Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,3, Griffith University (Business School), language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction This assignment deals with the management of crisis. First of all, crisis and company crisis will be defined. Secondly, the characteristics of a crisis will be identified. Furthermore, theory about crisis management and crisis planning will be provided. In this context, guidelines, preparation and goals of crisis management will be described. Moreover, different tables will provide additional information and describe the crisis management of BMW. 1.1 Crisis definition According to Heath and Millar (2004, p. 2), a crisis is an inappropriate and inconvenient event that has negative consequences for everybody who is concerned. Argenti (2009, pp. 258-259) states that a crisis is a "major catastrophe" and argues that these catastrophes are either a result of "natural disaster" or "caused by human error, negligence, or ... malicious intent". Argenti (2009) argues that a crisis is something everybody can identify with. 1.2 What is a company crisis? Stacks (2004) states that all organisations will at some time be affected by a crisis. Fearn-Banks defines a company crisis as a "major occurrence with a potentially negative outcome affecting an organization, company, industry, as well as its publics, products, services, or good name" (Fearn-Banks as cited in Heath & Millar, 2004, p. 5).