Crisis management from theory to practice, analysis of a case study

Details

Supervisors

Pouchain, Frédéric

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

In the light of the COVID-19 sanitary crisis, it seems interesting to understand how companies should prepare for and survive this kind of crisis from exogenous causes to them (i.e. crises for which the company is not responsible, such as terrorists attacks, natural disasters, pandemics etc.). This is what this thesis addresses through a theoretical and practical part (based on the analysis of the practical case of the company Lagardère Travel Retail Belgium). The theoretical part aims to understand, thanks to the literature and the previous crises studied, what each department of the value chain of a company must put in place in order to best react to the crisis. A comprehensive approach (360°) will be presented in this paper in order to tackle this question. Furthermore, the case study analyzed allow the reader, on the one hand, to understand how the company Lagardère Travel Retail Belgium experienced and managed the sanitary crisis and on the other hand, to confront theory with practice. Through this comparison, it appears that, although most of the theory is true, the analysis demonstrate that some elements seem to be controversial and different.