Corporate Crisis Communication Research Articles

Should the CEO be the “face” of crisis response? Examining types of visuals on social media in corporate crisis communication

Should the CEO be the “face” of crisis response? Examining types of visuals on social media in corporate crisis communication

Community relations under pressure: Local residents’ perceptions of corporate crisis communication

ABSTRACT High-risk organizations, such as chemical companies, are urged to engage in long-term, dialogic community relations with local residents. Community engagement can establish organizational legitimacy and help to address local concerns. However, stakeholders may be skeptical toward communication efforts made by high-risk organizations, especially during crisis situations. This qualitative study explores whether two Belgian communities are skeptical of the communication efforts made by chemical companies regarding pollution crises, what motives they attribute to the crisis communication, and which communication characteristics shape those attributions. In-depth interviews with 47 local community members reveal that the crisis communication efforts were considered self-serving and attributed to corporate concerns over (a) legitimacy, (b) financial consequences and (c) legal liability. Interviewees believed that these self-serving motives took precedence over public interests. This study also describes communication cues that triggered or strengthened suspicions. Practical recommendations are proposed for chemical companies to improve relationships with local communities.

Impact of ByteDance crisis communication strategies on different social media users

The impact of corporate crisis communication strategies on users’ attitudes across different platforms has emerged as a new focal point in crisis management. This study is rooted in Social Media Crisis Communication (SMCC) and employs the case of Trump’s sanctions on TikTok to analyze variations in the effects of ByteDance’s crisis communication strategies on different social media platforms. We initally identified five announcements that generated significant discussions on Toutiao and Weibo and collected the corresponding user comments (a total of 50,702). Subsequently, we utilized two approaches, machine learning and deep learning, to conduct sentiment classification tests on the text to identify the best-performing model. This model was then applied on the entire dataset for sentiment classification, followed by semantic network analysis based on the sentiment classification results. The results demostrated that the pre-trained ERNIE model outperformed the other tested models (F1 = 82.40%). Following the fourth crisis communication event, users on Toutiao and Weibo exhibited contrasting sentimental tendencies. Theoretically, we observed that users on different social media platforms relying on distinct information sources, expressed different sentimental responses to the same crisis. Social media users have a tendency to anthropomorphize corporate personality traits. In practical terms, we recommend that companies engage in crisis communication on multiple social media platforms and do not overlook the most influential platforms in the market.

How sorry are you? Intensified apologies and the mediating role of perceived remorse in corporate crisis communication

This article reports the results of a between-subject experiment investigating the direct and indirect effects of intensified apologies on purchase intent. The study adopts a linguistic approach to apologies and operationalizes them based on Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s (1984) apology framework. The study compares the effectiveness of a simple apology (‘We’re sorry’) to four intensified apologies which - in addition to expression of remorse - contain one of the following apology strategies: a) intensification through adverbials, b) admission of guilt, c) offer of repair or d) promise of forbearance. In addition, the study examines the role of perceived remorse as a mediating factor between intensified apologies and purchase intent. Intensified apologies containing adverbials and offer of repair are found to have a positive effect on perceived remorse which, in turn, leads to higher purchase intent. The experiment is the first one in the field of corporate crisis communication to examine the mediating role of perceived remorse in intensified apologies.

A Pragmatic Study of Strategies for Crisis Communication in the Announcements Made by Chinese Listed Pharmaceutical Enterprises

Drug safety issues have grown increasingly common in China and have been much concerned by the public, having exerted a huge impact on the development and survival of related pharmaceutical enterprises. Consequently, the involved corporations have to respond properly to the crisis with a view to not only resume the corporations’ operation but also rebuild the public’s confidence in the pharmaceutical industry. Although scholars have conducted abundant research on corporate apologies, announcements, a quasi-apology or a substitute for apologies, as a common way to respond to crises in China, have not gained due attention from academia. Therefore, the paper intends to analyze components of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises’ announcements and pragmatic strategies employed herein for better elucidating the formation of announcements and highlighting the role of announcements in managing crises. Based on Boy’s (2011) seven apology components and Xu’s (2021) pragmatic strategy set, qualitative research is carried out. It is found that, unlike conventional apologies, six components are identified in the announcements and corresponding pragmatic strategies conducive to managing crises are explored: (1) revelation: explanation (blunt statement); (2) responsiveness: timeliness (attitudinal meaning devices); (3) responsibility: internal attribution and external attribution (grounders); (4) remorse: guilt (IFID); (5) reform: change (attitudinal meaning devices, hedges and vagueness) and (6) impact on operations: minor impact, huge impact and undetermined impact (blunt statement, hedges and vagueness). The findings would not only shed light on research on corporate crisis communication, but also provide the practitioners with some insights into how to issue the announcements.

