Ability or social responsibility? Highlighting the effects of precrisis attitudinal foundations and certainty in product harm crises

Abstract

AbstractCurrent corporate crisis literature is split on whether a good corporate reputation before a product harm crisis hurts or helps a company after the crisis. We argue that the current views on this issue miss two crucial elements: (1) the primary domain where the company's precrisis reputation lies in: corporate social responsibility contributions or corporate ability in providing quality products and services; and (2) consumers' attitude certainty developed from such precrisis reputation. Through an online experiment, our study not only provides a way to reconcile the current division in the literature but also provides insights for organizations to capitalize on their precrisis reputation when responding to the product harm crisis. Our results show that companies' precrisis reputation and consumer certainty developed from such a reputation matter more than companies' postcrisis communication in restoring consumer evaluations.