Apologies markets and media. The constant news leaks, scandals and earnings reports were not always appropriate in this situation either, because it turned the had their benefits, but also contributed to a decline in long-term vision and apology into a form of appeasement, rather than an honest admission of risk-taking – things that once characterised strong businesses. In a way, responsibility. Interviewees felt that if an apology was being demanded by a society was looking for thrill as usual, and business leaders were becoming very powerful opposition in an exaggerated way, companies needed to stand scared or distracted. up for their business and tell their side of the story. This sometimes included an apology, and sometimes not; if it did, the apology needed to somehow “The nature of corporates is that they can be volatile, and they’re address the extreme nature of their opposition for the public to know. exposed to lots of different markets, which means there are fluctuations in the flows in the business – in the challenges that “I find it increasingly unfortunate that there are external stakeholders you face. The markets, who say that they have a long-term view of looking for every and any opportunity to raise a litigation or a claim corporates and a long-term view of your returns, actually take a very, against companies, no matter how frivolous or significant they may very short-term view of most things...The key for finding a way through be. It’s easier for them to raise the claim than it is for us to defend it, this is not to put too much import on the smaller things, on the slightly and defending those kind of claims are always extremely expensive, more trivial things, the things which are more volatile.” Interviewee 13 time-consuming, and not always in anybody’s real interests, other

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than that one person who is essentially trying to make a fast buck.” more - is the right thing because it means that organisation’s just Interviewee 7 being driven by the scale of the social media response, as opposed to whether there’s something which is a genuine offence or significant “The problem with social media is that the stuff that takes off ignores reputational risk for their organisation.” the silent majority. And the most vociferous people - are they actually Interviewee 10 representative? Are they getting things out of perspective? I think this is where we are all still feeling our way, because it could be a million ONE RECENT SCANDAL discussed in many of the interviews related to Twitter users. Are you going to say there are a million people out British Labour Party politician, Harriet Harman. In February 2014 several there who have gone hysterical, got this wrong? And you know what, British newspapers, including The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, sometimes the answer is Yes!…So if you had 40 people in a room, accused Harman of actively supporting the Paedophilia Information and one of them is going berserk about this and the others are more Exchange (PIE), a paedophile activist group that had been affiliated with relaxed about it… It’s very tricky.” the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), where Harman had worked Interviewee 12 between 1978 and 1982. Harman released a statement expressing “regret” that the activist group had links to the NCCL, but maintained that it was not “There are very powerful, non-governmental organisations that are... her “that should be apologising for something that I haven’t done.” 25 Though against the interests of the corporation...Within that environment, commentary over Harman’s response strategy has been controversial, one that means for somebody in my position, when there is a crisis or interviewee expressed support. a need for damage control, one of the early questions you have to ask that’s right up there with, ‘Did we harm anybody?’ is, ‘Is there “In a situation which is as vicious as the one The Daily Mail conjured a powerful and organised entity or set of entities that are coming up, if [Harriet Harman had] apologised or resigned or done anything after us? That are aggressive and working against our best interests?’ like that, that would’ve meant she was responsible for paedophiles That is a really important question and that question may impact if I being part of her organisation. And you can never admit that if it’s not apologise, and what I’m going to say when I apologise.” true.” Interviewee 6 Interviewee 8

“I think you have to be careful not to create the danger of there being AN ARTICLE IN ‘Corporate Reputation Review’ emphasised that in a a mob mentality around these things...You have to ask the question crisis, the company must take responsibility for releasing as much accurate about whether that kind of public pressure leading to an apology - or information to the public as possible. This was to counter the plethora of

