Crisis response and crisis timing strategies,two sides of the same coin

This study investigates the moderating impact of the timing of crisis disclosure on the effect of crisis response strategies on organizational post-crisis reputation. It proposes that self-disclosing a crisis allows organizations to avoid explicitly taking or rejecting responsibility by means of a crisis response strategy. A 2 (crisis timing strategy: ex-ante vs. ex-post) × 2 (crisis response strategy: response strategy vs. objective information only) between-subjects factorial design was conducted among 137 participants. The results show that organizations that do not steal thunder better use a reputation restoring crisis response strategy than just providing stakeholders objective information about what happened. In addition, the results demonstrate that if an organization steals thunder, it is not necessary to offer reputation restoring crisis response strategies such as an apology. These findings stress the importance of timing to disclose crisis information in addition to the content of crisis communication strategies.     

Restoring reputations in times of crisis: An experimental study of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory and the moderating effects of locus of control

This study attempts to provide empirical evidence for Coombs’ (2007) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), which provides guidelines for matching crisis response strategies to crisis types to best restore organizational reputations in times of crisis. The impact of crisis type and crisis response strategies on perceptions of corporate reputation is measured for 316 consumers participating in a 3 (crisis type: victim crisis, accidental crisis, preventable crisis) × 3 (crisis response: deny strategy, diminish strategy, rebuild strategy) between-subjects experimental design. The results show that preventable crises have the most negative effects on organizational reputation and that the rebuild strategy leads to the most positive reputational restoration. Moreover, the more severe people judge a crisis to be, the more negative are their perceptions of the organization's reputation. The interaction effect between crisis type and crisis response strategies on corporate reputation is not significant. However, a person's locus of control has a moderating impact on the relationship between crisis response strategy and organizational reputation. Specifically, the results show that people with an external locus of control prefer the use of deny strategies more than people with an internal locus of control.     

Crisis response strategy manipulation: A systematic review and a test of nuances

Although testing the effectiveness of crisis response strategies has been a prominent topic in crisis communication research, studies have rarely addressed whether the manipulation of these strategies accurately reflects their theoretical definitions in experiments. Through a systematic review, this study first identified nuances in the manipulation of apology, diminishing, and scapegoating strategies. The study then tested the effect of the variation of the same strategy on the public’s responses using three experiments. The findings revealed that an explicit apology was more effective than an implicit apology, while an apology with corrective action was even more effective than an apology alone. Internal scapegoating significantly harmed an organization compared to external scapegoating. Following the results of the study, researchers are encouraged to review their crisis response strategy manipulations to ensure the internal validity of experimental studies in crisis communication.     

The paracrisis: The challenges created by publicly managing crisis prevention

Social media is emerging as critical element of scanning for many crisis risks. When these crisis risks emerge online, people often confuse them with crises and that is why we have developed the term paracrisis. Para can mean “like” something. A paracrisis is like a crisis. It can “look like” a crisis and does require action from the organization. However, a paracrisis does not warrant convening the crisis team and operating in a crisis mode. This paper details the value of paracrises, how to evaluate their threat potential, and ways to respond to them and how to evaluate those responses.     

Crisis communication: The mediating role of cognitive and affective empathy in the relationship between crisis type and crisis response strategy on post-crisis reputation and forgiveness

This study seeks to contribute to the growing body of research in crisis communication by exploring how two types of empathy; cognitive empathy and affective empathy, affect organizational reputation and publics’ forgiveness for an organization that is in a crisis. An online three (crisis type: victim vs. accidental vs. preventable) × two (response strategy: rebuilding vs. denial) between-subjects experiment was conducted with 648 participants (N = 648) recruited through Amazon’s research tool MTurk. The results of the study reveal that crisis type affects both cognitive and affective empathy and people are more likely to feel empathetic toward an organization that uses rebuilding strategies than an organization that denies the existence of a crisis. Theoretical and practical implications of empathy on corporate reputation and forgiveness are discussed.     

A comparative study of crisis communication strategies between Mainland China and Taiwan: The melamine-tainted milk powder crisis in the Chinese context

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to identify and compare the crisis communication strategies (CCSs) that organizations used to respond to a congenetic melamine-tainted milk crisis in two Chinese societies (i.e., Mainland China and Taiwan), and (2) to explore the underlying political and media system reasons that led to the differences. Content analysis and discourse analysis of media coverage were used. The most significant finding is that Sanlu (a Mainland China-based organization) and KingCar (a Taiwan-based organization) demonstrated inverse pattern of the CCS adoption. Specifically, according to Coombs’ (1998) defense-accommodation continuum, Sanlu's CCSs moved from defensive to accommodative pole as time went by whereas, in contrast, KingCar started with accommodative strategies and moved towards the defensive pole gradually. Besides, the results showed that both organizations adopted denial, corrective action and apology strategies. However, on the Sanlu part, the most frequently used strategy was denial, while KingCar used justification most often. Moreover, this paper suggests that besides cultural dynamics, political and media systems also play a part in corporate selection of CCSs, and they are among the most important factors that should be taken into account to explain the differences in societies even with an identical traditional culture.     

