Situational Crisis Communication Research Articles

Crisis Communication in Sports Management: Image Repair Theory and Situational Crisis Communication Theory

Krizler örgütlerce yaygın olarak değerli bir kaynak olarak kabul edilen kurumsal itibara zarar verici tehdit unsurlarıdır. Kurumsal itibar paydaşlar ve onların algıları ve atıfları ile şekillendiğinden kriz yönetiminde gerçekleştirilecek iletişim faaliyetlerinin önemi son derece büyüktür. Bu doğrultuda, çalışmanın amacı kriz iletişimi literatüründe önce çıkan Bill Benoit'in (1995) İmaj Tamir Teorisi ve Timothy Coombs’un (1995) Durumsal Kriz İletişim Teorisi’ni spor alanında ele almaktır. Öncelikle kriz yönetimi ve iletişimi ile ilgili kavramsal çerçeve çizilmiş, araştırmaya temel alınan ilgili teoriler ve varsayımları açıklanmış, sonrasında ise uluslararası ve ulusal spor literatüründe gerçekleştirilen çalışmalar değerlendirilerek kuramların alana katkıları ortaya konmuştur. Sonuç olarak yazınımızda ilgili teoriler çerçevesinde gerçekleştirilen çalışmaların oldukça sınırlı olduğu tespit edilmiş ve gerek vaka analizi gerekse deneysel tasarım çalışmaların alana katkılar sağlayacağı öngörülmüştür.

CSR and Organizational Attractiveness: The Impacts of Crisis and Crisis Response

This study explores whether different sources of CSR information (i.e., the organization itself vs. the third party) and CSR reputation (i.e., leading vs. backward) affect job applicants’ attraction to organizations. This study demonstrates the interaction effects of sources of CSR information and CSR reputation on organizational attractiveness and contributes to the literature by identifying the impact of crisis and crisis management strategies of the organization on its organizational attractiveness. From a Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), we examined the impacts of the crisis on organizations and what the crisis response strategies (i.e., excusing, apology, and scapegoating) organizations applied influence their organizational attractiveness. A fictitious food company was created for the experimental study. In total, 345 undergraduate business students at a university in central Taiwan were randomly assigned to 13 groups in different experimental settings. ANOVA and paired-sample t-tests were used to test the hypothesis. We found that (1) significant impacts made by the interaction effects of CSR reputations and the sources of CSR information of organizational attractiveness; (2) crisis events decreased organizational attraction dramatically regardless of the interaction of the sources of CSR information and CSR reputations; and (3) crisis management strategies effectively reduced the damages of crises on organizational attractiveness.

Komunikasi Krisis di MECnesia dan Upaya Pemulihan Citra Perusahaan di Masa Pandemi

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the stability of companies in Indonesia, including that experienced by MECNesia. Due to the absence of company income for one year, this company experienced crisis communication so that many employees resigned. This research uses Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) with qualitative research methods. The results showed that company leaders took a number of strategic steps to overcome crisis communication problems in their companies, including conducting open dialogue with employees, changing the leaner organizational structure, implementing online learning systems, launching for re-branding the company name by inviting journalists and utilizing social media to make public apologies.

Why scapegoating can ruin an apology: The mediated-moderation model of appropriate crisis response messages in the context of South Korea.

As South Korean companies frequently use apologies for various crisis situations and pair them with other types of crisis response strategies (i.e., scapegoating), theory-driven recommendations for crisis response messages may fall short in practice. This study empirically examines the effectiveness of two crisis response messages (i.e., apology + compensation vs. apology + scapegoating) by integrating the theory of communicative responsibility and situational crisis communication theory. South Korean participants (n = 392) read one of two vignettes: the vignettes described an automobile company's apology for malfunctioning seat belts which included either compensation or scapegoating. The participant's perceived communicative responsibility, appropriateness of the apology, and reputation of the company were measured. Process analysis was conducted to examine the mediated-moderation effect of the crisis response messages. The findings indicate that an apology that is provided with compensation is more appropriate than those with scapegoating. The appropriateness is moderated by the perceived symmetry in communicative responsibility, and fully mediates the relationship between apology type and reputation. This study integrates two theoretical models to examine the mechanism behind the crisis response strategies from the perspective of the message receivers, while considering the cultural and normative context of South Korea.

