ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses the organizational identity of Volkswagen, specifically during the 2015–2016 emissions control scandal. Crisis communication strategies can be understood as both communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) approaches and examples of Critical Sensemaking (CSM) process reflecting plausibility, identity construction and the boundaries of rules and discourse operating at both the organizational and societal level. Another strategy of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory approach appears in the tweets from Volkswagen in September and October, 2015, that of corporate apology. In Two rogue engineers strategy of both attributing blame for the deception to a small number of rogue engineers and reminding the public of a prior focus on environmental sustainability, Volkswagen attempted to influence the formative context. Content was coded for sensemaking processes, alternating between the individual tweets emerging and the context within which the data produced a textual whole.
