Public's Responses to an oil spill accident: A test of the attribution theory and situational crisis communication theory

Situational communication crisis communication theory (SCCT) and Weiner's attribution theory are used in this research to explain the public's responses to a corporation that caused an oil spill accident. Consistent with SCCT, people made higher internal attributions and lower external attributions about the oil spill accident when low distinctiveness information was provided, compared to when high distinctiveness information or no information was provided. Higher internal attributions and lower external attributions, in turn, resulted in greater punitive opinions and punitive behavior.     

Evangelical Christian Crisis Responses to Same-Sex Sex Scandals

This research examines the crisis responses of four evangelical leaders (Paul Crouch, Ted Haggard, Lonnie Latham, and Eddie Long) involved in same-sex sex scandals by comparing their responses against those recommended by the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). Using a quasi-case study approach to add context and richness to the SCCT, this research examined the leaders’ strategies and the response to them and found that the evangelical pastors generally adhered to the recommended strategies of the SCCT, thus reinforcing the broad applicability of the SCCT when handling a crisis, even in a religious context. Despite reinforcing the validity of the SCCT, this article also recommends the inclusion of additional categorical considerations for the SCCT for situations where a crisis inflicts spiritual or emotional harm, particularly for crises occurring in a religious environment.     

Underlying processes of SCCT: Mediating roles of preventability,blame, and trust

Despite the prevalence of the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT; Coombs, 2007) in crisis communication research, few SCCT-based studies have examined how different crisis types affect post-crisis reputation. This study, therefore, attempts to uncover the underlying processes of SCCT. Specifically, this study examined preventability, blame, and trust as potential mediators of crisis type and organizational post-crisis reputation. A between-subjects experimental study (crisis type: victim vs. accidental vs. preventable) was conducted with 329 college students. The results revealed that crisis type had no direct effects on reputation, but it did affect preventability, blame, and trust. More significantly, the results showed that crisis type indirectly affected reputation in two distinct ways: (1) via a sequence of preventability and blame and (2) via trust. The study includes a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.     

The reputational benefits of instructing information: The first test of the revised model of reputation repair

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) prescribes crisis response strategies for organizations facing crisis. A meta-analysis of SCCT suggests using the prescribed responses has, at most, a small effect on reputation, while a few studies have shown that the base crisis responses (instructing information and adjusting information) may have a larger effect on reputation. This experiment compares the effects of SCCT’s prescribed responses, instructing information, and adjusting information on reputation in an experiment with 989 participants recruited from mTurk. It finds that instructing information has a very large effect on reputation, while adjusting information has a small but significant effect on reputation. In this sample, SCCT’s prescribed response strategies have no significant effect on reputation. The experiment proposes the revised model of reputation repair (REMREP) as a tool for understanding how crisis influences reputation. The model incorporates virtuousness and offensiveness, which demonstrates the importance of organizational virtuousness in handling a crisis. Implications for theory and practitioners are discussed.     

How to turn your friends into enemies: Causes and outcomes of customers’ sense of betrayal in crisis communication

Crises are violations of customers’ expectations for a company. Loyal customers who feel betrayed due to the violations of expectations often become the company’s worst enemies. To extend the line of research of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), this study explored how attributed responsibility, customer-company relationship (CCR), and their interaction affect betrayal. A company’s defining attributes and customer-company identification (CCI) shape customers’ expectations for a company. This study also examined how a direct threat to a company’s defining attribute in a crisis and CCI affect betrayal. A total of 395 Whole Foods customers participated in an online quasi-experiment.The antecedent concepts from SCCT all affect betrayal, with the attributed responsibility being the strongest predictor. Customers also feel more betrayed when the crisis directly threatens the company’s defining attribute and when they strongly identify with the company. Consequently, sense of betrayal has strong effects on customers’ attitudinal, emotional, and intentional responses.     

