Banking on crisis response
A comparative case study into the crisis response and media framing of two universal banks in trading loss crises
Master’s thesis
Graduate School of Communication
MSc Communication Science; Corporate Communication University of Amsterdam
Maarten Snijders 10879145
Supervisor: dhr. dr. M. Boukes
Abstract
This paper aims to contribute to the field of crisis communication by linking the Situational Crisis Communication Theory to other theories from the field, such as framing theory. Thereby focusing on the execution of the proposed SCCT guidelines in practice. This research is a comparative case study of the media coverage of two similar crises from the banking industry; the 2008 trading loss at Société Générale and the 2011 trading loss at JPMorgan. The focus of this study lies on assessing the differences between the two cases, both in crisis response and in framing in the media. A quantitative content analysis was used to examine the characteristics of 420 print media articles on the trading losses at the two universal banks. The study documents that both banks have taken a different approach to their crisis response. To a larger extent has JPMorgan accepted responsibility, where Société Générale has communicated more from within a victim role. A noteworthy finding of this study is the large difference in the origin of the published quotes from both banks. A vast majority of JPMorgan’s published quotes come from the CEO or other board members, where citations from Société Générale come from more diverse sources from within the bank. This study has also established multiple differences in the framing of both cases by the
media, in news frames as well as in episodic and thematic frames.
Keywords: crisis communication; situational crisis communication theory, crisis response; news frames; episode frame; thematic frame; Société Générale; JPMorgan
Now that the dust of the 2008 global financial crisis has settled, the view is not easy on the eye. But from the angle of crisis communication, taking a detailed look might be very rewarding. The impact of the global crisis is obvious in a financial sense but a lot remains to be explored in the light of what Columbia University professor Berle calls “a bank’s most valuable asset”. Its reputation.
The cases that this study addresses are that of two quite recent incidents of large trading losses at universal banks in Europe, that of Société Générale and JPMorgan. In January of 2008 French bank Société Générale lost 4.9 billion dollars because of, as the bank states, “fraudulent transactions” made by their trader Jérôme Kerviel. In a largely similar case, JPMorgan Chase lost 6.2 billion dollars at its London branch in 2012 by means of trader Bruno Iksil, nicknamed the ‘London whale’. Noteworthy is that JPMorgan’s investor
relations department won the IR-Magazine award for ‘Best crisis communications’ in 2013 for the handling of the London whale case. The focus of this study lies on assessing the differences between the two cases in both crisis response and framing in the media.
The way both crises have been played out, seems to differ in many respects. For example, Société Générale continues to frequent courts of justice, conflicting with its former employee Kerviel on who Société Générale places the blame. As for JPMorgan, the man purportedly responsible for the trading loss has remained out of the spotlights and is now in a witness protection program. JPMorgan’s failing system and controls were blamed rather than the trader himself. On January the 18th of 2016, multiple French media outlets published a tape on which the deputy prosecutor of the Paris prosecutor's office states that Société
Générale did know of the risks their trader was taking. Thereby the responsibility question for both banks might be more similar than Société Générale has always maintained to the public.
For gathering its information, the public relies on the media. The way the media frame events such as a crisis at a financial institution, therefore has great effect on the perception of
the public. The Situational Crisis Communication Theory offers a set of guidelines on how to effectively communicate in order of minimizing reputational damage (Coombs, 2007).
This study seeks to advance the Situational Crisis Communication Theory by linking it to other theories and examining the execution of the proposed SCCT guidelines in practice.
Theoretical framework
A crisis is a sudden and unexpected event that threatens to disrupt an organization’s operations, posing both a financial and a reputational threat (Coombs, 2007). In times of crisis, every step an organization takes is crucial. Crisis response must be considered key because a large part of the success of crisis management efforts depends on what an organization says and does after a crisis has hit (Benoit, 1997). Although the existing literature in the field underlines the importance of crisis response, the relation between an organization’s crisis response and the contents of media coverage remains understudied (Nijkrake, Gosselt & Gutteling, 2015). The objective of this study is to offer further insight into the usage of crisis response strategies by the banks and the news frames used by print media in reporting on both cases. The choice for examining print media has been custom in crisis response research and in times in which the public consumes their news more from television than from print the question arises whether it is distorting that the televised media have been overlooked. Recent research has answered that question in that print and video channels produce similar responses, thus both can be used equally in crisis response (Coombs & Holladay, 2009). Therefore this study has persisted in its focus on print media. To
summarize the aims of this study, the following research questions have been composed: Have Société Générale and JPMorgan’s responses been presented differently in the media, in terms of usage of crisis response strategies and types of communiques? How have the media framed the Société Générale and JPMorgan trading losses, and
Situational Crisis Communication Theory
According to the symbolic approach of crisis communication, the following two assumptions are key: firstly, one of the crisis management goals is to protect or repair the organization’s reputation in a crisis. Secondly, the nature of the crisis influences the communicative choices to be made by the crisis manager (Coombs, 1998). Crisis response strategies, as will be explained hereafter, are the symbolic resources crisis managers possess in order of protecting or repairing the organizational reputation (Coombs, 1998).
Within the field of crisis communication, the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) is commonly accepted as the framework by which practitioners can classify, and respond to, a variety of crisis types that their organization might face (Mason, 2014). In establishing links between specific crisis response strategies and crisis types, attribution theory is the underlying principle for SCCT. According to attribution theory, people have a general tendency to look for underlying causes for events they observe (Weiner, 1985). Consumers see crises as negative events, leading them to attribute a certain amount of responsibility therefor to the organization that is in crisis (Claeys & Van Cauberghe, 2014). This is particularly relevant because numerous studies provide evidence of the connection between attributions of responsibility and the expected level of threat towards and
organization’s reputation (Mason, 2014).
SCCT proposes that organizations should adjust their crisis response to the type of crisis in which an organization finds itself, these crisis types are referred to as crisis clusters. Based on the level of responsibility that can be ascribed to the organization, it should assess in which crisis cluster it finds itself. The following three crisis clusters have been defined, placed in order of increasing responsibility attribution for the crisis: the victim cluster, the accidental cluster and the preventable cluster. In the victim cluster the organization is a victim of the crisis itself. Within the accidental cluster, the actions that the organization has
taken were unintentional and therefore responsibility can only partially be assigned to the organization. The preventable cluster purports that the organization has made errors or took inappropriate actions that have led to the crisis, leading to a high responsibility attribution.