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exaggerated attacks and inaccurate reporting that can occur in an age of how unpopular it is.” 28 Interviewees were adamant that companies needed many news sources with agendas of their own. The authors studied the to take responsibility for the truth, especially because neither social nor Danone boycott in France in 2001, which began when Le Monde leaked traditional media could be trusted with it. news that the company was considering broad restructuring to reduce an overcapacity for biscuits; Danone tried to prosecute the newspaper “Always provide clear facts, simple facts, because there’s no question and then sue the leaders of the boycotts. Such responses to the news leak even quality newspapers get the facts wrong. If you told them we had looked like attempts to suppress information, when the company should 10 of these, they’d write up you had 200 of them. It was unbelievable have owned the information and explained itself. Moreover, Danone’s sales how quite respected reporters just get the facts wrong, so we would and growth dropped significantly year-on-year, a development that French always try to keep things very simple, very clear.” news media overlooked in their constant reports that the boycotts were Interviewee 9 largely ineffective. Danone CEO, Franck Riboud chose not to correct this misreporting to shareholders, instead stating that “the storm is over” at the “The more you are precise there and the more you avoid speculation, next shareholder meeting. However, when financial analysts finally outed the more you are in a space where you can minimise any public the truth, shares only dropped further. The ultimate lesson here was that at damage. Clearly, reporters and media will always want to speculate multiple points, Danone’s consistent strategy to downplay the facts, however and build a perception that is not always close to reality. We have negative in the short-term, led to even longer-term loss of credibility and learned over the years that it’s always better to allow the truth to control over the situation. 26 surface in its own right, rather than engaging in continuous debate by press releases or continuous public interviews to try minimise that The researchers used this episode to argue that companies can only stem opinion.” targeted stakeholder attacks and media misreporting if they take ownership Interviewee 4 of the information, however unprofitable it seems in the short term. Danone ceded its status as a trusted authority of information both to its consumers WITH PARTICULAR REGARD TO SOCIAL MEDIA, the latest studies and shareholders by perpetuating misinformation.27 Interviewees also continue to chip away at assumptions that it is the home of grassroots, endorsed this idea that companies needed to include negative details in citizen-based campaigns. Researchers from Stanford University have their post-crisis apologies if they had any hope of being taken seriously. concluded that content on social media largely trickles-down from the same There was no fooling the public, already suspicious of being fooled by large familiar, established sources.29 Despite talk of viral media, or masses of institutions. Indeed, the 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer poll found that 81% unique, original content pushing its way into the mainstream, the researchers of respondents said that CEOs rebuild trust by “telling the truth regardless of argued that “pulling attention away from big media sources remains difficult

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in the extreme.” 30 Other studies have added that “breaking news” shared on Employee Protection Twitter are often retweets, not independent conversation or analysis among users.31 ‘Going Viral’ book authors Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley have also ANOTHER MAJOR VARIABLE for interviewees was the need to protect noted how social media tends to mirror the mass-media producers.32 Again, employees. Interviewees felt that huge multinational organisations had this ongoing stream of research may prove how important it is for a company’s to refrain from apologising and risking penalties for all incidents they first message after an incident to be clear, honest and commanding, because were accused of, if they employed thousands of people whose livelihoods reversing the ripple effects through traditional and then social media is depended on the company’s health. In other words, taking full responsibility difficult. One interviewee explained an apology that was rich in detail, but for an event could unfairly devolve costs down to employees. This was wrong, also clipped untrue accusations. as one interviewee phrased it.

“If you have an organised coalition coming at you, then you have to “You have a responsibility to protect the enterprise, because say things like, ‘We did something wrong. We’re sorry, we’re going to thousands of employees depend on you. These are not just executives, compensate those we hurt, we’re never going to do it again, and we’re there are guys and women that come in to work every day, living going to give you a way to track us. We’re going to do penance. But, paycheck to paycheck to put their kids through school. Thousands by the way, we also think organisation X, Y, Z is completely off-base of them depend on you making the right decision, depend upon that and asking us to do this, this and this, and we are going to use all of organisation being healthy, let alone your customers and suppliers our resources to protect our company and our employees in fighting and many thousands of others… if you’ve got powerful entities coming that allegation.’ You may have to pivot to an aggressive stance, where after you, that right thing becomes you have a responsibility to protect without that coalition you wouldn’t have… It’s like a friend of yours the people that are dependent on your organisation. That’s part of the saying, ‘I did something wrong. I’m very sorry. I’m going to compensate right thing.” you, I’m going to do due penance. By the way, you also accused me of Interviewee 6 this and this and this, and I didn’t do that and here’s why.” Interviewee 6 THIS INTERVIEWEE ALLUDED to what Joep Cornelissen, Business Administration professor at VU University Amsterdam, called a “sense of continuity” that employees expect out of their workplaces. Cornelissen supposed that interrupting a company’s identity and operations can seriously damage employee morale.33 Interviewees seemed aware that a corporate public apology could affect employees in this way.