Individual difference in crisis response perception: How do legal experts and lay people perceive apology and compassion responses?

A growing number of studies have found no difference in the effects of apology, compassion, or sympathy on crisis outcomes. The present study examines whether people perceive apology and compassion in a similar way or whether there is an individual difference in the perception of crisis response that has not been explored. The results of this study revealed a significant difference in crisis response perception between legal experts and lay people. Law experts did see a difference between apology and compassion responses in judging apology, whereas lay people did not. This study finding suggests that individual difference be incorporated into testing the effect of different crisis responses on crisis outcomes.     

Strategic framing in the BP crisis: A semantic network analysis of associative frames

This paper contributes to the analysis of the interplay of public relations and news in crisis situations, and the conceptualization of strategic framing by introducing the idea of associative frames and the method of semantic network analysis to the PR research field. By building on a more advanced understanding of communication as process of social meaning construction that is embedded in networks of differential relations between different actors, it contributes to extend the perspective of first- and second-order agenda building towards a kind of “third order” or “network agenda building”. Via an automated content analysis of more than 3700 articles we examine agenda- and frame-differences between public relations, UK and US news in the BP crisis. The study documents that BP successfully applied a decoupling strategy: It dissociated itself from being responsible for the cause and at the same time presented itself as solvent of the crisis. It shows that in crises, associative frames in PR resonate partly to associative frames in news. Especially the US news followed BP and did not succeed in presenting political actors as solution providers.     

Crisis communication online: How medium,crisis type and emotions affected public reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Social media play in today's societies a fundamental role for the negotiation and dynamics of crises. However, classical crisis communication theories neglect the role of the medium and focus mainly on the interplay between crisis type and crisis communication strategy. Building on the recently developed “networked crisis communication model” we contrast effects of medium (Facebook vs. Twitter vs. online newspaper) and crisis type (intentional vs. victim) in an online experiment. Using the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as crisis scenario, we show that medium effects are stronger than the effects of crisis type. Crisis communication via social media resulted in a higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions such as boycotting the company than crisis communication in the newspaper. However, secondary crisis communication, e.g. talking about the crisis communication, was higher in the newspaper condition than in the social media conditions because people consider traditional media as more credible. We also found higher levels of anger in the intentional crisis condition than in the victim crisis condition. Anger in turn was related to reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reaction. The results stress the need for more complex models of crisis communication.     

Empathy as a main ingredient of impactful crisis communication: The perspectives of crisis communication practitioners

Sixteen in-depth interviews with Belgian crisis communication practitioners were conducted to get their perspectives on the role of empathy in crisis communication. While demonstrating empathy toward crisis-affected stakeholders is considered an essential best practice, the role of empathy in responding to crises has only received limited attention in research. The aims of this study were to examine how practitioners interpret the concept of empathy in crisis communication; to what extent they value the expression of empathy in crisis responses and for what reasons; and what exactly constitutes an empathetic crisis response according to them. In addition, instances in which stakeholders may in turn experience empathy for organizations in crisis were examined. As such, the aspiration behind this study was to provide insights that can initiate further theorization and research on the role of empathy in the context of organizational crisis communication.     

Reducing anger and blame: The role of the morality news frame and crisis response strategy

This study examined how crisis response strategies and news frame can be used to reduce people's anger and blame in an internal crisis. College students participated in the 2 (individual vs. organizational responsibility) × 2 (immorality vs. non-immorality frame) between-subject factorial design. Individual responsibility strategy and the immorality frame can make people angry and blame more the organization. Significant interaction effects between the news frame and the strategies on blame were found.     

How publics use social media to respond to blame games in crisis communication: The Love Parade tragedy in Duisburg 2010

Crisis communication scholarship has been criticized for its “managerial bias” and for its tendency to marginalize the perspective of publics and audiences. However, the understanding of how publics cope with and interpret crises is crucial for developing the body of knowledge in crisis communication, from both critical and managerial/functionalist perspectives. This case study of the Love Parade crisis in Germany 2010 aimed at exploring how publics perceived the crisis response of the festival organizers and how they used social media to communicate about it shortly after the outbreak of the crisis. A content analysis of 1847 postings at two relevant message boards produced support for the assumption that attributions of cause and responsibility are important predictors of publics’ evaluations of organizations in crisis situations. Findings also revealed that stakeholders actively engage in such attributional inferences spontaneously without being prompted by researchers. The analysis of responsibility perceptions as well as evaluative judgments over time supported the situational crisis communication theory. Blaming others and denying responsibility in the context of a crisis that was perceived as human error accident triggered negative reputational outcomes for the organizations involved in the Love Parade.     