Crisis response strategies
Coombs (2007) has established four crisis response strategies, of which three are so-called primary crisis response strategies and one is a secondary crisis response strategy. Deny, diminish and rebuild are the three primary crisis response strategies, these overarching concepts include different separate strategies. The deny strategies are; ‘attack the accuser’, ‘denial’ and ‘scapegoat’. Attacking the accuser means that the organization will seek the confrontation with the source of the accusations. Denial is blatantly claiming that the organization is not in a crisis whatsoever. The scapegoat strategy involves the organization blaming the crisis on a force from outside of the organization.
The diminish strategies consist of ‘excuse’ and ‘justification’ (Coombs, 2007). When deploying the excuse strategy, the organization aims to minimize the responsibility for the crisis by denying the intent to do wrong or claiming that it was never able to control the events that lead to the crisis. The justification strategy means that the organization attempts to minimize the perception of damage that the crisis has caused.
The strategies belonging to the rebuild strategy are ‘compensation’ and ‘apology’ (Coombs, 2007). When deploying the compensation strategy, the organization offers money or other funds to the victims of the crisis. The apology strategy purports that the organization accepts full responsibility for the crisis and asks its stakeholders for forgiveness.
The secondary crisis response strategies also go by the term bolstering strategies and are the following; ‘reminder’, ‘ingratiation’ and ‘victimage’. Bolstering strategies are best used on top of one of the primary crisis response strategies and offer organizations with a
2007). In the reminder strategy, the organization reminds the stakeholders of the beneficial work that the organization has done in the past. The ingratiation strategy purports that the organization actively praises its stakeholders. In the victimage strategy, the organization reminds its stakeholders that the organization is also a victim of the crisis (Coombs, 2007).
Depending on the crisis cluster, its prior crisis history and its reputation, an
organization should choose one primary crisis response strategy. If they consider it beneficial they might add an additional secondary crisis response strategy. Primary crisis response strategies should not be combined because the organization will end up sending mixed messages. For instance, an organization denying a crisis while at the same time apologizing for it, will leave its public quite confused (Coombs, 2007). The following research question will enable us to examine the usage of crisis response strategies:
RQ1: To what extent have Société Générale and JPMorgan Chase & Co. applied different crisis response strategies during their crises?
SCCT crisis response strategy guidelines
One of the unique aspects of SCCT is the matching process that discloses how crisis communicators should link the crisis cluster to crisis response strategies. Within the victim cluster, crisis responsibility is very low and the organization has violated none or very little societal norms (Coombs, 2006). If there is no actual crisis going on, even though the media report as such, the crisis communicator should deploy the deny crisis response strategy. In such a case the crisis communicator might oppose the rumours of the organization being in crisis. Within the accidental crisis, cluster the attribution of responsibility to the organization is much higher and societal norms have been violated to a larger extent. In this case the diminish crisis response strategies are recommended, as the stakeholders are open for
influence of the organization because they find themselves in minimal threat (Coombs, 2006). When an organization finds itself in a crisis within the preventable crisis cluster, it is highly
attributable for responsibility. This crisis cluster represents very serious violations of
prevailing societal norms. SCCT strongly recommends the rebuild crisis response strategies. The threat to the organization’s reputation is vast and therefore the organization must aim to rebuild the relationship with its stakeholders (Coombs, 2006). A model fully illustrating the SCCT crisis response strategy guidelines can be found in Appendix A.
Information categories
The model in Appendix A shows that an organization that finds itself in the victim cluster, has no history of familiar crises and a neutral or positive reputation, might suffice by providing adjusting information to its audience (Coombs, 2007). If one of the two banks unexpectedly assumes itself to be in the victim cluster, this information category might be dominantly present. Adjusting information is one of three information categories, the other two being instructing information and internalizing information.
Instructing information expresses that the organization is in control of the crisis situation by instructing its stakeholders on how to react to avoid them being harmed physically or financially. In the case of this study this is not expected to be highly present, considering the little personal harm caused by the crises. (Holladay, 2009; Sturges, 1994).
Adjusting information allows stakeholders to psychologically cope with the crisis by informing them on the details of the situation (Holladay, 2009; Sturges, 1994). Instinctively this information category might be very relevant for banks coping with a crisis, taking into account the psychological nature of the foundation of economics and the financial sector.
Internalizing information allows the organization to manage and repair its reputation (Holladay, 2009; Sturges, 1994). It would not be responsible to begin crisis communication by focusing on the latter information category, and thereby merely on the organization’s reputation. Only after effectuating the first two information categories, the foundation is
established on which crisis managers can focus on the organization’s reputation (Coombs, 2007). This leads to the second research question:
RQ2: Which information categories are to be identified within the media reports on the crisis at Société Générale and JPMorgan Chase & Co.?
In the two cases of the current study the general interpretation is that the crises at JPMorgan and Société Générale were preventable to a large extent. Therefore, according to SCCT, the organizations should have ascertained themselves to be in the preventable crisis cluster. For an organization, its reputation is highly valuable, but as previous research has shown, there is more to be taken into account. When an organization issues an apology as part of the rebuild strategy, the highlight of the statement will be that the organization accepts responsibility for the crisis. This can make it into a financially expensive strategy for an organization (Kiambi & Shafer, 2015). Apologies are frequently used in court as a device to win lawsuits, making the organization vulnerable for lawsuits and the accompanying economic consequences (Coombs & Holladay, 2008).
On the other hand however, organizations that have issued an apology have proven to be perceived to be more likeable, more ethical and more prosocial than organizations that have deployed a more defensive strategy as, for instance a deny or victimage strategy (Lyon & Cameron, 2004). Recent study by Kiambi and Shafer has also shown that corporate stakeholders prefer apology over compensation as a response strategy for an organization coping with high crisis responsibility. Stakeholders are more likely to get upset by
organizations compensating the victims after a crisis than when it offers an apology. These stakeholders tend to evaluate an organization more positively after using the apology as a crisis response than when the organization has deployed compensation as a strategy (Kiambi & Shafer, 2015).
