Transnational Crisis in Global Public Relations: The Chiquita Brands Case

Abstract

The Cross-National Conflict Shifting theory is an analytical focus that helps to understand public relations from a cultural, ethical and political perspective where stakeholders exert pressure about the behavior of transnational corporations, especially in subsidiaries that operate in developing countries.This research project explores the issue of the transnational crisis generated by the case of Chiquita Brands, suspected of having sponsored paramilitary groups in Colombia between 1997 and 2004. This study offers the results of a quantitative content analysis carried out analyzing the news content about this transnational crisis in major newspapers published in Colombia and the United States.We analyzed a total of 146 news stories between March 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008, time in which this transnational corporation confronted a judiciary demand in the United States and developed corporative responses to face the crisis. The study was developed by a group of researches formed by professors and students of the School of Communication at the Universidad de Medellín, Colombia, and the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, in the United States.