Problem
The university has been approached to sell the fields to the east of campus to Water Works, a water treatment conglomerate based out of Tulsa. They want to work with the city and build a water treatment facility in those fields. Part of Water Works' proposal is to pay the university $2 million upfront for the land and then the university will receive a tenth of the profits annually from the treatment plant. Needless to say, the university would very much like to see this proposal find success. You have your own consulting firm and have been hired by the university to assess the feelings regarding the proposal presented by Water Works. Your firm considers a list of target publics including citizens of Russellville, business leaders, incoming and current students, alumni, faculty/staff, and media, and using the proactive phase of strategic conflict management, your team does environmental scanning and issues tracking with these audiences. Your issues management efforts with these publics are a great success. The university was able to pursue the contract with Water Works and construction has been underway for two months. Water Works and the university created a team comprised of half of each organization's construction workers to create a unified team. By utilizing internal manpower, the project will save $150,000 in additional construction costs that would be paid to an outside construction crew. The combined crew is working exceptionally well together and is actually two days ahead of the projected schedule, until... at 9:02 this morning there was a terrible accident at the construction site. The bulldozer (driven by a Water Works employee) crushed a university employee, Jim Smith, who was helping to clear a hole. Mr. Smith was reported dead upon arrival at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center. He worked with the university's physical plant for six years and leaves a wife and two children, ages 7 and 11. His wife, Judy Smith, works for the city as an accountant and they were married for 15 years. There is concern that publics will demand the project be scrapped.
The university has called your firm back in to assist with this crisis and future image restoration. They have given you complete autonomy in the initial planning stage.
i. What will be your future plan for image restoration (see this section in the book)? Why?
ii. What will be the tactic to implement this strategy? Why?