The Situational Crisis Communication Theory offers quite clear-cut guidelines to crisis managers but organizations often fail to put to practice the recommendations that crisis communications literature has on offer (Holladay, 2009) Taking this into consideration we have come to the following research question:
RQ3: To what extent have Société Générale and JPMorgan Chase & Co. followed the guidelines as set out in the Situational Crisis Communication Theory?
Response from the subject organization
In order to examine how the two banks have executed their communications, we will analyze print media reports and specifically whether these reports include the types of information and communicational characteristics that the literature deems to be appropriate and effective. Taking into account that the general public is likely to rely on reports from the media for its information on the crisis, examining media reports is a fitting approach (Holladay, 2009).
Crisis communication literature emphasizes the importance of being there with a response quickly. If an organization is not ready to respond when the media is ready to run the story, the story will run without its response (Coombs, 2007). In that case, anyone can become the spokesperson, and quotes from politicians, experts or competitors can end up dominating the media reports (Lerbinger, 1997). This might be perceived by the public as if the organization is not in control of its own crisis or that it has something to hide. Therefore, responses to inquiries by the press should be quick, accurate, open and consistent to
effectively frame the crisis from the organization’s perspective (Holladay, 2009).
Research also shows that it is important who the organization pushes forward to act as a communicator toward the press. According to Van Riel and Fombrun (2007), the chief executive officer (CEO) plays an important symbolic role as the spiritual and emotional leader of the organization. Communication, especially in times of crisis, is too important to
is confirmed by a study that found that a company that has its CEO in place for its crisis response, is preferred by shareholders (VanSlyke Turk, Jin, Stewart, Kim & Hipple , 2012).
By means of the following research question, this study will examine to what extent Société Générale and JPMorgan have appeared in the media reports on their respective crises:
RQ4: How have Société Générale and JPMorgan Chase & Co. been quoted in media reports on the crisis and what are the internal sources and contents of these quotes? A recent case study into the crisis communications by oil company BP, concerning their oil spill crisis of 2010, has identified the ‘decoupling’ strategy. BP had dissociated itself from the causes of the oil spill and the consequences thereof to minimize attribution of responsibility, and instead put the focus on the solution of the crisis(Schultz, Kleinnijenhuis, Oegema, Utz & VanAtteveldt, 2012). This strategy was largely successful in changing the focal points of the media reports on the oil spill. The following research question explores whether this decoupling strategy might be in effect in the cases of this study:
RQ5: Do the articles report on a target solution to the crisis, and to what extent is the subject organization credited for this solution?
Considering its influence on the public, the media are often portrayed in crisis
communication literature as entities an organization attempts to control (Heath & Millar, 2004). Taking this into account, in most cases the media get to make the final calls on how they report and use news frames in a crisis. Given the reliance of the public on media during a crisis, a frame analysis on the media coverage in times of crisis is deemed important (Brunken, 2006; Nijkrake, Gosselt & Gutteling, 2015).
Examining both the applied crisis response strategies and the news frames identified within media reports, will enable us to assess the extent to which Société Générale and JPMorgan have succeeded in affecting or ‘controlling’ the media reports on their crises.
News frames
Framing theory is based on the assumption that media pick focal points for attention when reporting on events. People’s perceptions of events are dependent on what information is salient in their environment (Heider, 1958). Framing theory goes beyond what Heider states, in suggesting that the mass media do even more than create this saliency. Entman defines framing as a process of selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text (Entman, 1993). By selecting what to include and what to exclude from a report, the news media frame a story. The media limit or define the story’s meaning and thereby shape people’s interpretation of that story (Hallahan, 1999).
The news frames that will be examined within media reports are based upon theory as completed by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) and are as follows. The human interest frame purports that the text framed from a personal tragedy and/or emotional angle from the perspective of either ‘the accused’ or that of the ‘victims’. The attribution of responsibility frame examines whether the event is reported on in a way of attributing responsibility to individuals or organizations. Research shows that both news frames might stimulate the formation of negative attitudes towards the organization in crisis (An & Gower, 2009).
The conflict frame represents the focus on conflict or disagreement among
individuals, groups or organizations. The morality frame purports the representation of the event, problem, issue (or crisis) in the light of morals, social prescriptions and beliefs. The Economic consequences frame places the text into the terms of the consequences that the event will have economically on individuals, organizations or countries.
Within crisis reporting, the conflict, the economic consequences and the attribution of responsibility frame are observed most commonly (Valentini & Romenti, 2011). The conflict frame is expected to contribute to the attribution of responsibility for the crisis on the
involving large economic consequences, the economic consequences frame is expected to be highly present in news reporting (Nijkrake, Gosselt & Gutteling, 2015).
The human interest and morality frames have shown to not be frequently used in crisis news (Valentini & Romenti, 2011). Yet, in the case of the Société Générale, the human interest frame is expected to be frequently present as the focus of some media seems to have been on Jérôme Kerviel, the alleged rogue trader at the French bank.
The morality frame might also be expected more than in crises generally, because of the potential preventability of both crises. Earlier studies have indicated that the economic consequences frame is likely to be dominantly used when the affected organization is publicly owned, because the costs of solving the crisis indirectly comes down to the public (Valentini & Romenti, 2011). The banks in our case study may not be state owned but there is still reason to take this possible implication into account. Considering that in the light of the global financial crisis many banks were prevented from collapsing by the bailouts from national governments. These so-called ‘too big to fail’ banks have cost taxpayers
considerable amounts of money and the trading losses of this study could have alarmed the public in the sense that it might affect them further.
The study by An and Gower (2009) has shown that the most used news frame in the coverage of 25 crisis cases, was the attribution of responsibility frame. Followed by the economic consequences frame, the human interest frame, the conflict frame and the morality frame. Their study has also shown, and this is potentially highly relevant for the current study, that when responsibility of the organization was high, and the crisis perceived as preventable, news media were especially likely to use the attribution of responsibility frame, the conflict frame and the morality frame. The associated research question is as follows:
RQ6: Which news frames have been dominant in the media reports on the crises at Société Générale and JPMorgan Chase & Co.?