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Another interviewee noted that organisations made up of tens of thousands Prior Reputations of employees were inherently imperfect and that this was common sense. A GREAT PRIOR REPUTATION and solid base of support might also make “[External stakeholders] are not expecting a trouble, failure-free a literal apology unnecessary. Interviewees cited certain individuals whose organisation, because that just isn’t realistic when you’re employing outstanding public image cut down demands for apologies after they made 80 or 90,000 people across so many different countries right across mistakes. Bill Clinton and Apple/Steve Jobs, were mentioned multiple the globe. But what they are expecting is for you to react in the right times as among the most iconic examples of quick forgiveness. For example, way when you do have a problem.” Jobs’ individual charisma and monopoly status in his sector allowed him to Interviewee 7 upset customers multiple times without putting the entire business at risk, and without necessitating a full, blown apology every time. (And if he did THE QUESTION IS if this idea is truly shared by the public. If external apologise, it was particularly notable.) audiences recognise that corporate apologies can hurt the “everyday employee,” or that larger organisations risk more room for human error, then “[Steve Jobs’] communication style was outstanding because he it is possible they would be more sympathetic. However, one interviewee recognised in public that he made a mistake but he also said, ‘It’s pointed out that the public is somehow both sympathetic to everyday normal to make these mistakes - we’re humans.’ So he said no one employees while being unsympathetic to the corporate identity - and yet not is perfect, we’re a human company… Shareholders didn’t punish feel conflict between the two. him or the company; quite the contrary, their level of tolerance and understanding for that mistake was so high, the company remained “The general public does carry two thoughts in their mind, which is: very successful and it kept growing.” ‘I don’t like those big banks, they do seem to do nasty, evil things in Interviewee 4 the trading markets, they’re all overpaid, etcetera. However, in my day-to-day activities with them, actually they’re pretty good, I like the “There is something about truly being great where you can forgive person who serves me in the branch, the ATM is always working, and a lot of things. You’re somebody people genuinely admire because whenever I go on the internet, it’s quick and it’s available.’ I think they you’re genuinely admirable. You’ve got so many admirable qualities, do carry those two thoughts in their mind when they view banks per sometimes a weakness… we can forgive.” se.” Interviewee 8 Interviewee 13

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INTERVIEWEES EXPLAINED that having phenomenal product or personality can shield a company from the brunt of a public complaint, and negate the need for a careful apology. As a result, they proposed that companies should carefully analyse their standing among their peer group, both corporately and at the CEO-level, to predict how harshly they might be judged, or how leniently they might be forgiven.

However, it may be important to recognise the flipside, where a company is surrounded by a very negatively reported sector. Analysis by Lloyds Banking Group on industry reputations across 2012-2013 discovered how deeply the Libor scandal impacted the entire peer group, as media sentiment expressed towards not only the individual companies that reached settlement with the regulators but also the industry as a whole grew markedly negative. The Group’s findings show how public sentiments toward competitors can roll over onto a strictly unrelated company, as well.

“It also has to do obviously with the person’s standing and status, prior to the apology, prior to the event taking place. [Manchester United football manager] Alex Ferguson had a strong record and a strong power base within his company and he felt confident in his abilities to be able to push back on criticism… He was able to deflect criticism away by going on the offensive. And some CEOs are like this as well.” Interviewee 11

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Timing: When To Say It

ALMOST ALL INTERVIEWEES believed that to have any meaning, apologies “You can have a justification as in, ‘We spent three weeks looking into needed to occur at some version of soon, but they differed on just how the cause of this and we wanted to come to you with a solution rather soon and for what purpose. Those who said companies needed to apologise than just an explanation of the problem.’ I think that’s okay if you can immediately said that doing so denoted being less “under duress,” and thus reason and justify a time delay.” more self-imposed and authentic. Interviewee 8

