Crisis communication strategies of professional baseball teams : Focusing on message appeal type and message delivery method

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of professional baseball teams' message appeal type (emotional vs. rational) and message delivery method (article with photo vs. article without photo) on consumers' acceptance of the message. The hypotheses were two folds. First, compared with a rational apology article, a professional team's emotional apology article affected consumers' acceptance more positively. Second, a professional team's apology article with a photo attached influenced consumers' acceptance more positively than one without a photo. Methods To achieve the purpose of this study, the authors utilized a 2 (Message Appeal Type: emotional vs. rational) × 2 (Message Delivery Method: article with photo vs. article without photo) factorial experiment. An existing baseball team was selected and was assumed to have been involved in a game fixing situation. Out of 340 participants, 325 were used in the final analysis. Two-way ANCOVA of SPSS 23.0 was conducted to analyze the data. Results Findings revealed when a professional baseball team issued an emotional apology article, consumers were more positive about it than a rational one. Also when a professional team delivered an article with a photo, consumers accepted the article more positively than the one without a photo.