Integrating Moral Outrage in Situational Crisis Communication Theory: A Triadic Appraisal Model for Crises

This study uses moral outrage to create a triadic appraisal of crises for situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). The addition of moral outrage improves the theory with an eye toward enhancing its application to the practice of crisis communication. The authors argue that adding moral outrage resulted in a needed reconceptualization of the preventable crisis cluster in SCCT identified by earlier researchers. Moral outrage becomes a third factor stakeholders utilize to assess crisis threats along with (1) determining if the situation is negative and (2) evaluations of crisis responsibility. The results of the study indicate that the preventable crisis cluster should be treated as three distinct sub-clusters. We argue that this triadic appraisal of crisis threat improves SCCT theoretically and has implications for the practice of crisis communication.

Rational or emotional? A study on Chinese tourism boycotts on social media during international crisis situations

In the era of social media, tourism boycotts are regarded as an effective way for individuals to convey their dissatisfaction and emotions toward destinations, decreasing destinations' visits and reputations. Thus, tourism boycotts become a common threat for both domestic and international tourism destinations, especially during international crisis situations. Drawing on Situational Crisis Communication Theory and consumer boycott research, this study is the first to explore the influential mechanisms of potential Chinese tourists' tourism boycotts in international crises. The results reveal that potential Chinese tourists' tourism boycott behaviors in international crisis situations incorporate cognitive (rational) as well as emotional, political, and non-political factors. The study also detected group differences in terms of age, income level, and tourism experiences, which affect tourism boycotts. This study advances the theoretical development of tourism boycotts and provides practical implications for international destinations in terms of effective crisis communication and marketing in a post-pandemic world.

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

Corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by Fortune 500 companies

COVID-19 created a challenging environment both for businesses and individuals. Effects of the pandemic on companies had the potential to create negative public relations as entities attempted to deal with the worldwide crisis and to communicate their situation. Many companies were quick to provide information to customers and employees early in the pandemic about how they were responding to the crisis, while other companies provided limited immediate response to COVID-19. An examination of the top 300 companies listed in the 2020 Fortune 500 found that 186 of those companies communicated their status and plans in press releases posted from January 2020 through May 2020 regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. This study, based on Situational Crisis Communication Theory, qualitatively analyzed the releases via constant comparative method. The analysis resulted in four primary categories that dominated company releases: (1) In This Together, (2) Perseverance Through Strength, (3) We are Here for You, and (4) Fighting for the Team.

Timing and congruence effects of corporate social responsibility practices on social media crises in the tourism industry

企业社会责任实践的时机和一致性对旅游业社交媒体危机的影响研究目的企业声誉是公司的关键无形资产之一, 通常会受到社交媒体上负面帖子的影响, 例如客户投诉。迄今为止, 尚无已知研究调查社交媒体危机前和社交媒体危机后的企业社会责任实践对旅游企业声誉的影响。本研究解决了这一研究缺口。该研究的目的是调查企业社会责任实践对社交媒体危机中企业声誉的影响。本研究使用刺激-有机体-反应 (SOR) 理论检验了与社交媒体危机相关的企业社会责任实践的一致性。研究设计/方法/途径使用实验性小插图方法。受访者被随机分为四个实验组和一个对照组。通过配额抽样从香港的 435 名受访者那里收集数据是, 其中年龄和性别是控制变量。研究发现调查结果表明, 社交媒体危机恢复需要企业社会责任实践来恢复企业形象。企业社会责任实践在社交媒体危机之后立即产生影响, 而不是之前。此外, 在企业社会责任实践的规划和实施中应考虑公司的业务范围。研究原创性/价值这项研究通过使用企业社会责任实践扩展了社交媒体危机中的情境危机传播理论。 CSR 实践在危机管理中发挥着独特的作用。它可能属于可以与其他企业危机应对措施一起使用的支持类别。旅游业公司在社交媒体对内和对外增加了对可持续性的曝光。我们的研究表明, 这可以通过与旅游业一致的企业社会责任实践有效地实现。

