The University of Alabama Kia Motors Recall Research Paper Description of purpose The purpose of this research report is to identify Kia Motors’ related c

The University of Alabama Kia Motors Recall Research Paper Description of purpose

The purpose of this research report is to identify Kia Motors’ related companies in the recall of specific vehicles.

These instructions are slightly altered from the original instructions—there are fewer required references (15 instead of 20), and the page requirement is shorter (9-12 pages instead of 18-20 pages)

It’s ok to use information from the first paper in the final paper—make it simple for yourselves!

1. Using the same company and the information from Paper 1, continue conducting research on your company and the chosen communication event. This will involve compiling quite a few sources of information. Sources might include:

News stories to provide context around the event and the company’s and stakeholders’ actions
Looking at social media posts or hashtags to see what kind of communication both the company and the public put out about the event (don’t forget to look at company leaders’ accounts, not just the official company account).
Statements from the company, either on the company webpage or as press releases sent to media outlets (large companies almost always have a press or media section of their website that will show you their official statements and/or policies on what they release to media)
Statements made by competitors or community leaders about the company and the event.
You may be able to think of more—too much information is better than too little!

Remember the goals of your research—to answer the questions below as thoroughly as possible. You may find that you have to narrow or expand your topic as you get into the research.

3. Use your research to write a paper addressing each of the following areas:

Executive Summary. An Executive Summary is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a summary of the entire report in one page or less. This is common in reports to management. Even though it’s at the beginning of the report, it is the last thing you write. The team should highlight the problem, explain briefly the research conducted and analysis done, and provide the conclusions. Look at p. 435 in the text for an example. You do not need to have headings in your summary. The words ‘Executive Summary’ should be centered in initial caps (no bold) at the top of the page. The Executive Summary is single spaced.
Introduction. Begin the paper with an attention-grabbing overview of what you will discuss.
Explain the communication event. Remember, an event could be a particular marketing campaign that receives a lot of public attention, a crisis of some kind, a newsworthy merger, acquisition, or downsizing, or several other kinds of event. In any case, the event should include 1) stakeholder responses, 2) company responses, and 3) news stories about the event.

o What led up to the event? For example, a change in company policies (Ex., Walmart or Target)? A marketing campaign (Ex., Nike)? A response to something outside of the company, like an environmental disaster (Ex., BP oil spill) or political shift (Ex., Brexit and the EU)?

o What happened? Who was involved? Who was making the decisions?

Who are the company’s stakeholders and how did they respond to the event?

o Think about everyone who might be affected by your company’s actions or messages. Remember, stakeholders are not the same as shareholders (Shareholders are only one kind of stakeholder).

o Include internal and external stakeholders

o Your research from the first paper will help with this—you should have some idea of key stakeholders, like competitors, shareholders, suppliers, etc. from those findings

o Which stakeholders got involved? What were they saying?

o Did the company respond and if so, how? Was there additional feedback after the response?

o What kinds of communication did managers or company leaders use? This could mean both their strategies (ex., denying wrongdoing or blaming someone else) or the communication channels used (ex., social media posts, formal statements, press conference, etc.).

Explain your Methodology (how your group found this information). Did you use particular search terms? A database? The company website? Did you conduct an interview or analyze certain social media hashtags or trends? Your explanation should be clear enough that anyone reading it could find the same information using only your explanation (that’s called research replication). This can be very short—just a sentence or two.