Moving forward: The effectiveness of online apologies framed with hope on negative behavioural intentions in crises (original) (raw)
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Public Relations Review, 2018
This paper examines the impact of expressing different discrete emotions with a mixed valence (anger and hope) in organizational crisis communication on negative word-of-mouth on social media. In particular, the effects of expressing discrete emotions with a single valence (either positive or negative) versus mixed valence (expressing both positive and negative emotions) emotions are studied by means of a 4 (emotional message framing: control vs. positive emotion vs. negative emotion vs. mixed valence emotions) by 2 (crisis type: victim vs. preventable crisis) between-subjects experimental design (N = 295). Results show that in a preventable crisis, expressing mixed valence emotions elicits higher perceived sincerity and more empathy towards the spokesperson, and subsequently less negative word-of-mouth compared to expressing either single emotions or the control condition. However, in the case of a victim crisis, expressing single emotions, and especially a negative emotion like anger, results in less negative word-of-mouth through an increase in perceived sincerity and empathy towards the spokesperson.
Why say sorry? Influencing consumer perceptions post organizational crises
Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), 2009
Organizational crises can have devastating consequences to reputation, an important, intangible asset that can threaten an organization's long term viability. Therefore, choosing post-crisis communication responses mitigating negative consumer, public and stakeholders' perceptions are critical to managing corporate reputation. This exploratory, Australian based research tests crisis responses across the continuum of 'defensive' and 'accommodative' alternatives. Findings indicate that highly accommodating responses lead to significantly higher impressions of the organization and trust levels indicating less reputational damage. Conversely, the highly defensive strategy of denial indicated reputational damage had occurred. Surprisingly, a 'neutral' response strategy (no comment), a moderate 'accommodative' strategy (apology), and a moderate 'defensive' strategy (excuse) did not result in significantly different consumer impressions of, or trust in, the organization. Results indicate Australian perceptions of highly accommodative and highly defensive strategies are consistent with results found internationally. However, findings challenge existing literature and assumptions regarding affects of different crisis response strategies, suggesting it may be feasible to make no comment, rather than defend or apologize, if desired providing new insight into crisis responses strategy options available to managers.
Public Relations Review, 2010
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. .be (A.-S. Claeys), verolien.cauberghe@ugent.be (V. Cauberghe), patrick.vyncke@ugent.be (P. Vyncke). 1 Tel.: +32 472 23 07 87. 2 Tel.: +32 09 264 68 91. 0363-8111/$ -see front matter
The Effect of Bad News and CEO Apology of Corporate on User Responses in Social Media
[Extended version of ''Managing Bad News in Social Media: A Case Study on Domino’s Pizza Crisis'' paper] While social media has become an important platform for social reputation, the emotional responses of users toward bad news have not been investigated thoroughly. We analyzed a total of 20,773 Twitter messages by 15,513 users to assess the influence of bad news and public apology in social media. Based on both computerized, quantitative sentiment analysis and in-depth qualitative analysis, we found that rapid public apology effectively and immediately reduced the level of negative sentiment, where the degree of change in sentiments differed by the type of interactions users engaged in. The majority of users who directly conversed with corporate representatives on the new media were not typical consumers, but experts and practitioners. We extend the existing cognitive model and suggest the audiences’ psychological reaction model to describe the information processing process during and after an organizational crisis and response. We also discuss various measures through which companies can respond to a crisis properly in social media in a fashion that is different from conventional mass media.
