Volkswagen's Communication Strategy

Introduction
Communication strategy is one of the pillars that support any multinational company (MNC). Currently, it is highly competitive and volatile business landscape (Vasile, 2014). Most MNCs use corporate report as the first line of corporate communication. Alongside the corporate report, MNCs have started using social networking sites, intranets, and company website to report major developments in their products and services, as well as corporate responsibility initiatives and achievements (Cambie & Ooi, 2009). The significance of effective communication strategy or public relations (PR) strategies is increasing exponentially in the present business environment. Crisis communication must be addressed strategically to sustain an entity’s

Sehgal and Khetarpal (2006) theorize that communication plays a critical role in the success of multinational corporations, especially when addressing crisis. Following the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notice in September 2015 that Volkswagen intentionally violated the Clean Air Act, the company’s communication channels, especially external communications, have been busy in an effort to repair brand reputations and sustain its brand position (Topham et al., 2015).
The research problem to be tackled by the proposed study relates to the presence of a right communication strategy in German MNCs. The importance of having an effective communications strategy has been emphasized in the literature (Cambie & Ooi, 2009; Cornelissen, 2014; Sehgal & Khetarpal, 2006). However, German MNCs, an example being Volkswagen, often encounter communication problems during crisis, which raises concerns as to whether these MNCs really have a communication strategy in place, and whether or not they are effective.
Literature

Interpretivism focuses on the situational details, which is the case with the proposed study wherein I intend to conduct an in-depth investigation into the communication strategies used at Volkswagen Group. Given my interpretive epistemological stance, the proposed study will make use of qualitative research methods, which is typified by the emphasis on words and performing detailed small-scale studies in order to report holistic findings. The exploratory nature of the proposed study also requires the use of qualitative methods that offer flexible and non-structured approaches to addressing the research question. The rationale underpinning choice of the qualitative, exploratory design is because of the need to perform a detailed research on Volkswagen Group in order to understand its communication