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Exxon Valdez and Johnson & Johnson

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I - Background Study

EXXON VALDEZ CASE

Companies would always be prone to crises and problems beyond their control. What makes a company stand; amidst all problems they are dealing with is how they deal with it. One of the greatest controversies during the 1980’s was the Exxon Valdez oil spill that happened on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The Exxon Valdez ship had identified icebergs and decided to take a different route to get around them. Unfortunately the oil tanker crashed into shallow water, this area is actually called the Bligh Reef, but because of the hit the tanker had about 10 million gallons of crude oil into the reef.This catastrophe got the media’s attention, and Exxon’s response to the environmental damage they had caused was very unprofessional. The company completely refused to communicate openly and effectively. The CEO of the company, Lawrence Rawl even refused to be seen for almost a week. Efforts to contain the spill were slow and Exxon's response was even slower. Because of the lack of appearance from high profile personnel from Exxon and the lack of action from their company, it left the impression that the Exxon Corporation did not take this accident seriously. Exxon Valdez case became one of the classical case examples of a “not to do in handling with a crisis”. By the time, they started to do some action; their reputation is already tainted with negative comments from the public.

JOHNSON AND JOHNSON TYLENNOL CASE
Sometimes, problems arising in a company may not be caused by mismanagement, sometimes there are outside factors that caused problems to arise. It might not even be the company’s fault, but the challenge is, how they manage to solve a problem and deal with in spite the fact that they are not to be blamed. A classic tales of how a company can

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