Episodic and thematic frames
In addition to the news frames conceptualized by Semetko and Valkenburg, two frames will be examined that measure the ‘focus’ of an article. Iyengar (1991) distinguishes two news frames; the ‘episodic’ and the ‘thematic’ frame. The effects of these frames are of particular importance to communicators in crises because they have previously been found to have an impact on attributions of responsibility (Mason, 2014; Iyengar, 1991). Episodic frames are considered to be concrete illustrations, specific case studies and issue-oriented, timely reports of events. Thematic frames refer to the wide-angle or ‘big-picture’ snapshots of contexts and environments (Mason, 2014). Episodic framing tends to evoke individualistic or targeted attributions of responsibility. In contrast, thematic frames tend to place the issue of
responsibility into the broader, more spread out socio-environmental context (Mason, 2014; Iyengar, 1991).
Because the cases to be examined in this study have limited direct victims, the majority of the publics and stakeholders will not experience the crises directly. Rather, they will experience the crisis through the lens of the media who inherently have filtered and framed the content in their reports. It is therefore of specific importance for crisis communication practitioners to understand the potential impact of media frames on the
attribution of responsibility before they decide upon a crisis response strategy (Mason, 2014). Mason (2014, p.81) claims that when crises of a particular genre follow each other up within an organizational sector in a relatively narrow time period, the tendency of media is to report less on the specifics of an incident and more on the environmental, situational or contextual factors that allowed the type of crisis to repeat. Despite illustrative examples in recent studies, a void still exists in crisis literature to support this claim. By examining the frame usage in the reporting on trading loss cases that occurred in relative timely proximity at
two universal banks, we intend to assess this claim. In order to examine the presence of both frames, and the extent of which, the final research question is formulated:
RQ7: Have episodic or thematic frames been dominant in the media reports on the crises at Société Générale and JPMorgan Chase & Co.?
Methodology
The trading losses at JPMorgan and Société Générale have been selected for standing out because of their size and because of the widespread media attention. Although technically different causes might lie at the root of both crises, in the eye of the public both are large losses of money and lax controls at banks above anything else.
In January of 2008, Société Générale lost approximately €4.9 billion in closing trading positions over the course of three days. The bank claims that these positions were fraudulent transactions created by trader Jérôme Kerviel. Police investigations did not attain to evidence of fraud, but Kerviel was charged with breach of trust and illegally accessing computers at the bank. To this day, Kerviel claims that his superiors knew about his actions and that the losses were only created by the panicky closing of his positions by Société Générale.
In April and May of 2012, JPMorgan’s London Chief Investment Office lost an estimated €6.2 billion. JPMorgan trader Bruno Iksil, acquired large positions in the market, that according to the bank were supposed to cover risks. In contrary to the trading loss at Société Générale, the involved trader was not prosecuted. Iksil has cooperated with the prosecutors and is now in a witness protection programme. His former boss and a junior trader have been indicted. The reputation of JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been dented but he still holds his position at the bank.
Design
A comparative, quantitative content analysis of news items from three different newspapers was conducted. According to Bryman (2008), this design of using identical methods is
especially fitting for examining two different cases. The design serves the aim of this study, which is gaining further insight in mediated communication through comparing two
contrasting cases (Bryman, 2008).
This study examines the manifest and explicit content of media, therefore a quantitative content analysis is the apparent technique to do so (Berelson, 1952, p.18). In order to objectively and systematically identify the characteristics of these contents, a
codebook was composed for the coders to closely follow. The codebook, that can be found in Appendix B, has been imported into the survey software of Qualtrics to provide for an
efficient coding process. In order to minimize potential predispositions in coding, a distinct set of coder instructions is assigned. Through representations in media reporting, the responses and the possibly underlying crisis response strategies will be reconstructed.
Data collection
Dictated by restrictions in time and financial resources, the size of the dataset was set beforehand at n= 420 articles in total. Thereby coming to n= 210 articles per case.
Considering that the two cases belonging to this study have both major financial as well as societal implications, the choice has been made to examine financial newspapers as well as newspapers from different ranges of society. To sketch a representative view of the full media landscape, the Financial Times, The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph were included in the sample. Like all citizens, journalists are part of different cultures. One of which is the culture of the newspaper that they write for. As Van Gorp (2007) argues;
tabloids, broadsheets and financial newspapers all have different organizational cultures. This has reinforced the decision of analysing three different types of newspapers. To minimize distortion of the outcomes of this study by political colour, the selected newspapers all have similar political identities. In this case, the political orientation of the sample is conservative.
This is substantiated by the fact that all three publications have backed the Conservative party during the UK general elections of 2015 (Croucher, 2015).
Sampling
In selecting the newspaper articles, the form of random sampling through Urbaniak and Plous’ Research Randomizer was chosen. Within the LexisNexis newspaper database, the ‘power search’ tool was used. The search has been conducted based on search strings made up out of keywords in ‘terms and connectors’. For the Société Générale case, the used search string was ‘Société Générale OR SocGen OR societe generale AND trading loss OR kerviel’. For the JPMorgan case, the search string used was ‘JP Morgan OR JPMorgan AND trading loss OR london whale OR iksil’. To avoid missing early released articles the date was set well before the outbreak of the crisis. For the Société Générale case, the date was specified to anything after 01/12/2007. For the JPMorgan case the date was specified to anything after 01/06/2011. To avoid as much article duplicates as possible, the search engine was set to group duplicates when articles show ‘moderate similarity’. The newspaper articles were sorted per publication and dependent on the amount of articles per newspaper, the selection has been decided upon.
This procedure produced an initial dataset of n= 701 articles in total, distributed as follows. Société Générale (total = 394): Financial Times 269, Daily Mail 49, Daily Telegraph 76. JPMorgan (total = 308): Financial Times 188, Daily Mail 50, Daily Telegraph 70.
Randomized articles were selected o distil this initial dataset down to a workable dataset of n= 420. To keep the dataset representative of the initial dataset it was chosen to work with a percentage per case.
For Société Générale when keeping 53% of the articles, the dataset ends up with 210 articles. For JPMorgan this is the case when keeping 68% of the articles. To eliminate the chance of misrepresenting one of the news outlets, the percentages have been put to practice
per newspaper. This procedure has left us with a dataset made up out of the following amount of articles: Société Générale n= 210 (Financial Times: 143, Daily Mail: 26, Daily Telegraph: 41) and JPMorgan n= 210 (Financial Times: 128, Daily Mail: 34, Daily Telegraph: 48).