Effects of attributed responsibility and response strategies on organizational reputation: A meta-analysis of situational crisis communication theory research

Scholars utilizing situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) mainly examine how attributed responsibility affects organizational reputation and how response strategies matched with the amount of attributed responsibility protect reputation. The findings on these 2 important questions have been mixed. A meta-analysis of 35 investigations from 24 studies published between January 1990 and March 2015 was conducted to explain the mixed findings and reveal average correlations. Attributed responsibility was strongly associated with reputation at –.54, and response strategies were only weakly associated with reputation at .23. Equally important, crisis vignette choice moderated the responsibility-reputation association. Crisis clusters, reputation measurements, sample choice, and crisis vignette choice moderated the match-reputation association. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were discussed.     

Finding the path beyond reputation repair: A structural topic modeling analysis of the crisis communication paradigm in public relations

This research utilizes computational methods to examine crisis communication scholarship from 2010 to 2020 in two studies with a census of all articles in Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research (n = 1293 articles, 7400,685 words). Results indicate crisis scholarship has expanded beyond its prior focus on reputation repair. Situational crisis communication theory and image repair are compared in volume of scholarship and methodological affinity. Social media, SCCT, and media relations are identified as central topics within crisis communication scholarship.     

How publics react to situational and renewing organizational responses across crises: Examining SCCT and DOR in social-mediated crises

The prevalence of social media among networked publics calls for more research regarding how organizations can conduct effective crisis communication on social networking sites. Based on the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the discourse of renewal (DOR) theory, this study examined how social media publics’ sentiments were affected by situational and renewing organizational responses in various clusters of crises. Twitter data of six crises representing three crisis clusters varying in the responsibility attribution (i.e., ambiguous, accidental, and preventable) were collected. We conducted a content analysis on organizations’ official tweets during crises (N = 59) and sentiment analysis on publics’ replies on Twitter (N = 4,340). The results showed that publics’ positive sentiments toward organizations were affected by organizational crisis responses that included instructing information, sympathy, systemic organizational learning, and effective organizational rhetoric. We recommend that crisis managers express sympathy toward publics as well as organizational learning that prevents a crisis from happening again.     

Does one size fit all? The applicability of situational crisis communication theory in the Japanese context

This study investigates the suitability of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) for the Japanese context. The existence of considerable cultural differences between Japan and the United States in terms of responsibility attribution and account giving, which form the foundation of SCCT, suggest a potentially limited applicability of the framework in the Japanese context. In this study, the impact of crisis type and crisis response on corporate reputation was measured for 470 Japanese respondents participating in a 4 (crisis type: misdeed, accident, tampering, and workplace violence) ☓ 3 (crisis response: SCCT recommended response, culturally adjusted response, or no response) between-subjects experimental design. The results reveal that SCCT is only partially applicable to the Japanese context. Crisis responsibility as operationalized by SCCT fails to capture less causality-focused aspect of Japanese responsibility judgments. Implications of the findings for SCCT are discussed.     

Deny or bolster? A comparative study of crisis communication strategies between Trump and Cuomo in COVID-19

This study applied the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) in political crisis communication amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, a “sticky crisis” that is longitudinal and politicized, thereby involving multiple challenges and complexities. Considering the critical role of Twitter in the information transmissions during the ongoing pandemic, this study considered politicians’ tweets as a proxy to access their crisis communication strategies and conducted a systematic content analysis to critically evaluate COVID-19 crisis communication strategies of two politicians, Trump and Cuomo, according to their perceived day-to-day circumstances during COVID-19. Three strategies categorized by SCCT, deny, diminish, and bolstering, surfaced with significance for both Trump and Cuomo. A new strategy specific to the political context, cohesion, was also identified. In addition, significant differentiation was observed in the strategic narratives between Trump and Cuomo, which reveals the evolving political dynamics in disease representation and crisis messaging. For example, Trump emphasized social exclusion and accusations of Democrats whilst Cuomo stressed care for vulnerable and minority groups and compassion delivery. Moreover, deny strategy, especially accusing other races, significantly boosted audience engagement for Trump. The results are discussed in relation to the idiosyncrasy of the complex COVID-19 pandemic and crisis communication in the political realm. Our findings demonstrate practical implications including online crisis messaging recommendations that foster public trust during politicized and polarized health emergencies and cultivate grounds for information exchange beyond partisan barriers.     

