Abstract:
thirdly, to analyze the relationship between image restoration strategies and attributed responsibility for the 2015/16 financial crisis. Two theories were used to inform this study, namely; Situational Crisis Communicational Theory (Coombs 2007) and Image Restoration Theory (Benoit 2004). The researcher compiled data from magazines, financial report, annual general meeting report and press releases from Kenya Airways addressing the financial crisis between the period of March 2015 and September 2016. Using the entire population sampling, the researcher analyzed the data qualitatively through textual analysis. Based on the findings, the study found out that the dominant image restoration strategies employed by Kenya Airways in its communications during the 2015/16 crisis were anticipatory reduction of offensiveness of financial crisis through bolstering and transcendence strategies, reducing offensiveness of financial crisis through corrective action strategy and shifting blame strategies. Furthermore, the results implied that the airline adopted bolstering and transcendence strategies because it appeared that these strategies are the most common strategies used by an organization when it presented itself a victim of a crisis. It appeared that the airline also adopted these strategies so as to shift the stakeholder’s attention away from the crisis. It utilized corrective action strategy because it emerged that this strategy is the most successful strategy as a firm uses it to addresses the source of the problem. Kenya airways and its stakeholders considered itself as a victim of the financial crisis because crises under victim cluster produced very low attributions of crisis responsibility. The study concludes that an organization facing a victim crisis should use denial strategy. Denial strategy means that the accused denies that there is a crisis or shift the blame to culprit.
