應用危機情境溝通理論(SCCT)探討網路商店危機回應策略

Abstract

Along with the popularization of the internet, the online shopping has gradually replaced the brick-and-mortar store and became an indispensable part of people's ordinary lives. The Institute for Information Industry shows that the annual growth of on-line shopping market increased by nearly forty percent in 2008 and will up to 252.9 billion NT dollars. Although online shopping plays a vital role in people’s ordinary life, consumers still have some considerations. According to Eastern Online and The Institute for Information Industry, selling fake products and disclosing personal data are two of the most important considerations for consumers in terms of online shopping. When the above crisis of the online store happens, how to minimize negative impacts to the lowest level becomes an important and urgent topic. Therefore, this research focuses on how to use Situational Crisis Communication Theory (Coombs, 1999) to help online stores finding the best way to response when they face the crisis of selling fake products and confiding personal information of members. With the use of experiment approach, this research manipulated two crisis (selling fake products and confiding members' personal information) and three response strategies (no response, admit mistakes and rebuttal) to explore their impacts on consumer's attitude. Company reputation and perceived risk were included as moderating variables. As a result, the research found that crisis of the online store influenced consumer attitude negatively; and selling fake products was more serious than disclosing personal data. Further, admitting the mistake is the most effective response strategy, but it only can remain consumer loyalty in the crisis situation of disclosing personal data. Finally, a well company reputation is helpful in dealing with the crisis situation. And when consumers hold high perceptions of risk, admitting the mistake were suggested as an active way to response.