Measures
Crisis response strategies. Considering that for this study there was no access to
internal files from the banks and that the online collection of JPMorgan’s press releases is incomplete, the crisis response strategies were reconstructed on the basis of the responses as reported on in the news articles. When the coder had determined that the organization does in some way deny that there is an on-going crisis (the deny strategy), the following step is to determine in what way the organization goes about this denial. The coder was given the following options: the subject organization denies the crisis by seeking confrontation with the person or group behind the claim that there is a crisis (‘attack the accuser’), the subject organization denies the crisis by claiming that there is no crisis (‘denial’), the subject
organization denies the crisis by blaming a person or group from outside of the organization (‘scapegoat’) for the crisis or not applicable.
When the coder has determined that the organization does in some way play down the on-going crisis (the diminish strategy), the coder was to determine in what way the
organization does so. The following options were given: the subject organizations plays down the on-going crisis by denying intent to do harm and/or claiming inability to control events that triggered the crisis - thereby minimizing the organizational responsibility (‘excuse’), the subject organization plays down the on-going crisis by minimizing the perceived damage caused by the crisis (‘justification’), other and not applicable.
When the coder had determined that the subject organization actively attempts to rebuild the relationship with its stakeholders (the rebuild strategy), the following step was to
organization offers gifts or money to its stakeholders (‘compensation’), the subject
organization indicates that it takes full responsibility for the crisis and/or asks its stakeholders for forgiveness (‘apology’), other and not applicable.
On top of the three primary crisis response strategies the secondary (bolstering) crisis response strategies, were measured as follows. The coder determined whether the subject organization reminds the public of the beneficial work it has done in its past (‘remind’); the subject organization praises its stakeholders (‘ingratiation’); or the subject organization expresses that it is also a victim of the crisis (‘victimage’).
The percent agreements for the deny strategy and the rebuild strategy are 100% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α= 1. For the diminish strategy the percent agreement is 95.5% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α=.779. For the remind and ingratiation bolstering strategies the percent agreements are 100%, yet Krippendorf’s Alpha was left undefined because the outcome was always ‘0’ (no). For the victimage bolstering strategy, the percent agreement is 95.5% but Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α=.000.
Information categories. To measure which of the three identified types of
information is provided by the organization, the coder determined the informational content of the quote or reference. The options for each question were: yes, no or not identifiable. To measure whether the quote or reference contains instructing information, the following question was answered by the coder: does the quote from Société Générale/JPMorgan in some way instruct the reader how to react to the crisis in order of avoiding harm? To measure whether the quote or reference contains adjusting information, the following question was answered by the coder: does the quote from Société Générale/JPMorgan provide the reader with further information on the crisis situation? To measure whether the quote or reference contains internalizing information, the following question was answered by the coder: does the quote from Société Générale/JPMorgan seemingly aim to strengthen the reputation of the
organization? The percent agreement for the instructing information category is 100%, but Krippendorf’s Alpha was left undefined because the outcome was always ‘0’ (no). For the adjusting information category the percent agreement is 90.9% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α=.842 and for the internalizing information category the percent agreement is 95.5% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α=.893.
Response from the subject organization. To measure the response from the subject
organization, a range of questions were posed. The first of which being on whether the article makes mention of the subject organization refusing or failing to comment. Subsequently, the coder was asked to determine the total amount of quotes or references to sources from outside of the newspaper. Per quote or reference to a source from outside of the newspaper, a range of questions focused on this single quote or reference was posed. At first the source of the quote or reference was determined as belonging to: Société Générale/JPMorgan, expert, politician, accused or suspect individual, regular person ("man in the street"), other bank or its employee(s), other or unknown. If the coder determined that the quote or reference originates from one of both banks, questions on their response followed. The percent agreement for this measure is 95.5% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α= .934.
Solution to the crisis. When the coder determined that the article reports on a
targeted solution for the subject crisis, a range of questions followed. The first of these questions was whether the focus of the article lies more on the targeted solution to the crisis, or on the crisis itself. When uncertain or not able to identify, ‘not applicable’ was a third option. The second question within this range was on whether this targeted solution comes from within the subject organization, options being yes and no. The third question in this range was on crediting of the solution, the options being: the article credits individual(s) for the solution, the article credits the subject organization for the solution, the article gives credit
‘not applicable’. The percent agreement for whether the article reports on a targeted solution and for the thereof, are both 100% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α= 1.
News frames. The coder was asked to select the news frames identifiable in the
article, it is possible for multiple frames to be present in one article. The options consisted of the human interest frame, the conflict frame, the morality frame, the economic consequences frame, the attribution of responsibility frame and ‘not identifiable’. The codebook offers strict descriptions of each news frame, aiding the coder in accurate identification. Within the dataset, each news frame is displayed in a separate variable, with ‘0’ representing ‘not present’ and ‘1’ representing the frame being present. The percent agreement for the human interest frame, the conflict frame, the morality frame and the attribution of responsibility frame are 100% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α = 1.00. For the economic consequences frame the percent agreement is 81.8% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α= .632.
Episodic and thematic frames. To measure the episodic and thematic frames, the
coder was asked to determine the ‘focus’ of the article. The coder had the following exclusive options: the article provides a specific report on the individual case; the article provides a broader context to the individual case; and ‘not applicable’ when uncertain or not able to identify. Within the dataset, the episodic and thematic frames have been recoded into separate variables, with ‘0’ representing ‘not present’ and ‘1’ representing the frame being present. The percent agreement for this measure is 95.5% and Krippendorf’s Alpha is: α= .919.
Reliability
Before starting the actual coding procedure, an inter coder reliability test was conducted to ensure replicability of this research. For the inter coder reliability test, approximately 5% of the total dataset was to be coded by both the coder conducting the actual analysis and another coder. The two coders both coded the same 22 articles that were randomly assigned by Urbaniak and Plous’ Research Randomizer. Percentages of agreement and Krippendorf’s
Alpha were calculated. The results for the percentages of agreement range from .81 up to 1.00 and can be found in Appendix C. Considering the exploratory nature of this study, these results transcend the rule of thumb for reliability of being at least .70 (Neuendorff, 2002).