“If you do it early enough and soon enough and honestly, I think it “Sometimes they make the mistake, they apologise too early in the should have some meaning. So there may be some value there. If it’s crisis, like immediately when in every crisis as information comes done late in the day, partly because you’re forced to apologise like the in first it’s unclear, ambiguous and often wrong. So you’ve got to be recent MP [Maria Miller], it’s too late. Damage done. It’s seen as part careful.” of politically managing, or public image managing, as opposed to being Interviewee 6 meaningful.” Interviewee 9 ONE INTERVIEWEE WAS CLEAR that apologies are by definition too late, because they simply cannot fix the past. He explained that the public was well “If you’re too late, it doesn’t look sincere because it looks as if you’re in aware that corporate apologies were a crisis communications strategy, which a corner. So you need to sort of beat the pressure or the view that you immediately invalidated their ability to repair breakdowns in trust. have to say something. And if you get that, there’s more chance of it being sincere.” “There is a sort of unwritten rule that apologies are always too late. It’s Interviewee 13 very, very seldom you ever see a well-timed apology, mainly because the point at which anyone in the public eye decides they need to EQUAL NUMBERS of interviewees felt differently, that apologies looked apologise tends to be because they’ve been forced to, not because they “under duress” if they came immediately. These interviewees described think they’ve done something wrong. And so, in the end, most public quick apologies as being rushed and out of control. apologies feel fake because they mostly are. They’re mostly about managing a crisis situation, thinking that an apology will diffuse it. “It’s no good rushing out something then discovering you can’t live up Sometimes it does, just because after that, what more can you really to it, or didn’t quite mean what you said.” Interviewee 12 do? But it doesn’t necessarily change that person or an organisation in

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the eyes of the public, or the people around them.” now and not then?” Interviewee 8 Interviewee 8

OVERALL, INTERVIEWEES AGREED that apologies made “under duress” THE PUBLIC SEEMS well aware of the difference between when an incident were highly suspect, even if they differed on when this “duress” occurred. happens, and when an incident is reported. The longer that time period is At the heart of this view was the unpleasant idea that companies were empty of corporate response or apology, the harder it may be for companies to only taking responsibility for actions after being “found out”, at which point recover public trust. As noted above, interviewees mentioned the “unwritten it would be clear they cared more about image control than proactively rule that apologies are always too late,” perhaps because they often occur addressing internal problems. One interviewee emphasised the importance after media investigations, rather than a company’s self-imposed ones. It of avoiding outside pressures. becomes a red mark against corporate integrity and self-reporting. A lack of such self-correction might help explain the 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer “Do the apology on your own terms... if the media drive it for you, or poll findings that only one out of four respondents trusted business leaders politicians drive it for you, then you’ve lost.” to correct issues on their own.36 Interviewee 13

THE NEGATIVE PERCEPTION of apologies “under duress” also suggests the public hopes for apologies that happen close to the actual incident, rather than whenever the media published it. It explains the media’s interest in, “How long was this occurring?” or “How long did they hide it?” For example, in the summer of 2012, former banker, Douglas Keenan enjoyed significant coverage for his claims that Libor rates misreporting had been ongoing since 1991, amounting to over two decades of fraudulent activity.34 General Motors CEO, Mary Barra also experienced this during the inquiries as to whether she had known about her company’s mechanical defects upon her arrival as CEO.35

“Apologies have got to be immediate if they’re going to work, or very, very close. The longer you let it go, the more people will say, ‘Well, why