Public reactions to locally unwanted land-uses: Mixed methods evidence from three petrochemicals plants in China

Conflicts caused by Locally Unwanted Land Uses (LULUs) present new challenges for urban harmony. LULUs are land uses that impose externality costs on those living in close proximity and always trigger drastic social reactions. This is particularly evident in energy-related plants, which are usually hit by a series of protests against the project siting. However, there is a lack of research investigating the effectiveness of official response strategies in LULU conflicts. By using situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) which provides a theoretical framework to understand the impact of events on organizational response strategies, this study analyzes the temporal patterns of public reactions and the mechanism of official statements in LULU conflicts. As a mixed methods investigation, this research innovatively combines content analysis, curve fitting, and empirical testing approach to evaluate three controversial petrochemical plants with 175,869 valid messages. The results show that online LULU conflicts have multiple diffusion cycles. Citizens express diverse personal concerns in the early stage, and the negative externality of LULUs is the mainstream topic in the middle stage, while public attention shifts to the “how” question in the late stage, indicating that people are more focused on solutions and public participation. Furthermore, “silence is not golden” when it comes to LULU conflicts, implying that government announcements can alleviate negative emotions. Findings can provide implications for authorities to intervene in LULU conflicts and smoothly build energy-related projects.

Situational Crisis Communication Theory and the National Football League: A Case Study of the NFL’s Response Strategies to Its Concussion Crisis

This case study analyzes the crisis response strategies used by the National Football League (NFL) in its external communications to address the concussion crisis spanning 2015–2020. The analysis focuses on describing the crisis communication strategies and tactics used by the league. Situational crisis communication theory provides the theoretical framework for analyzing the NFL’s crisis response strategies. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted of 25 publications published by the NFL on nflcommunications.com, with findings indicating that the NFL focused on the primary crisis strategies of rebuilding and diminishing while employing tactics such as organizational change and shared responsibility. The findings revealed in this case study also highlight a discrepancy between the theoretical ground of situational crisis communication theory and the application of crisis response strategies in a real-life organizational crisis facing a professional sports league.

Reputational impact of Covid-19 pandemic management on World Health Organization among Indian public health professionals.

Organizational reputation is critical for successful stakeholder engagement. A crisis can affect the organizational reputation and alter stakeholder perception about organizations. The current study investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its management on the World Health Organization's (WHO's) reputation among Indian public health professionals (PHPs). The study applies the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) model to investigate the reputational impact of the pandemic on WHO among the study subjects. The study results indicate that most Indian PHPs attribute the current Pandemic to WHO. Their current reputation has dropped compared to their earlier reputation among Indian PHPs. The same is reflected in their behavioral intent, with the PHP's willingness to follow WHO guidelines on public health issues significantly reduced. The study also finds empirical support for the SCCT Model.

The reputational benefits of instructing information: The first test of the revised model of reputation repair

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) prescribes crisis response strategies for organizations facing crisis. A meta-analysis of SCCT suggests using the prescribed responses has, at most, a small effect on reputation, while a few studies have shown that the base crisis responses (instructing information and adjusting information) may have a larger effect on reputation. This experiment compares the effects of SCCT’s prescribed responses, instructing information, and adjusting information on reputation in an experiment with 989 participants recruited from mTurk. It finds that instructing information has a very large effect on reputation, while adjusting information has a small but significant effect on reputation. In this sample, SCCT’s prescribed response strategies have no significant effect on reputation. The experiment proposes the revised model of reputation repair (REMREP) as a tool for understanding how crisis influences reputation. The model incorporates virtuousness and offensiveness, which demonstrates the importance of organizational virtuousness in handling a crisis. Implications for theory and practitioners are discussed.

