Is Rolls-Royce too wedded to key stakeholder relationships?

Following Rolls-Royce's handling of communications as a result of the major engine problems on the new giant Airbus has been instructive if somewhat painful from a UK PR plc perspective.  No wonder, that according to PR Week's latest edition, it is in discussions with leading consultancies on getting some additional help. One or two of the media have even linked it to BP in terms of a major UK brand not understanding the new rules particularly in a crisis PR situation.

(Image: Wing damage to Rolls-Royce powered Quantas new generation Airbus A380 which landed safely in Singapore.)

What are the new rules?  Well that is an exaggeration - but I think that social media has enhanced the role of a more generalised public opinion as opposed to a key stakeholder approach which is the approach which Rolls-Royce took in response to the situation.  The trouble with this is that the company decides if a stakeholder community is important and of course it may be that public opinion decides that actually travel safety issues are of a great deal of interest to many of us, not just investors, customers of Rolls-Royce and regulators, something which Lex in the Financial Times pointed out. The response of Quantas, operators of the plane in question, was particularly instructive and showed it understood about the need for a wider communication approach to the incident.

It turns out courtesy of CorporateComms that the Director of Communications at Rolls-Royce does not believe in the impact of social media which seems unfortunate in the context and particuarly so as other media are now developing this aspect of the story.

For those PR practitioners interested in reading more regarding the role of generalised public opinion particuarly in crisis PR situations, there is a very good paper in the academic journal Corporate Communications by Oyvind Ihlen of the University of Oslo.