Corporate Crisis Communication Strategy of HENKEL Indonesia in Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic

The covid-19 pandemic has affected the world, including Indonesia, specifically the certainty of the company's economic sustainability. This requires each organization to execute strategic communication with its employees. Henkel Indonesia carried out a communication strategy during a crisis to provide certainty and eliminate uncertainty to its employees. This study aimed to discover how it implemented strategic communication crises. It also strengthens the concept of a Situational Crisis Communication Theory, which elaborates into a tactical, planned, measurable, and able-to-evaluate crisis communication strategy. This research explored the crisis response strategies that the company applied in dealing with the pandemic. The methodology used in this research is qualitative. Qualitative research consists of a set of interpretive and material practices that make the world visible. The method used in this research is a case study. The unit of analysis in this study is a group of the Human Resources Department. The results of this study revealed that the company activated the Crisis Management Team by executing extensive security, hygiene, and social distancing measures to protect employees from spreading the virus in the work area. It used diminishing strategies in the Situational Crisis Communication Theory and implemented excuse and justification communication techniques. The crisis communication strategy conducted by the company has a positive impact on its employees. The limitation of this study is that it focused solely on the crisis communication strategy from the company-employee perspective. This research did not reach external stakeholders. Keywords: Crisis Communication; Employee; Pandemic; Situational Crisis

THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA ON PUBLIC ATTITUDE DURING THE BRAND VALUE CRISIS: EVIDENCES FROM GRIGEO CASE

Many scholars have focused on consumers when analysing the brand crisis and the importance of the media during the event, creating a lack of empirical research on public attitudes. In addition, the empirical studies of public attitude conducted so far analyse it abstractly, dividing the attitude into positive, negative and neutral. The significant effects of the brand value crisis drive the need for more detailed research, i.e. to analyse the public's attitude through the components of emotions, cognition and behaviour. Such a study would allow us to understand better the expression of public attitudes against the background of brand crisis and media information about the crisis and how public attitudes, brand crisis and media information interact. It should also be noted that each crisis is unpredictable and different, so each investigated case of a crisis becomes another source of knowledge and crisis prevention. This study aims to evaluate the effect of media on public attitude during the brand value crisis. This study uses the media content quantitative analysis method to examine the media effect on public attitude during the reputational crisis of the paper and wood industry company group in the Baltic countries. The research revealed that during the brand value crisis, the media is dominated by information that emphasises immorality. The brand value crisis has had a negative impact on public attitudes through all three of its components. The established unfavourable public attitude towards the brand was demonstrated by feedback, causing negative consequences for the brand. The research findings allow the authors to confirm the obvious relationships between the brand value crisis, media information reflecting immorality, and public emotions, cognition, and behaviour. The study revealed the case of a brand value crisis that provoked a strong public reaction. Public attitudes have been analysed through its components (emotions, cognition, and behaviour), thus making it clearer to identify preventive communication activities and avoid the larger-scale development of the brand value crisis. This study provides a basis for the theoretical development of crisis management and expands the discussion of the crisis’s effect on public attitude. The research findings may provide insights into corporate crisis communication and be prerequisites for sound brand communication solutions in public, by anticipating the possible development of public attitudes and seeking to control them. The interaction between the symbolic value and the effects of the brand, and the emotions, cognition and behaviour of the public, which was formed with the dominance of media information reflecting the immorality of the brand value crisis, was established. The interaction between the brand value crisis and pubic attitude regarding in terms of the impact of media information has been reasoned.

