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In 2014, Dairy Khoury, a medium-sized family dairy located in Lebanon, was accused of using a health-threatening carcinogenic substance as a preservative in its products. The news created an immediate food safety concern and a product harm crisis, resulting in dramatic reputation loss and operational risks to Dairy Khoury. In this article, we analyze Dairy Khoury's response to the product harm crisis through an examination of the communication strategies used to address internal and external stakeholders. We then introduce traditional corrective action response strategies from the crisis communication literature. In the Dairy Khoury case study, the company opted to defend its reputation and clarify the misunderstanding using catalytic defiance, a long-term crisis response strategy. Our analysis provides insight regarding the risks and benefits of pursuing long-term versus short-term strategies during crisis recovery. This article contributes to crisis communication theory and practice and sheds light on the dynamics of crisis management in family businesses.

The field of strategic communication encompasses a burgeoning crisis communication literature that seeks to identify effective and ineffective crisis communication efforts. Strategic communication has identified an array of crisis response strategies and the factors that determine when these response options are effective or ineffective. This article extracts key lessons from the crisis communication research to develop a set of guidelines managers can use to inform their crisis communication efforts. The analysis includes an examination of the crisis response strategies and their desired outcomes, the timing of crisis responses, and the situational factors that have proven to affect the effectiveness of crisis response strategies. The research results provide the foundation for evidence-based crisis communication. The guidelines help managers to understand how their communicative choices will impact the corporate reputation and other important crisis outcomes, and will help managers to make informed choices about crisis communication.