Examining the Influence of Algorithmic Message Personalization on Source Credibility and Reputation

Digital technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence) and big data analytics are altering public relations practices such as scanning social media and posting during crises. Crisis scholarship found these practices could potentially yield positive crisis outcomes such as increased reputational measures. However, research has not yet fully outlined the potential risks associated with using these tactics in crisis communication. Guided by situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), this study utilized a 2 (reputation repair strategy: Deny/Apology) x 2 (presence vs. absence of message personalization notification) factorial design experiment to determine how the utilization of algorithmic message personalization might influence reputational and source credibility evaluations during an athlete reputational crisis (ARC). Results revealed that reputation repair strategy selection indirectly influenced stakeholders’ reputation evaluations via source credibility. This relationship was moderated by a notification of personalization. Theoretical and practical insights elucidate how the increased usage of algorithmic-based message personalization influences crisis communication outcomes.

Exploring customer concerns on service quality under the COVID-19 crisis: A social media analytics study from the retail industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a set of government policies and supermarket regulations, which affects customers' grocery shopping behaviours. However, the specific impact of COVID-19 on retailers at the customer end has not yet been addressed. Using text-mining techniques (i.e., sentiment analysis, topic modelling) and time series analysis, we analyse 161,921 tweets from leading UK supermarkets during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The results show the causes of sentiment change in each time series and how customer perception changes according to supermarkets’ response actions. Drawing on the social media crisis communication framework and Situational Crisis Communication theory, this study investigates whether responding to a crisis helps retail managers better understand their customers. The results uncover that customers experiencing certain social media interactions may evaluate attributes differently, resulting in varying levels of customer information collection, and grocery companies could benefit from engaging in social media crisis communication with customers. As new variants of COVID-19 keep appearing, emerging managerial problems put businesses at risk for the next crisis. Based on the results of text-mining analysis of consumer perceptions, this study identifies emerging topics in the UK grocery sector in the context of COVID-19 crisis communication and develop the sub-dimensions of service quality assessment into four categories: physical aspects, reliability, personal interaction, and policies. This study reveals how supermarkets could use social media data to better analyse customer behaviour during a pandemic and sustain competitiveness by upgrading their crisis strategies and service provision. It also sheds light on how future researchers can leverage the power of social media data with multiple text-mining methodologies.

Authenticity Within Oatly’s Reaction to the Communication Crisis

In exploring how people make sense of Oatly’s crisis reaction and its authenticity, this study employed qualitative research analysis. Engaged to symbolic interaction theory, situational crisis communication theory and authenticity, data from interviews with Oatly consumers were investigated to collect pattern and meaning to further extract the key themes. Taken place in Oatly original base in Sweden, this research argues that the way consumer see authenticity in a brand’s action is based on their own preferred concept. Three themes regarding how consumer make sense of Oatly’s reaction to the crisis were concluded. Moreover, three themes emerged during analysis regarding to how consumer understand authenticity in a crisis response.

Is Being Funny a Useful Policy? How Local Governments’ Humorous Crisis Response Strategies and Crisis Responsibilities Influence Trust, Emotions, and Behavioral Intentions