Results Crisis response strategies
By analysing the quotes from the subject banks, the applied crisis response strategies were identified. Because the following variables were only identifiable if the article contains quotes from the banks, the percentages are indicated to account for this share of articles only.
The deny strategy was found to be present in 1.1% of the articles (that contain quotes from the bank) on Société Générale and 0.0% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the deny strategy, χ²(1)= 1.359, p= .244. Next, the presence of each separate deny strategy (‘attack the accuser’, ‘denial’ and ‘scapegoat’) was examined. Both the attack the accuser and the scapegoat strategy were not identified in the reporting on either the Société Générale or the JPMorgan case. The denial strategy was found to be present in .05% of the articles on Société Générale and in .00% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the usage of denial strategy, χ²(1)= 1.002, p= .317. The deny strategy was altogether scarcely to be observed in media reports on both cases.
The diminish strategy was found to be present in 21.6% of the articles (that contain quotes from the bank) on Société Générale and in 31.3% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the usage of the diminish strategy, χ²(2)= 5.261, p= .072. Next, the presence of the separate diminish
strategies (‘excuse’ and ‘justification’) has been analysed. The excuse strategy was found to be present in 5.3% of the articles on Société Générale and in 0.00% of the articles on
usage of the excuse strategy, χ²(2)= 11.296, p= .004. Cramer’s V shows that there is a medium effect, V= 0.164. The justification strategy was found in 2.4% of the articles on Société Générale and in 15.7% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found a significant association between the banks and the usage of the justification strategy, χ²(1)= 22.684, p < .001. Cramer’s V shows that there is a moderate effect, V= 0.232. This shows that although both banks do not significantly differ in using the diminish strategy as a whole, they do differ significantly in the usage of separate diminish strategies. JPMorgan has relied mainly on the justification strategy, where Société Générale has more frequently used the excuse strategy.
The rebuild strategy was found to be present in 5.7% of the articles (that contain quotes from the bank) on Société Générale and in 19.3% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found a significant association between the banks and the usage of the diminish strategy, χ²(3)= 8.200, p= .042. Cramer’s V shows that there is a weak effect, V= 0.199. This implies that JPMorgan was much more likely to deploy the rebuild strategy than Société Générale. Next, the presence of the separate rebuild strategies (‘compensation’ and ‘apology’) has been analysed. The compensation strategy was not identified in reports on either the Société Générale or the JPMorgan case. The apology strategy was found in 1.4% of the articles on Société Générale and in 13.3% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found a significant association between the banks and the usage of the apology strategy, χ²(3)= 22.047, p < .001. Cramer’s V shows that there is a moderate effect, V= 0.229. Both banks have not used the compensation strategy, but JPMorgan has used the apology strategy much more frequently than Société Générale.
Next, the presence of the secondary (bolstering) crisis response strategies (‘reminder’, ‘ingratiation’ and ‘victimage’) has been analysed. The reminder strategy was found to be present in 1.9% of the articles on Société Générale and in 5.3% of the articles on JPMorgan.
The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the usage of the reminder strategy, χ²(2)= 3.545, p= .178. The ingratiation strategy was found in 1.0% of the articles on Société Générale and in 2.4% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the usage of the reminder strategy, χ²(1)= 1.308, p= .253. The victimage strategy was found to be present in 7.7% of the articles on Société Générale and in 1.4% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found a significant association between the banks and the usage of the victimage strategy, χ²(2)= 9.539, p= .008. Cramer’s V shows that there is a weak effect, V= 0.151, suggesting that Société Générale has used the victimage strategy much more often than JPMorgan.
Information categories
Within the articles containing quotes from the subject bank, the presence of information from the three information categories (instructing, adjusting and internalizing) was examined. Content belonging to the instructing information category was found to be present in 0.0% of the articles (that contain quotes from the bank) on Société Générale and in 0.8% of the
articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the distribution of instructing information, χ²(1)= .743, p= .389.
Content belonging to the adjusting information category was found to be present in 80.7% of the articles, containing quotes from the bank, on Société Générale and in 69.7% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the distribution adjusting of information, χ²(7)= 6.817, p= .448.
The internalizing information category was found to be present in 47.7% of the articles, containing quotes from the bank, on Société Générale and in 67.2% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test found a significant association between the banks and the distribution of internalizing information, χ²(7)= 13.624, p= .034. The outcome of Cramer’s V,
V= .112, indicates a weak effect. Implying a higher likeliness for reports on JPMorgan to contain information from within the internalizing information category.
SCCT crisis response strategy guidelines
Assuming that both crises fall within Coombs’ (2007) preventable cluster, both banks have not strictly followed the SCCT guidelines. These guidelines advise to only deploy rebuild strategies as a primary crisis response strategy. The results of this study presented in the former section show that both banks predominantly used the diminish strategy. However the placing in the crisis cluster itself is debatable, one might consider the crises as accidental and that would imply both banks have chosen the suitable strategy as their dominant one. In each case the banks have not remained with one single strategy as Coombs advises (2007).
Response from the subject organization
Analysis shows that 79% of the articles (332 of the n= 420) contain at least one quote of some sort, 49.3% (207 of the n= 420) of the articles in the dataset contain at least one quote originating from the bank. For articles about the trading loss at Société Générale, 41.9% (88) contain quotes of which the bank is the source. For JPMorgan, 56.7% (119) of the articles in the dataset contain quotes of which the bank is the source. After conducting a Chi-square test, an association was found showing that presence of quotes from the subject bank in articles are related to the bank itself, χ²(1)= 24.906 (p= .006). Cramer’s V shows that there is a medium effect, V= 0.36. This shows that JPMorgan has, by means of quotes and references, featured more often in articles on its crisis than Société Générale.
Because the following variables were only identifiable if the article contains quotes from the banks, the percentages are indicated to account for this share of articles only.
In 35.2% of the articles on Société Générale (that contain quotes from the bank) at least one quote from the CEO or another board member was published. Within the articles on JPMorgan containing quotes or references, a CEO or other board member was quoted at least
once in 79.0% of the articles. The outcome of the Chi-square test, χ²(8)= 44.846, p < .001, shows that there is a significant association between the probability of the CEO or other board member being quoted and the bank of subject. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .465, indicates a relatively strong association. JPMorgan has strongly relied on its CEO or other board members for contacting the press, whereas Société Générale has relied on other internal sources for expressing itself.
