Marcin Flieger

IMAGE CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The article deals with the crucial aspects of creating an efficient system of image crisis management. The idea is to emphasize the importance of making efforts to manage the image actively and to present the undisputed benefits that this process brings. The author of the article concentrates on the situation when a company is forced to cope with its negative image, when socalled ‘image crisis’ has occurred. Hence, the paper explains thoroughly the very idea of a crisis situation and crisis management. Then the author analyzes the most common misconceptions regarding the perception of a crisis situation, which lead to very serious consequences of neglecting potential problems. Moreover, the article scrutinizes crucial sources of an image crisis, both external and internal to an organization. Finally, the author defines and analyzes the different levels of organizational preparation for an image crisis situation.