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Language: What To Say

“Are people actually saying I’m sorry?” simple, clear language and ‘I’m sorry.’ If you’re talking about a CEO and their various stakeholders, employees, customers, regulators, Interviewee 2 investors, saying the word ‘regret’ would be more appropriate.” Interviewee 11 MOST COMMENTARY ON APOLOGIES focuses on the standalone act of apologising. This kind of coverage assumes that the most important thing for AT THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM, interviewees maintained that consumers after a major scandal is to hear the perfect apology. This research “I’m sorry” words were far less important than clear facts. They emphasised found otherwise. Defining the apology was elusive. Even seemingly simple that companies did not need to state explicit apologies to show responsibility terms like “sorry,” “apologise,” “regret,” and even “misspoke” were interpreted for an event. They believed that an apology could also be defined as a in very different ways. While many noted that UK politicians use the word statement that sounded very genuine, was very honest about an incident, “regret” to avoid being blamed for something, what most set interviewees how the company was involved, and what it was doing – even if the words apart was how important they felt specific language was in the apology. At “I’m sorry” were not specifically involved. one end of the spectrum were interviewees who were clear about certain words, when to use them, and to whom. “I’m not too hung up on the exact words. You could say ‘I apologise,’ but it’s got to be a clear, direct apology.” “Stating as a multinational, ‘We are sorry,’ means that the issue is Interviewee 12 extremely serious and that it’s almost at a point of no return. So the language is very important.” “I think as long as you are very full with the facts and you have your Interviewee 4 genuine humility. [T]he public will be able to sniff out a real apology from one that’s been forced on you by a PR crisis company.... either “You have to admit you did it...And that sort of seems obvious, but say it with real humility and sense of genuineness, or don’t.” sometimes companies are unclear on that. Also, you have to say you’re Interviewee 8 sorry...‘Here’s what I did, and I’m sorry.’” Interviewee 6 ONE INTERVIEWEE expressed very positive experiences going to the media proactively with “soft apologies” that outlined unfortunate company “If you’re talking about a politician to the general public…they need events.

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“I said, ‘This is truly a lesson learned by us, and not only are we going to fix the problem in [Country], but we will also review our entire operations, and this stands across all the countries because we feel very disappointed about this.’ And I was quoted: ‘We feel very disappointed about it.’ I didn’t have to apologise to anyone because it was nothing that I felt was a mistake, it was simply an assumption that our partners were working on the certain principles and codes of conduct that, in reality, we discovered was not the case. So that’s a much softer way to apologise in public.” Interviewee 4

THE BRITISH PRESS may have proved the lack of hard and fast rules for apologetic words, when they criticised British Conservative Party MP, Maria Miller’s most explicit ones. She apologised in April 2014 for not cooperating with a committee’s inquiry into her expenses, using phrases like “I of course unreservedly apologise” and “fully accept the recommendations.” But then the news media turned to target the brevity of the apology instead.37 Even the results of isolated research experiments directly oppose each other’s conclusions about how audiences respond to companies that apologise and take responsibility for crises, or express varying degrees of sympathy.38

IT IS POSSIBLE that no form of wording is a guaranteed success. Across interviewees, media coverage and academic literature, there is no agreement on the correct linguistics of apologies. As with the previous two “ingredients” of appropriateness and timing, discussion around apologetic language generated many new questions and little consensus. Ultimately, all of these points of disagreement highlighted only one where all interviews converged.

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Purpose: A Conduit of Change

ONE IDEA UNITED ALL INTERVIEWEES, apologies were successful when it’s created.” they pointed to action. This meant that even if legal departments prevented Interviewee 7 straightforward wording out of a concern for liability issues, public favor could be regained with the solutions and institutional change that companies “The media can be extremely cynical. You have to give them context. demonstrated. Interviewees said that actions, not single statements, proved You have to show them not why you’re saying sorry but what you’re a company’s true intentions. doing about it.” Interviewee 11 Even the most skeptical interviewees that “rarely believed” corporate apologies said they approved of companies that build solutions into their “You’re not going to get much kudos from it [the apology]. You might smallest apologies, for example, Amazon’s free product replacement for slow the tide or you might stop the story. But then you’re going to have customers that receive damaged goods. Thus any apology was only as a lot of work to do after that… If you don’t say ‘sorry’ but you change successful as the “signpost” it gave to audiences that the problem would be and people see it, maybe you get the trust back. Because people solved. The importance of problems being fixed, even more than apologised respect action. I’ll emphasise it: action not words.” for, echoed across the board. Interviewee 8

“The public trusts companies that not only say ‘I’m sorry’ but say ‘this “It’s the follow-through with actions and demonstrations of sincerity is what I’m going to do to.’ …The sincerity of it is emphasised using that’s important… It’s what you do rather than what you say. So there actions.” is meaning if it’s a genuine signpost to contrition and reform.” Interviewee 5 Interviewee 12