Quotes from, or references to, spokespersons from the subject banks were observed in 4.5% of the articles from Société Générale that contain quotes. Within the articles on
JPMorgan containing quotes or references, a spokesperson was quoted at least once in 4.2% of the articles. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the publication of quotes from spokesperson, χ²(1)= .014, p= .905.
Quotes from or references to other employees of the subject banks were observed in 18.2% of the articles from Société Générale that contain quotes. Within the articles on JPMorgan that contain quotes, a spokesperson was quoted at least once in 3.4% of the articles. The outcome of the Chi-square test, χ²(4)= 17.641, p= .001. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .292, indicates a moderate effect. Implying that in the case of Société
Générale, other employees were more likely to appear in the media than in JPMorgan’s case. Quotes from, or references to, statements or press releases from the subject banks were observed in 19.3% of the articles containing quotes from Société Générale. Within the articles on JPMorgan containing quotes or references, a press release or statement was quoted at least once in 18.5% of the articles. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the publication of references to press releases or statements, χ²(4)= 4.633, p= .327.
Reporting on the solution to the crisis
Within the dataset, 9.5% of the articles on Société Générale have reported on a targeted solution to the crisis. Within the articles on JPMorgan 21.9%, of the articles have reported on the solution. The Chi-square test found a significant association between the banks and the reporting on a targeted solution to the crisis, χ²(1)= 12.152, p < .001. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .170, indicates a weak effect. Implying that a report on JPMorgan’s case is more likely to contain the targeted solution to the crisis than a report on Société Générale. Within the dataset, 1.9% of the articles on Société Générale report on a targeted solution to the crisis that comes from within the subject organization. Within the articles on JPMorgan 4.8% of the articles report on a solution that comes from within the subject organization. The Chi-square test found no significant association between the banks and the reporting on a solution to the crisis originating from within the subject organization, χ²(7)= 2.660, p= .103.
News frames
To examine which of the news frames have been dominant in the reporting on both crises, the presence of each separate news frame has been analysed first.
The human interest frame has been identified in 30.0% of the articles on Société Générale. In 15.2% of the articles on JPMorgan, the human interest frame was identified. The outcome of the Chi-square test χ²(1)= 13.073, p < .001, shows that in the case of Société Générale the media have shown to be more likely to use the human interest frame than in the JPMorgan case. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .176, indicates a weak effect.
The conflict frame has been identified in 21.9% of the articles on Société Générale and in 17.6% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test indicates no significant association between the banks and the presence of the conflict frame, χ²(1)= 1.216, p= .270.
The morality frame has been identified in 8.6% of the articles on Société Générale and in 8.1% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test indicates no significant association between the banks and the presence of the morality frame, χ²(1)= .031, p= .860.
The economic consequences frame was identified in 57.1% of the articles on Société Générale and in 68.1% of the articles on JPMorgan. The outcome of the Chi-square test, χ²(1)= 5.381, p= .02, shows that there is a significant association between the presence of the economic consequences frame and the bank of subject. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .113, indicates a weak effect. Even though highly present in both cases, in the case of JPMorgan the media have shown more likeliness of reporting in the economic consequences frame.
The attribution of responsibility frame has been identified in 80.5% of the articles on Société Générale and in 73.8% of the articles on JPMorgan. The Chi-square test indicates no significant association between the banks and the presence of the morality frame, χ²(1)= .2647, p= .104.
Episodic and thematic frames
To examine which of the two frames has been dominant in the reporting on both crises, the presence of the frames will be separately analysed first. The percentages do not add up to a 100 percent because of the possibility given to the coder to code as ‘not identifiable’ when not able to identify either frame or if too uncertain to do so.
The episodic frame has been identified in 54.8% of the articles on the crisis at Société Générale. And in 37.1% of the articles on JPMorgan, the episodic frame was identified. The outcome of the Chi-square test, χ²(1)= 13.124, p < .001, shows that there is a significant association between the approach of the episodic frame and the bank of subject. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .177, indicates a weak effect.
outcome of the Chi-square test, χ²(1)= 5.304, p= .021, shows that there is a significant
association between the approach of the thematic frame and the bank of subject. The outcome of Cramer’s V, V= .112, indicates a weak effect.
Consequently we ascertain that within the reporting on the Société Générale case, the approach of the episodic frame is dominant. And contrastingly, in the reporting on the JPMorgan case, the approach of the thematic frame is dominant.
Conclusion and discussion
The first objective of this study was to establish whether there is a difference in how Société Générale and JPMorgan have responded to their crises, specifically in terms of their crisis response strategies.
The diminish strategy was quite strongly represented in the media reports on both crises. The noteworthy findings for this strategy lie in the usage of the two seperate diminish strategies. This implies that both banks have attempted to play down the crisis, but in
different ways. Société Générale has predominantly used the excuse strategy: minimizing its responsibility by claiming the events leading to the crisis were uncontrollable or denying intent to do harm. JPMorgan has not used this strategy once, rather it has relied more on the justification strategy: attempting to minimize the perception of damage caused by the crisis. JPMorgan was also more likely to use the rebuild strategy than Société Générale. Both banks only used the apology strategy within the rebuild strategy, but JPMorgan much more often so than Société Générale. This implies that JPMorgan was more willing to seek forgiveness from its stakeholders, thereby implicitly accepting more responsibility for the crisis. This might be considered beneficial for JPMorgan, as prior research has established that
stakeholders tend to evaluate an organization more positively after using the apology strategy in comparison to other strategies (Kiambi & Shafer, 2015). Results show that the presence of the deny strategy in negligible in the cases of both banks.
The difference in responsibility perception is also reflected in the presence of bolstering strategies, of which the victimage strategy was found in over five times as many articles on Société Générale than in articles on JPMorgan. Suggesting that Société Générale views itself more as a victim of the crisis or at least communicates more as such.
In examining the presence of the different information categories, this study has only established a significant difference in presence of internalizing (reputation rebuilding) information. JPMorgan has used this information category more often than Société Générale. In line with the guidelines proposed by Coombs (2007), the usage of this information
category is only responsible after first having distributed instructing and/or adjusting information. This study has not examined the presence of these information categories over time, making it impossible to make claims on the usage of this type of crisis response.