The role of empathy in crisis communication: Providing a deeper understanding of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation

This study advances our theoretical knowledge of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation. Prior research solely emphasizes the importance of organizational crisis responsibility in this process. Three experiments show that stakeholders’ empathy toward the organization provides a second explanation. The first two experiments demonstrate that victim crises not only inflict less reputational damage than preventable crises because stakeholders consider the organization less responsible for the events, but also because they are more likely to empathize with the company. The third study shows that empathy can also explain the outcomes of crisis communication. An apology arouses empathy among stakeholders and subsequently increases reputation repair, unlike denial. The role of empathy in the crisis communication process has implications for both theory and practice.     

Crisis communication in higher education: The use of “negotiation” as a strategy to manage crisis

This case study examined the crisis response strategies of Louisiana State University after its women's head basketball coach resigned amid charges of inappropriate conduct with former basketball players. This case study draws on relationship management and negotiation as the theoretical lens to examine the efforts of the University in managing relationships and restoring its image. Data for this study was collected through opened-ended questionnaires from students, faculty, and staff at the University. The findings from this study indicate that the good reputation of the University was responsible for the positive evaluation of the crisis management. In addition, results from this study suggest that “negotiation” can play an important role in managing a crisis when the conflicting parties are not willing to participate in a dialogue.     

A public health crisis in the university: Impact of crisis response strategies on universities’ transparency and post-crisis relationships during COVID 19 pandemic

During the COVID 19 pandemic, one of the most critical tasks of the university was to effectively communicate with students, faculty, and staff members. This study aims to explore perceived universities’ crisis response messages during the pandemic and examine the effectiveness of each response strategy on public relations outcomes. A survey with 346 university students in the U.S., results showed how defensive and accommodative response strategies differently affected PR outcomes. Accommodative strategies generated higher OPR and greater perceived transparency efforts among students, while several defensive strategies affected students’ negative evaluations on post-crisis OPR and perceived transparency of their universities. Such results revealed valuable insights that make significant contributions to theory and practices in university crisis communication and management, especially when dealing with public health crises that are seen as external locus of control.     

Exploring crisis communication in the internal context of an organization: Examining moderated and mediated effects of employee-organization relationships on crisis outcomes

This study seeks to foster a greater understanding of effective crisis communication from the internal context of organizations. The present research conducted an online experimental study of 640 full-time employees in the United States. Results through OLS multiple regression and path analysis indicated 1) employee-organization relationships (EOR) and timing strategy of self-disclosure (stealing thunder) were positively associated with the positive internal reputation and employees’ supportive behavioral intentions, 2) the positive effects of EOR on the employees’ supportive behaviors appeared differently according to whether or not stealing-thunder was used, and 3) the effects of EOR and message strategy (accommodative response) on the positive internal reputation were varied when the negative emotions (anger and anxiety) intervened.     

Incorporating competition and comparisons into crisis communication: How competing organizations respond to industry crises

Crisis communication research typically focuses on how a single organization strategically responds to crises based on its own set of situational factors. However, it is common for multiple competing organizations to be involved in responding to the same crisis. By analyzing two industry crisis cases in China, this study provides insights into what we termed competitive crisis communication, which involves not only crisis response timing and strategies but also competition and comparisons among the different organizations involved in the same crisis. The analysis of organizational statements on social media reveals the extent of differences in crisis response strategies adopted by competing organizations. Findings from an analysis of online media coverage and public posts on social media further suggest that stakeholders’ comparisons of different organizations’ crisis responses can influence stakeholders’ emotions and reputational perceptions of the organizations. Finally, the competitive advantages for an organization to respond as the first mover or late mover in industry crisis communication are discussed.     

Further explorations of post-crisis communication: Effects of media and response strategies on perceptions and intentions

Crisis communication represents a rapidly growing body of research and is seeing an increased use of experimental methods. However, the experiments have relied exclusively on print stimuli resulting in little knowledge of channel effects on crisis communication. This study evaluates the effects of different response strategies and media channels on respondents exposed to a crisis. The study used a 2 (crisis response: sympathy and compassion) × 2 (media: print and video) design. We selected two similar response strategies that could differ in terms of the additional cues provided by video. Results revealed virtually no meaningful difference between the use of video versus print or sympathy versus compensation.     

Never easy to say “sorry”: Exploring the interplay of crisis involvement,brand image,and message appeal in developing effective corporate apologies

This study examines how the interplay among crisis involvement, brand image, and message appeal impacts the effectiveness of an apology in the context of a corporate crisis. To determine apology effectiveness, a 2 (crisis involvement: high vs. low) × 2 (brand image: symbolic vs. functional) × 2 (message appeal type: emotional vs. informational) experimental design was employed. The results demonstrate that the three-way interaction is significant, especially in the low-crisis involvement condition. The study concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research.     

Making nice may not matter: The interplay of crisis type,response type and crisis issue on perceived organizational responsibility

Experimental findings suggest limited effects for corporate social responsibility (CSR) to inoculate a company prior to a crisis. CSR may be viewed as accommodative window dressing that diminishes resources to assure corporate competence. When an accident occurs, emphasis in crisis communication on corporate ability (CA) may be more effective than CSR, especially when corporate culpability is low.