Exploring Corporate Crisis Communication after COVID-19: The Role of Enterprise Risk Management in (Re)Building Trust

Exploring Corporate Crisis Communication after COVID-19: The Role of Enterprise Risk Management in (Re)Building Trust

Fashion bloggers' discourse on brands under corporate crisis: a netnographic research in Portugal

PurposeThis paper focuses on the analysis of fashion blog activity regarding brands under corporate crisis situations and discusses how these opinion leaders may be agents of corporate crisis management.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyzed four influential Portuguese fashion blogs regarding eight fashion brands that had experienced a corporate crisis situation. In total, five of the selected brands were mentioned in 2.846 posts of blog content, whose discourse was deeply analyzed.FindingsThe absence of express reference to brand crisis suggests that fashion bloggers tend to ignore these crisis events or divert the readers' attention to the brands' more positive aspects. This result opens the discussion whether fashion bloggers downplay corporate crisis in brand equity or whether it expresses strategies of brand crisis communication through digital influencers.Originality/valueThough social media may be a source of negative word-of-mouth, social media influencers have been considered important partners of corporate crisis communication in particularly challenging times. Many studies have focused on the role of social media influencers in crisis management, but there was a dearth of research on the specific case of blogs. This study contributes to the understanding of fashion bloggers as agents of brand communication, particularly regarding crisis management and their role on brand activation and positive electronic word-of-mouth, even under crisis situations. This contribution paves the way for future research on whether this is a spontaneous phenomenon or the reflection of possible partnerships between companies and fashion bloggers for the management of corporate crisis situations in the context of fashion brands.

Evolution of hoteliers’ organizational crisis communication in the time of mega disruption

This research note explores the evolutionary process of corporate crisis communication to understand how international hotel enterprises respond to the present pandemic. Corpus linguistics was used as a computer-aided approach in assessing a large collection of naturally occurring texts. Press releases from hotel corporations listed in Fortune 500 within the period of January to April 2020 were curated and built into three corpora. Lexical patterns that evolved over the course of the first quarter of 2020 reveal that the lodging industry did not fully prepare for the crisis until March, while management was still dwelling on their past achievements even in February 2020. The overall tone, pre-crisis, reflected top management's demonstration of success and performance, attributed to the CEOs themselves; while it completely changed during the crisis. This study draws upon crisis management and organizational communication streams of work to advance prevailing theoretical accounts of organizational crisis communication.

Strategic Manoeuvring by Dissociation in Corporate Crisis Communication: The Case of the 2017 United Airlines’ Passenger Dragging-Off Incident

Within the research framework of pragma-dialectics, this study analysed and assessed strategic manoeuvring by dissociation in corporate crisis communication, exemplified by the 2017 United Airlines’ Passenger Dragging-off Incident. As shown from the analysis of the public statements issued on its official website and Twitter, United Airlines adopted dissociation using the lexical item “volunteer” in the different stages of argumentation: bringing forward a standpoint, maintaining a standpoint and mitigating a standpoint. In so doing, the corporation strategically manoeuvred the topical potential and the presentational devices to meet the demands of its primary audience, i.e. the international general public. Whereas employing dissociation of the notion “volunteer” seemed to be reasonable and served the corporation’s interests best, its argumentative effectiveness was called into question based upon the general rules for critical discussion and the institutional context.

When love becomes hate: how different consumer-brand relationships interact with crises to influence consumers' reactions

PurposeA well-accepted proposition in the literature of corporate strategic communication and public relations is that consumer-brand relationships (CBRs) affect corporate crisis communication. However, it is inconclusive whether CBRs protect or work against brands, because both buffering effects and love-becomes-hate effects have been found. This study attempts to explain and bridge the seemingly inconsistent findings by clarifying the effects of different types of CBRs in different brand transgressions.Design/methodology/approachRe-conceptualizing CBRs into non-identifying relationships and identifying relationships, this study examined the possible interaction effects of CBRs and crises on consumers' attitudes and emotions, which then influence their behavioral intentions. A three-step multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data collected from an online experiment with nearly 900 consumers of two brands.FindingsAlthough non-identifying relationships offer buffering effects, identifying relationships primarily offer love-becomes-hate effects by intensifying negative emotions such as anger and disappointment, which in turn affect consumers' behavioral intentions. Such patterns hold regardless of whether a crisis directly threatens the core meaning of the brand.Originality/valueThis study clarifies the effects of different types of CBRs in crises and shows that deep psychological connections (i.e. identifying relationships) offer love-becomes-hate effects. It suggests that one promising future research direction for crisis communication and public relations scholars is to examine how to mitigate such love-becomes-hate effects so that brands can keep their loyal consumers.