Crisis communication research in Israel: A meta-analysis

This study presents a meta-analysis of crisis research in Israel. It highlights achievements and lacunas, as well as significant gaps in theory, methodology and practice. Moreover, the study reveals trends in applications to specific areas and topics. The paper statistically examines crisis research via crisis type, discipline, and research focus. The results finally showcase a viable need to apply crisis communication theory to research regarding crises in Israel.     

Presidential crisis: An analysis of Biden & Trump’s crisis communications strategies in response to allegations of sexual misconduct

While campaigning for president of the United States, both Donald Trump (2016) and Joe Biden (2020) faced serious allegations of sexual misconduct. Consequently, the sexual misconduct allegations were classified as a crisis for the candidates themselves and their campaigns. This study identified the crisis communications strategies that each individual and their respective campaign utilized, analyzing the ways in which each candidate adhered to and deviated from the established framework of the crisis communications model (Strategic Crisis Communications Theory) (Coombs, 1995). Artifacts during the campaign season such as statements, press releases, responses, and news articles were collected and analyzed under the framework of the SCCT. Research indicates that each candidate was able to utilize “mismatched” strategies successfully, suggesting that the SCCT may be applied in political contexts. More research is needed to better understand the role SCCT plays in the political realm--especially within political organizations and campaigns.     

Warranted inferences of mediation and possibility of a threshold effect: Verifying the mediating effects of anger in situational crisis communication theory

Scholars have called for communication research to verify the causal claims of mediation models from a research design perspective, instead of only proving mediation statistically. This study validates whether and how anger mediates the causal effects of crisis types on publics’ responses in Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), including reputation, negative word-of-mouth intention, and purchase intention in China. Two experiments were conducted based on the experimental-causal-chain design. Results in Study 1 demonstrate that the causal relationships between three crisis types and publics’ emotional and other responses in China are consistent with findings in Western contexts. In Study 2, the results of a 2 (anger: low, high) x 3 (crisis types: victim crisis, accidental crisis, preventable crisis) factorial experiment reveal significant mediating effects of anger on publics’ responses in the victim and accidental crisis conditions, but not for preventable crises. This novel finding suggests the possibility of a threshold effect of anger in the mediating process. Specifically, anger has a mediating effect on publics’ responses when it is below the high-anger threshold. However, anger may no longer be the mediator when it exceeds this threshold. This finding empirically challenges the common assumption that emotions have a linear relationship with publics’ responses, thus offering a new research avenue and deeper understanding of how emotions function in crises. Therefore, this research serves as a pioneer, calling for future studies to validate other theories involving mediation to yield fruitful insights.     

Beyond attribution: Building new measures to explain the reputation threat posed by crisis

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) suggests attributed responsibility is the key factor explaining the reputation threat posed by crisis situations. However, studies on SCCT have found using its prescribed responses has a small effect. This research uses image repair theory’s conception of crisis to suggest that offensiveness is another factor that should be measured in order to explain the reputation threat posed by crisis. Using the literature of moral foundations theory, interviews with 20 people with expertise in public relations, and 338 participants from mTurk in a 2 (attributed responsibility)?×?10 (crisis offensiveness) experiment, this research develops valid, reliable measures of attributed responsibility for crisis offensiveness, and mitigating virtuousness, that explain 73.7% of the reputation threat posed by crisis in the sample, as opposed to 24.8% explained by attributed responsibility alone in the same sample. Implications for public relations scholars and practitioners are discussed.     