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 2017
Cauberghe, 2014a). More recently, studies have focused on the expression of emotions in crisis communication (e.g., Claeys & Cauberghe, 2014b; Kim & Cameron, 2011); however, they tended to focus on negative emotions, such as shame and regret (van der Meer & Verhoeven, 2014) or sadness (Claeys, Cauberghe, & Leysen, 2013). The impact of expressions of positive emotions (e.g., humour) in a crisis situation has received scant attention. Following Vigsø (2013), we expect that humorously framed crisis response messages may damage organizational reputation for crisis situations with seriously injured victims or severe damage, because it signals a lack of empathy on the part of the organization (Sorensen, 2008; Vigsø, 2013). In particular, we expect that humorously framed crisis responses may damage the perception of organizational sincerity (Sorensen, 2008). Sincerity is an important feature of organizational crisis communication in repairing postcrisis reputation (Claeys & Cauberghe, 2014a; Claeys et al., 2013). When a crisis response message is perceived as insincere, the message will be of little or no value to the public. It may even
Positive Organizational Behavior: A Buffer for Bad News
Business Communication Quarterly, 2012
Most communication research on bad news messages focuses on crisis communication, where attention is often limited to image repair strategies. The authors argue that a key indicator of an organization’s effectiveness in communicating “bad news” messages is its organizational culture. Developing an organizational culture that values positive organizational behavior can transform the way that “bad news” messages are crafted and
Responding To Low Severity Crises With Humour: The Effects On Organizational Reputation
2019
The objective of this research was to determine whether a humorous crisis response made by an organization, to a low severity crisis, would have a significant effect on the organization’s reputation. This thesis investigated the mediating role of the level of perceived severity (by the consumers) of the crisis on the relationship between a humorous crisis response and organizational reputation. This thesis explored the moderating role of message delivery type on the level of perceived severity of a humorous response. Results demonstrated that there was no significant moderated mediation relationship, but the rational response was found to decrease perceived severity, thereby increasing organizational reputation. These results contribute to various aspects of the crisis management literature, but also provide substantial implications for public relations practitioners and marketing researchers involved in the communications industry
What makes crisis response strategies work? The impact of crisis involvement and message framing
Journal of Business Research, 2014
This study investigates the moderating impact of crisis involvement and message framing on the effect of crisis response strategies on post-crisis attitude toward an organization. In the experiment, 274 respondents participate in a 2 (crisis response strategy: match vs. mismatch) × 2 (crisis involvement: low vs. high) × 2 (message framing: emotional vs. rational) between-subjects factorial design. The results show that in the case of high crisis involvement or in the case of rational framing of crisis communication, crisis response strategies that match the crisis type increase the post-crisis attitude toward the organization. In the case of low crisis involvement or in the case of emotional framing of crisis communication, the impact of a matched or mismatched crisis response strategy on the post-crisis attitude toward the organization does not differ. In addition, the study suggests that crisis involvement has a moderating impact on the efficacy of message framing in terms of post-crisis attitude toward the organization, which depends on whether the crisis response strategy matches the crisis type or not.
Appraisal-based public relations stances in crisis situations: Conation revisited
Many studies have focused on the role of accommodation during crisis for contingency theory, most notably Jin and Cameron's 2007 study of the effects of threat types and duration on PR practioner's [sic] cognitive, affective and conative responses in crisis situations. However, none have compared the perceptions of accommodation stances between public relations practitioners, public relations faculty and public relations students. This study replicated a portion of Jin and Cameron's study and found differences between external, long-term threats and internal, short-term threats in action-based accommodation use; and external, long-term threats and internal, short-term threats in qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations use. Significant differences were also found between students and practitioner responses for external and long-term threats action-based accommodation use for the practioners and students. A significant difference was also discovered between internal short-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use between educators and students.
Çelebi, E. (2018) "Measuring the Effectiveness of Organizational Public Relations: An Experimental Research on Crisis Response Strategies", Journal of Communication Theory & Research 46, p. 275-290, 2018
In this study, the effects of organization-public relationship and crisis communication strategies on audience perception and attitudes during a crisis have been investigated experimentally. In the context of the research, an university in Turkey was selected as the organization and students were selected as target groups, and Coombs’ situational crisis communication theories have been tested an experimental study carried out with 97 students. Students were divided into 8 groups according to different corporate reputation and relational satisfaction perceptions; a crisis situation was created, and a different crisis communication strategy was applied to each group. According to the research results, no matter what the thoughts were before the crisis, crisis communication strategy doesn’t reduce the responsibility of the organization in crisis, and it doesn’t affect the minds of the audience, but the perception of corporate reputation and sense of relational satisfaction affect the credibility and confidence of the organization’s words and actions. Regardless of the corporate reputation and relational satisfaction, the strategy of denying the crisis gave the highest accusation score, and the messages given to reduce the negative consequences of the crisis were found effective within each group. The reason for this is that participants weren’t concerned about the cause of the crisis; they were concerned only with the messages to reduce the harmful effects of the crisis.