This study is the first to investigate how a local government’s humorously framed response strategy on social media to a low-severity crisis influences people’s trust in the local government and their crisis-related behavioral intentions, specifically when considering the government’s responsibility for the crisis. Based on the situational crisis communication theory, we examined the mediating role of experienced positive or negative affect on people’s responses to a local government’s crisis communication strategy. Further, we exploratorily examined the predictive power and moderating role of demographics, sense of humor, disposition to trust, and the respective crisis scenarios. A total of 517 people participated in an online experiment in which they were confronted with three randomly presented fictive crisis scenarios where the local government’s crisis responsibility (high versus low) and the framing of their crisis response strategy (in form of humorous versus rational Twitter posts) were systematically varied between subjects. First, the results mostly corroborate earlier findings about the degree of crisis responsibility (that is, when a government’s crisis responsibility is high, people have less trust and behavioral intentions) and about the mediating role of experienced affect. Second, we found that humorously framed strategies negatively influence trust and positive affect (but not behavioral intentions). In contrast to earlier findings, the crisis responsibility × framing interaction was not significant. Altogether, the results advise against using humor in crisis communications on social media, even in low-severity crisis. Exploratory analyses indicate that further investigations should focus on specific crisis characteristics and potential moderators.

Intertwined Crises: California’s Public Universities’ Responses to COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Animus, January 2020 to June 2021

COVID-19 ravaged everyday life for individuals across the globe, but its impact was especially harmful to Asian Americans who suffered both a notably high risk of infection and hospitalization, as well as a sharp rise in anti-Asian racism. In this article, we take these intertwined issues—a synergistic interaction between a novel virus and the deeply rooted racism rendering Asian Americans as perennial foreigners—to interrogate whether and how organizations’ early responses to COVID-evidenced communicative strategies that acknowledged the crises that unraveled throughout 2020. Through the framings of Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Racialized Organizations, this study considers what repertoire of crisis communication strategies do public institutions employ to address COVID-19 and what do these responses reveal about racialized inequality in higher education? The findings draw from an original archive of 2,723 public community messages across 31 public institutions in the University of California and California State University systems and demonstrate a deprioritization of responsiveness to anti-Asian animus amid the multiple issues emergent from COVID-19; rather than taking the opportunity to foreground universities’ capacity to respond to this crisis, institutions often redirected their responsibility. Such evidence reveals that universities are racialized organizations that employ management strategies that remain ill-prepared to not only manage racialized inequality throughout the crises of the COVID-19 syndemic but also to interrupt racism’s durability.

Risk perception and crisis communication during the Covid-19 pandemic: Analysis based on Twitter hashtags

This research evaluates response strategies to crisis communication, in terms of perceived risks, in organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic by studying the main discussion topics in social media. The data was collected from Twitter between March and April 2020. By using big data software, a total number of 3559255 tweets in different languages were extracted worldwide from Twitter API of popular hashtags on the Covid-19 pandemic. The data processing was carried out through the association of terms in order to identify patterns and relationships in the discussion topics. The results indicate that the relationships of the terms "crisis" and "risks" were statistically significant with seven important topics for businesses, users, and consumers: "business", "economic and financial", "social"," health"," work"," family" and "government"; and in turn these seven topics are related to other terms related to the impact of the crisis, the response to the crisis, aid, the watch out, and support. This research has implications for the situational crisis communication theory by showing that in situations with high perceived risk, such as the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the use of crisis response strategies predominates in organizations. This research also has implications for managers who can use crisis response strategies to rebuild their reputation and avoid market losses, thus helping to reduce the effects of unpredictable crisis situations.

How does destination crisis event type impact tourist emotion and forgiveness? The moderating role of destination crisis history

Drawing on attribution theory and situational crisis communication theory, this study investigates how destination crisis events impact tourist sympathy, anger, and intentions of forgiveness in four experiments. It also examines the moderating effects of destination crisis history (none vs. similar vs. dissimilar). The results of Study 1 and Study 2 revealed that external crisis events cause more sympathy and tourist forgiveness than internal ones, but less anger. They also indicated that sympathy and anger play a mediating role in destination crisis events and tourist forgiveness. The results of Study 3 and Study 4 revealed that destination crisis history predicts the impact of crisis events on tourist emotion and forgiveness. In particular, when there is no destination crisis history or similar crisis history, an external crisis event will garner more sympathy and forgiveness than an internal crisis event. These findings provide theoretical and practical implications for destination crisis management.