“You don’t have to come out and say ‘I’m sorry’ to do the right thing. WHY ARE WORDS NOT ENOUGH to show credibility? Several interviewees What you do is the right thing, and as part of the right thing you used religious references to explain, even after conceding they themselves ensure that the right people are involved. You do the right thing by were not actually religious. They suggested that society still depends on repairing the damage you’ve created. You do the right thing by trying sacrifice and penance for justice, and expects companies to show a price is to prevent that from ever occurring again... recognising that a failing being paid – a penalty of sorts. has occurred, and doing the right thing about repairing any damage

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“What the Catholics call ‘due penance’... means that ‘we’re going to do public feel that the apology wasn’t quite enough. In this country, more than what we need to do. We’re going to apologise, we’re going to sometimes apologise, hold your breath, and wait and see if that’s do more than compensate you for your harm, we’re going to do more enough. And if it’s not enough then a sacrifice must follow.” than give you a way to track us so we’ll never do it again, we’re going Interviewee 5 to do something else that’s going to cost us.’ Maybe money, maybe something else. It’s a penance.” HOWEVER, AN ANALYST at AutoTrader.com following General Motors Interviewee 6 auto recalls in 2014 noted the 15 employee firings, but commented that “this is going to take more than getting rid of some people and moving boxes “I believe in the kind of onward march of truth and humans becoming around on the org chart… This is going to require culture change and an more empathetic and more intelligent, and I would hope that ongoing vigilance.” One interviewee was very adamant about this, saying eventually we come to a place where we don’t need to get a scalp that CEO resignations were actually very unhelpful results of many public every single time for every single failure, because we’re grown-up apologies. enough to understand these things happen. As long as there is some sense of recompense. And some learning.” “It doesn’t make anybody any better. Very often the companies who Interviewee 8 are losing the CEOs are losing the man that could fix it!” Interviewee 5 TO SOME INTERVIEWEES, such “penance” could only be demonstrated by executive resignations. Leaders had to be let go if the company had not “Sometimes the public doesn’t actually want resignations like that. signaled enough that it was improving a situation or resolving the problem Sometimes they just want a good explanation for what’s gone wrong – if it had not self-imposed a high enough price upon itself. One interviewee and a reassurance that you’re not going to do it again.” explained that this was often the visible “proof of genuineness” for public Interviewee 8 apologies, in contrast to private apologies, where individuals can see up- close whether or not the other party is apologising with genuine pain and INTERVIEWEES FELT that the best apologies were actually conduits of discomfort. Corporate public apologies, complicated by distance, PR and change. After a major disaster, what mattered was the action being taken and media effects, sometimes had to overcompensate with the release of a told to the world. With that in mind, apologies might be categorised less by leadership figure. their wording or timing, and more by the degree of change/corporate reform/ rehabilitation they convey. “If it’s [the apology] followed by a resignation, it’s only because the

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IN CRISES WHERE LIVES ARE LOST, apology statements are largely useless, even while seen as necessary for humanitarian reasons of respect and guilt. When companies are linked to death, the public is likely to assume (or argue for) government intervention and tighter safety regulations. In many such cases, it seems the best a company can do is to prove their cooperation with authorities.

There has been some evidence of similar principles at play in the financial services sector over recent years. The consequences are rarely life and death, but they do have an unprecedentedly broad scope. In such instances the apology is futile, which Madoff seemed to know when he apologised for his fraud schemes before adding, “I know that doesn’t help you.” Questions over the capability of regulating the sector continue to be raised, especially with the ongoing flow of incriminating evidence.54 55 This indicates that the public seeks change in companies and society far more than any single apologetic statement.