Peculiarities of Corporate Crisis Communication

Peculiarities of Corporate Crisis Communication

How financial crisis history informs ethical corporate communication: Insights from corporate communication leaders

This study explored how financial crisis history can inform corporate crisis communication practice across industries and over time. Thirty-eight interviews with chief communications officers (CCOs) and their counselors were conducted to explore what lasting lessons these corporate communication leaders learned from their crisis communication practice during the 2008 Financial Crisis. Key lessons learned include: 1) the importance for corporations to tailor their financial communication strategies according to victim vs. perpetrator perception and ethical response expectations held by stakeholders; 2) the importance of stakeholders, and employees in particular, when creating and implementing the plan; 3) the balance between speed and legal concerns, as well as the need for reducing complexity by making sure stakeholder communications are delivered with clarity and accessibility; and 4) a recipe for success includes honesty, transparency, trust/integrity, taking action to reform questionable practices, and abiding by one’s own personal morals. Insights from this study shed light on how learning contributes to ethical corporate communication practice in times of crisis and crisis spillover.

Strategic maneuvering by persuasive definition in corporate crisis communication

Abstract This paper aims to explore the use of persuasive definition in a corporate weblog by examining how a blogger attempts to define the company’s role in response to criticisms in the cyber space. Making use of a pragma-dialectical research framework, corporate weblog is characterized as an argumentative activity type in the commercial domain in which the legitimacy of persuasive definition is contextually constrained. The paper first analyzes the institutional preconditions that restrict all the argumentative moves in a corporate weblog, and then investigates how the corporate blogger of Taobao, the biggest online shopping website in China, responds to criticism by redefinition to evade the burden of proof.

Evaluating Corporate Crisis Communication Strategy: Comparison between Experts and the Public

본 연구는 외국의 이론과 사례를 기반으로 작성된 위기 커뮤니케이션 메시지 전략이 한국의 현재 상황에 적용하기에 적합한가를 알아보고, 이를 바탕으로 새로운 전략을 제안하며, 위기 유형에 따른 위기 커뮤니케이션 메시지에 대한 전문가와 공중의 평가를 비교했다. 선행연구의 위기 커뮤니케이 션 메시지 분석 틀을 기반으로 2014년～2015년 한국의 위기 커뮤니케이션 메시지는 총 33개였으며, ‘사고’에 해당하는 메시지는 7개(21.2%), ‘위반’에 해당하는 메시지는 26개(78.8%)로 구성되었다. 내 용분석 결과, ‘사고’ 위기 유형의 약 42%, ‘위반’ 위기 유형의 약 37%의 전략이 누락된 것으로, 선행 연구의 메시지 분석 전략은 한국의 현 시점을 적절히 반영하지 못하였다. 이에 따라 귀납적 방법론 을 통해 33개의 사례로부터 ‘기원’, ‘애도’, ‘공감’, ‘당부’, 그리고 ‘사과주체’ 등 새롭게 다섯 개의 전략을 제안했다. 전문가와 공중 간의 비교에서는 대체로 평가가 유사한 것으로 나타났다.

How Should You Tweet?: The Effect of Crisis Response Voices, Strategy, and Prior Brand Attitude in Social Media Crisis Communication

This study examines the role of human voice over corporate voice in crisis responses and the moderating role of prior brand attitude on the public evaluation of corporate crisis communication on Twitter. The impact of crisis response strategies and its interaction with prior brand attitude is also explored in this study. Using a mixed-design experiment, the findings showed that human voice had no impact overall on crisis communication evaluation but that prior brand attitude had a significant moderating effect on participants’ crisis communication evaluation. Theoretical implications as well as implications for managers who utilize social media in crisis communication are discussed.