Consumer Responses to Mattel Product Recalls Posted on Online Bulletin Boards: Exploring Two Types of Emotion

Drawn from attribution theory, this article introduces two types of emotion (i.e., attribution independent and attribution dependent emotion) and explores their role in the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) model. A content analysis of consumer responses to the Mattel product recalls posted on online bulletin boards revealed that consumers experience a range of emotions from a crisis. A regression analysis suggests that crisis responsibility is a significant predictor of anger, fear, surprise, worry, contempt, and relief, and indicates that these are attribution dependent emotions. Alert and confusion were the most frequently expressed attribution independent emotions identified in this study. In testing a revised SCCT model, a significant negative relationship was found between alert, anger, and organizational reputation. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Impacted publics’ perceptions of crisis communication decision making

This study focused on qualitative analysis utilizing the grounded theory approach to explore how impacted publics connected to an organization’s business interests perceive the complexities of crisis communication decision making. Referencing the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in October 2018 and March 2019, respectively, the researcher conducted interviews with participants either affiliated with Boeing publics or affiliated with an organization within the same industry that could conceivably be connected in a similar hypothetical context. Coding resulted in the emergence of Publics’ Expectations, which are those expectations that an impacted public has in an organizational crisis situation where it is affected by the crisis communication of a central organization, as the core category. This was further subcategorized into Cognitive Empathy (impacted public empathizes or understands elements that introduce central organization reluctance to communicate), Crisis Communication (impacted public expectations of central organization communication), and Decision Making (impacted public expectations of complicated decision making), with corresponding components for each subcategory. Although the findings support many of the prevailing notions in Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and other crisis communication theories, this study found that impacted publics might have higher levels of empathy for organizational realities than previously understood that reframes culpability as responsibility for the plight of your publics, not necessarily immediate outright responsibility for the crisis. This offers insights for a practical approach to crisis communication that is inclusive of publics, yet still fair to the organization that has to also represent its own interests.     

Crisis communication within a community: Bonding,coping, and making sense together

Crisis communication has been researched extensively from managerial and functionalist approaches, and little empirical research exists exploring the role of a community in helping community members cope with crises. Situated in this major gap, the current investigation adopts a community-centered approach that combines insights from chaos theory, uncertainty reduction theory, and sensemaking theory. This study used a mixed method design to examine the role of a campus community in dealing with a variety of campus crises. The qualitative study gave an in-depth understanding of how a crisis is perceived and the underlying process of how a community helps to make sense of a crisis. The quantitative study tested and further illustrated this process through path analysis. The major contributions of this study to the current crisis communication literature are twofold: (1) a crisis-induced community building model that demonstrates a community’s role in helping community members self-organize, collectively make sense of a crisis, and reproduce community experiences; and (2) instruments to measure a crisis and community functionalities. Theoretical implications of this study on chaos theory, uncertainty reduction theory, and sensemaking theory are discussed.     

Does severity matter?: An investigation of crisis severity from defensive attribution theory perspective

Although the concept of crisis severity has existed in the crisis communication literature for two decades, it has not been theoretically tested and explained. Based on Defensive Attribution Theory (DAT), this study intends to specify the relationship between crisis severity and crisis responsibility as well as organizational reputation within the SCCT model. Through a 2 (crisis severity) × 3 (crisis type) between-subject factorial experiment (n?=?274), the study revealed that higher crisis severity causes worse reputation regardless of crisis type. For accidental crisis, higher crisis severity leads to higher intentionality, one dimension of crisis responsibility. The findings indicate that crisis severity still has value in SCCT and deserves further investigation.     

The Effects of Corrective Communication and Employee Backup on the Effectiveness of Fighting Crisis Misinformation

Crisis misinformation, including false information about a crisis or a crisis-stricken organization, has become a fundamental threat to organizational wellbeing. Effective crisis response geared toward fighting crisis misinformation demands a more systematic approach to corrective communication. Grounded in misinformation debunking theory, this study aims to advance misinformation research in public relations and organizational crisis communication. An online experiment using a U.S. adult sample (N = 817) was conducted to examine the effects of corrective communication strategy (simple rebuttal vs. factual elaboration) and employee backup (present vs. absent) on perceived message quality, organizational reputation, and perceived crisis responsibility. Results show: 1) the use of factual elaboration and the presence of employee backup were direct contributors to crisis response effectiveness; and 2) perceived message quality mediates the effect of corrective communication. This study provides insights into advancing crisis communication theory and offers evidence-based recommendations for practitioners to combat crisis misinformation more effectively.