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Conclusion “The apology isn’t the end of it. It’s the beginning.” Interviewee 8

THIS STUDY FINDS that real corporate public apologies are less about They must get in line with their aggrieved audience’s ethical codes, and words and more about change. In a sense, they are expected to prove a break communicate their self-awareness of the “wrong” they have done. It appears between past and future. As interviewees insisted, companies cannot treat that in our current advanced economies, large companies are seen as apologies as a full stop to a media story if the public itself does not. Instead, standard-bearers for morality, which means that a breach in these standards apologies must be treated as one node in a timeline of events that ends with a requires full acknowledgement and explanation through the apology. This is problem resolved or a company changed. This is a major paradigm shift away what audiences seem to be looking for. Given the high symbolic status that from the idea that the point of apologies is to end a scandal. companies today enjoy (or endure), they may even have to take on more responsibility than is “fair.” At the same time, the apologies gain credibility Indeed, searching for “the perfect apology” leads to an endless choice of only as much as they clarify what the company is actually doing next, i.e. recipes, depending on who is writing. For every single apology, one finds repairing the damage or shifting patterns of behavior. Public trust seems countless conflicting editorial commentary, not to mention meeting rooms more likely to come with evidence of a company’s reform. filled with communications, legal and executive teams trying to craft it. There is also a serious lack of research asking companies directly why they choose Everyone knows that “sorry seems to be the hardest word,” but Elton John also to apologise the way they do, or what people actually expect from them. This asks “What do I do to make you want me? What have I got to do to be heard?” research began to fill that gap by seeking real-life answers to those questions, He was on the right track. This study reveals that demands for apologies are and then setting them back into the context of the existing research and actually demands for action. Despite the debate and drama around words current events. This study concludes that there is not a one-size-fits-all and phrasing, companies must pay far more attention to the substantive formula. Corporate public apologies exist amidst unique circumstances and actions their apologies denote. This is what the public remembers – and what individuals, and must be deliberated on a case-by-case basis. keeps a company operating – past the media hype and into the long run.

Rather than propose yet another definition, this study sheds light on some very clear principles upon which companies should base their apologies.

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Methodology Thanks To The Contributors

THE RESEARCH IN THIS DOCUMENT provides insight and understanding IN ORDER TO RESEARCH THIS TOPIC, the author conducted over a into corporate public apologies and the variables involved in conducting and dozen open-ended interviews with leaders spanning the fields of business, interpreting them. communications, finance, global development, journalism and politics. Fieldwork was conducted between March and May 2014. Some of the quotes The research covered the topic of corporate public apologies from the in this document have been shortened for brevity; all remain unattributed to perspective of executives representing both the audience and producers of preserve the anonymity of the contributors. company apologies. We also tried to explore what meaning apologies hold for companies, the strategies used to conduct them, and how they are judged StockWell Communications and The London School of Economics would and interpreted. like to thank those who took the time to participate. As the list below demonstrates, our contributors were drawn from a broad range of global Interviews included open-ended questions and opportunities for organisations including: interviewees to introduce what they felt was important to cover. All interviewees were guaranteed anonymity during their interviews. BAE Systems plc British Labour Party BT Group plc Development Alternatives Inc. ICAP plc Kenyon International Emergency Services, Inc. Lloyds Banking Group plc Parker Hannifin Corporation Tesco plc Unilever plc Volans Anonymous (2)

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26. Hunter, M.L., Le Menestrel, M. and de Bettignies, H.-C. (2008). Beyond Control: Crisis Strategies 38. Lee, S. and Chung, S. (2012). Corporate apology and crisis communication: The effect of and Stakeholder Media in the Danone Boycott of 2001. Corporate Reputation Review, 11 (4): 335- responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression on public’s anger relief. Public Relations 350. Review 38: 932-934.

