Prioritizing relationships: The investment model and relationship maintenance strategies in organizational crises

Crisis communication and crisis management are dominated by research in image repair and restoration, but much has to be done to address the lack of research that engages relational perspectives in these fields. Adopting the investment model (Rusbult, 1980) as a theoretical framework and using structural equation modeling, the study develops a crisis relational maintenance model to explain how organizations can (re)build relationships with publics. Survey results show that publics’ commitment and publics’ trust are two significant mediators that influence publics’ relational behaviors post-crisis. The investment model provides a suitable framework to explain publics’ commitment to an organization, with explained variance more than 90 percent, and an organization’s relationship maintenance strategies during and post-crisis significantly affect publics’ trust. Whether an organization’s relationships with the publics can be maintained or repaired depends on whether an organization engages in these relationship maintenance strategies that prioritize publics’ need, which can be reciprocated from publics as publics reorient themselves along with the long-term goals and well-being of the relationships. Results of this study call for further attention on relationship maintenance approaches in crisis communication and management research.