The Internal Crisis of a Corporation. Effects on coordination, cooperation, integration and communication by the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Communication is a part of coordination, integration and cooperation. Mainly, communication links the three aforementioned components, it is something that is maintained mainly within a multinational corporation. Crisis, including pandemics, come and go. Crises affect both corporations and the world in general. Corporations are affected both externally and internally, where the internal structures are communication, cooperation, coordination and integration. The purpose of this thesis is to identify how multinational corporations work with internal factors when unexpected changes in external circumstances arise, with a focus on Covid-19. Internal factors being cooperation, coordination, integration and communication. There is a general view of how MNC’s and executives use communication to reinforce cooperation, coordination and integration during pandemics. The research question of this thesis is answered with the help of the deductive method. Complimenting that method, this thesis also was made to be a qualitative study, where leaders from different industries were interviewed. This, mainly to extract information about how their respective companies work with their communication (coordination, integration and cooperation). During the Covid-19 pandemic, communication has been affected in several ways, and since it also is an essential part of a company’s ongoing operations, it would also be affected. This led to the conclusion that there have been difficulties in implementing quality communication which has affected coordination, integration and cooperation. Measures and changes have been made in response to the effects Covid-19 has had on the investigated companies, such as crisis communication and an increased use of digital communication means.