One Crisis, Two Responses: A Transboundary Analysis of the Melamine‐Tainted Milk Powder Crisis in China and Taiwan

The melamine‐tainted milk powder crisis was a serious transregional crises of the twenty‐first century in Greater China. To deeply understand crisis communication in a nonwestern context, it is necessary to revise the cultural and institutional assumptions adopted by the majority of current theories developed in western democratic societies. This chapter explores how companies from Mainland China and Taiwan dealt with the crisis in terms of traditional culture and institutional factors that influenced the crisis response. This provides insight into the practice and effect of crisis communication in the Chinese context. It is based upon Lyu's comparative study of the crisis communication strategies (CCSs) adopted by companies from Mainland China and Taiwan in this. The chapter illustrates and theorizes the complex interrelations that exist among Chinese traditions and their various institutional contexts, and elaborates upon the contextual factors that influence CCSs to develop a holistic approach to the study of crisis communication in the Chinese context.