All in all, through its higher tendency to use the rebuild strategy, the results suggest that JPMorgan has stuck to Coombs’ guidelines to higher extent than Société Générale and has used strategies of which prior research suggests that they have a positive effect.
A couple of our findings also suggest that JPMorgan had more control over the coverage on its crisis than Société Générale. The fact that a significantly higher percentage of articles on JPMorgan contain quotes from the bank itself, is the first finding that suggests a higher level of control or at least a larger influence on the coverage. What also suggests a higher level of control at JPMorgan is that it relied a lot more on its CEO or another board member to do the talking with the media, and predominantly so. Prior research by VanSlyke Turk et al. (2012) has shown that a prominent presence of an organization’s CEO during a crisis is beneficial to the perception of stakeholders. Société Générale, on the other hand had much more random employees doing their say in the media, suggesting a low level of control.
can show that these solutions come from within the banks, so it remains unsure to what extent the banks have part in the reported solutions.
Regarding news frames, the articles on the Société Générale case have shown to be almost twice as likely as articles on JPMorgan to contain the human interest frame. This is in line with the predictions that this frame would be more dominant at Société Générale because of the media attention for the personality of Kerviel. This might not be beneficial to Société Générale, as prior research has shown that the human interest frame stimulates negative attitudes towards the organization and the crisis it is in (An & Gower, 2009).
In the case of the Société Générale trading loss of 2008, the media predominantly used the, more narrow, episodic frame. The opposite is to be observed in the reporting on JPMorgan’s trading loss of 2011, in which the thematic frame was significantly dominant. This quite possibly reaffirms the claim by Mason (2014), that when crises of a particular genre (for example trading losses) follow each other up in a relatively short period of time, the media have a tendency of ‘zooming out’. As Mason also suggests, dominant episodic framing might trigger a more targeted attribution of responsibility. Contrasting to thematic frames, that tend to place the issue of responsibility into a broader context (Mason, 2014). This could imply that the difference within this framing could have the effect of a higher responsibility attribution to Société Générale than to JPMorgan.
The economic consequences frame was applied significantly more often by the media when reporting on JPMorgan. Possibly attributable to the fact that the JPMorgan trading loss was preceded by the global financial crisis that had already cost the public considerably. As predicted by An & Gower, the attribution of responsibility frame was the dominant frame within both cases, but between the cases no significant differences were established. According to An & Gower this frame being so dominant as in our cases could confirm our claim that both cases were at least perceived as preventable (An & Gower, 2009). This
reinforces the suggestion that JPMorgan, being more likely to use the prescribed rebuild strategy, has acted more in accordance to SCCT guidelines. In addition, the results of this study suggest that particular frames that tend to have a negative effect on an organization’s reputation where more present at Société Générale than at JPMorgan.
This definitely suggests a relation, however the exploratory nature of this study disables it to establish a causal relation between the notable differences in crisis response and framing in the media. For that matter, we strongly suggest further research into these
compelling cases.
This study also has its limitations on other fronts. Within the dataset, articles from the Financial Times appear overrepresented compared to articles from Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. Another limitation of the dataset is that the newspapers all derive from one country, the United Kingdom. The study is very case-specific and, even though it does compare two cases, one should be wary generalizing its results. Although largely comparable, the two cases inevitably differ in multiple ways and this might account for some differences in results of this study. Another limitation might be that the inter coder reliability sample was a bit small, by which percent agreements might have turned out to be on the high side. This is particularly the case for scarcely present variables.
Even though this might prove very challenging, for future research it would be very beneficial to get hold of information from inside of organizations pointing to its crisis
response strategies. Rather than in the case of this study, extracting it from publications in the media. For future research it can also be very interesting to attempt to establish the presence of a decoupling strategy in the cases of this study. This study has found a notable difference in the media reporting on the targeted solution to the crisis but was unable to establish the possible presence of this strategy.
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Appendix A
Appendix B
Codebook
‘Crisis Communication by banks in trading losses’
Master’s thesis 2015-2016
dhr. dr. M. (Mark) Boukes Department of Communication Science
Track: Corporate Communication University of Amsterdam
Introduction
In January of 2008 French bank Société Générale lost 4.9 billion dollars because of, as the organization states, ‘fraudulent transactions’ made by their trader Jérôme Kerviel. In a largely similar case, JP Morgan Chase lost 6.2 billion dollars at its London branch in 2012 by means of trader Bruno Iksil, nicknamed the ‘London whale’. Both cases were of massive impact to both companies in particular and the credibility of the financial sector as a whole.
The goal of this study is to examine which crisis response strategies Société Générale and JP Morgan Chase & Co. have deployed during the crisis around their trading losses. The
research will also assess the news frames used by different British news media in their reporting on the crises as well as the crisis stages and information categories that are to be identified.
Sample
Newspaper SocGen JPM Sum
Financial Times 143 128 271
Daily Mail 26 34 60
Daily Telegraph 41 48 89
Units of analysis
The units of analysis are newspaper articles of which the main topic is the case of the trading loss at Société Générale of 2008 or the trading loss at JP Morgan of 2011. The analysis will be conducted on article level.
To start off with, a number of essential formal variables regarding publication and content are to be coded. Subsequently variables on the presence of different characteristics will be coded. The coding will be conducted on Qualtrics and therefore the codebook has been set up in the style of this software. Multiple choice questions with a single answer option are represented by the ‘○’ symbol. Multiple choice questions with multiple answer options are represented by the ‘□’ symbol. Single line text entry questions are represented by the ‘…’ symbol.
General coding guidelines
- Start off by looking through the article - Answer general questions (01 – 05) - Thoroughly read the whole article
- Answer study specific questions (06 – 37)
- Only code what is written in the article. Do not code interpretations or assumptions and do not code associations that one might ‘read between the lines’
01 Coder ID
○ Maarten Snijders ○ ICR-coder
02 Dataset
○ Société Générale trading loss of 2008 ○ JP Morgan Chase Co. trading loss of 2011
03 Newspaper
○ Financial Times ○ Daily Mail ○ Daily Telegraph
04 Document number within dataset
…
05 Does the article treat the trading loss crisis at either Société Générale / JP Morgan Chase Co.?
○ Yes
○ No