27. Ibid. See also: Coombs, W.T. and Holladay, S. (2008). Comparing apology to equivalent crisis response strategies: Clarifying apology’s role and value in crisis communication. Public Relations Review 34 28. Edelman. (2014, January 19). Trust in Government Plunges to Historic Low. Edelman. Retrieved (3): 252-257. from: http://www.edelman.com/news/trust-in-government-plunges-to-historic-low. 39. Pow, H. (2014, February 10). Mom accepts AOL CEO’s apology for shocking ‘distressed babies’ 29. Asur, S., Huberman, B., Szabo, G., Wang, C. (2011). Trends in Social Media: Persistence and comment as she shares heartbreaking photo of her tiny daughter fighting for life in NICU. The Daily Decay. Proceedings of the Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. Pgs. Mail. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk. 434-437. Retrieved from: http://www.aaai.org. See also: Nahon, K., Hemsley, J., (2013). Going Viral. Cambridge: Polity Press. 40. TMZ Staff. (2014, April 25). L.A. Clippers Owner to GF: Don’t Bring Black People to My Games… Including Magic Johnson. TMZ. Retrieved from: www.tmz.com 30. Wihbey, J. (2014, June 9). Rethinking Viral: Why the Digital World Is Not as Democratic as We Think. Pacific Standard. Retrieved from: http://www.psmag.com. 41. Estrada, I. and Shoichet, C.E. (2014, May 12). Donald Sterling tells Anderson Cooper: I was ‘baited’ into ‘a terrible mistake’. CNN Money. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com. 31. Naaman, M., Becker, H., and Gravano, L. (2011). Hip and Trendy: Characterizing Emerging Trends on Twitter. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62 (5): 42. Green, J. (2014, Feb. 10). AOL’s Armstrong Joins Parade of CEOs Apologizing. Bloomberg. 902-918 Retrieved from: www.bloomberg.com. 43. Food Safety Authority of Ireland. (2013, January 15). FSAI Survey Finds Horse DNA in Some 32. Wihbey, J. (2014). The Challenges of Democratizing News and Information: Examining Data on Beef Burger Products. Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Retrieved from: http://www.fsai.ie. Social Media, Viral Patterns and Digital Influence. Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy: Discussion Paper Series #D-85. Retrieved from: http://shorensteincenter.org. 44. Tesco. (2013, January 16). An apology from Tesco. Tesco. Retrieved from: http://www.tescoplc. com. 33. Cornelissen, J. (2008) Corporate Communications: A Guide to Theory and Practice. London: Sage. p. 213. 45. Taylor, M. (2013, January 17). Tesco chief uses Talking Shop blog to rein in horsemeat burger scandal. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com. 34. Keenan, D. (2014, July 26). My thwarted attempt to tell of Libor shenanigans. Financial Times. Retrieved from: http://www.ft.com. 46. Ford, R. (2013, December 21). Tesco wins CorpComms award for horsemeat scandal response.

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The Grocer. Retrieved from: http://www.thegrocer.co.uk.

47. Peston, R. (2013, June 5). Tesco shares hit by drop in sales. BBC News. Retrieved from: http:// www.bbc.com.

48. Kuo, L. (2014, July 21). KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s are hit with a new China food scandal: expired meat products. Quartz. Retrieved from: http://qz.com.

49. McDonald’s. (2014, July 24). Media Statement [translated]. McDonald’s China. Retrieved from: http://www.mcdonalds.com.cn/cn/ch/newsroom/news.html.

50. Jourdan, A. and Baertlein, L. (2014, July 21). Yum, McDonald’s apologize as new China food scandal hits. Reuters. Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com.

51. McDonald’s Corporation. (2014, August 8). McDonald’s Reports Global Comparable Sales For July. McDonald’s Newsroom. Retrieved from: http://news.mcdonalds.com.

52. Hayward, T. (2010, June 3). BP Concerts. Retrieved from: http://bp.concerts.com.

53. Henriques, D.B. (2009, June 29). Madoff Is Sentenced to 150 Years for Ponzi Scheme. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com.

54. Inskeep, S. (2014, October 1). Transcript: Sen. Warren’s Full NPR Interview On Financial Regulation. National Public Radio. Retrieved: http://www.npr.org.

55. Lagarde, C. (2014, May 27). Economic Inclusion and Financial Integrity—an Address to the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism. International Monetary Fund. Retrieved from: https://www. imf.org.

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About The Researcher

NINA M CHUNG graduated with a BA in International Relations from Stanford University, and an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics. While at LSE, she won the inaugural research contest held by StockWell Communications and media think tank LSE Polis, which resulted in the publication of “A Way With Words: Chasing a Definition for Corporate Public Apologies.” Nina is currently in New York City, assisting the communications of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.