Brand crisis communication through social media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how companies make use of social media communication to turn crises into opportunities and how consumers respond to this brand management strategy, and evaluate the effects of this kind of advertising campaign. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses the textual analysis method to examine the verbal fight between two brand competitors on Sina Weibo. An interpretative analysis approach is adopted to analyze a series of micro-blog messages and relevant responses and comments. A statistical analysis is conducted to reveal the public opinion on this case. Findings – The brand crisis due to trademark dispute has been successfully turned into an advertising campaign, which received eager and favorable responses from the consumers. In the name of making apologies, the company in crisis availed itself of the Weibo platform to make a veiled protest against the verdict of the Court. The technique “acting cute” was proved to be effective in diminishing the negative effect of a brand crisis and winning public sympathy and support. Research limitations/implications – The research findings may provide insights into the interplay between brand advertising and corporate crisis communication on the platform of social media. Practical implications – This study can inform practitioners of useful techniques to deal with brand crises via social media. Originality/value – The value of this study lies not only in its contribution to the body of knowledge on online crisis management with a case of Chinese companies, but also in its validation of the interplay between crisis communication and advertising.

Corporate Crisis Communication: Examining the Interplay of Reputation and Crisis Response Strategies

This experiment study used a 2 × 3 between-subjects design to assess two factors in crisis communication and reputation management—prior corporate reputation (good and bad) and crisis response strategies (apology, sympathy, and compensation)—on an organization facing high crisis responsibility. Results indicate that stakeholders prefer apology to compensation response strategies. Organizations with a prior good reputation have better postcrisis reviews that those with a prior bad reputation. Crisis managers facing crises that generate high attribution of crisis responsibility and anger are advised to rely on apology rather than compensation strategy. It would also be advantageous for an organization with prior good reputation to highlight its past achievements when responding to a crisis.

패스트푸드 기업의 위기 대응 과정에서 위기책임 귀인요소와 메시지 유형이 고객의 제품태도와 구매의도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

This study is about the effect on brand attitude and purchase intention of corporate crisis and crisis communication and the difference of the influence on recovery of brand attitude and purchase intention of message types of crisis communication according to attribution of responsibility. Although previous theoretical and operational discussions about crisis and crisis communication highly has been contributed to systematizing theories about crisis management, there was few studies to examine the effects empirically about ‘how to say’with just theoretical consideration. The previous studies were only interested in ‘what to say’ in the crisis situation. This study confirmed that corporate crisis influences significantly on attitude of consumers towards brand, and the strategy of crisis communication has a significant effect on recovery of brand attitude and purchase intention. Also, this study tries to establish strategies of concrete crisis action communication by verifying the difference about how different effects of message types of crisis action appear depending on the attribution of responsibility of crisis. First, when consumers were exposed to corporate crisis, it was expected to influence negatively on brand attitude and purchase intention. Also, if we performed crisis communication strategies, brand attitude and purchase intention would be recovered. This study suggest, by putting message types of crisis communication as a moderator, that when cause of responsibility for crisis lie the inside, explicit messages will influence more positively on brand attitude and purchase intention than implicit messages, when cause of responsibility for crisis lie the outside, implicit messages will influence more positively on brand attitude and purchase intention than explicit messages. To perform this study, we designed 2(attribution of responsibility for crisis: inside vs. outside) x 2(crisis action messages: explicit message vs. implicit message) using between-subject factor for experiments. Before performing this experiment, we carried out pretest 4 times in order to clarify selection of product family and brand and choice of crisis types and crisis message types. Results of this study are as following. First, corporate crisis influences negatively on brand attitude and purchase intention of consumers. Second, when a corporate encounters a crisis, crisis action message strategies have a positive effect on recovery of brand attitude and purchase intention damaged by company crisis Third, when attribution of responsibility for crisis lies the inside, explicit messages will influence more positively on recovery of brand attitude and purchase intention than implicit messages, and when attribution of responsibility for crisis lies the outside, implicit messages will influence more positively on recovery of brand attitude and purchase intention than explicit messages.