Mattel Organizational Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Mattel Organizational Crisis - Essay Example Reports from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC, 2007) indicated that three children had been hospitalized due to ingesting some particles from the toys and all these three were diagnosed with intestinal perforation, hence required surgery. Owing to this recall, the company lost over $30 million and nearly 1.5 million toys it had sold were removed from the shelves. The Wall Street Journal (2007) notes that previous to the recall, Mattel was the biggest toy manufacturer reputed for its strict safety standards. As noted by Mitroff (1989) a positive public image could easily be destroyed in the course of a crisis. Scholar, nonetheless, have established that strategic application of corporate information, proper crisis communication and effective crisis management can assist in wining back public confidence, since communication has the ability to determine how information reaches the public as well as the media (Coombs, 2007). This paper examines Mattel crisis, the paper will specifically examine how the crisis happened, corporate communication of crisis, crisis management and give conclusion. Mattel recalled 19 million toys from August to September in 2007 because of two separate reasons (Media Statement, 2007). This was the biggest recall in the history of the company because both recalls happened at the same time. The first reason for recall of toys was due to faulty magnets used. The toys were designed in such a way that most parts had high-energy magnets. These magnets are of great effect to infants and young children because they can ingest some parts and be affected in their digestive tract. When children shallow several magnetic particles there are high chances of that they will pull together in the stomach and rip by use of stomach tissue. The combination of magnet strength with poor design of Mattel toys made these toys dangerous to the health