Trust Violations and Positive Emotions: Moderating Role of Initial Trust: A Case of Kindergartens in China

This paper examines the moderating role of initial trust of parents between positive emotions of parents and apology with an internal or external attribution after a competence or integrity-based trust violation by the Kindergarten for the purpose of trust repair. We asked about 855 parents to respond to a scenario in which they read about violation of competence with apology internal or about violation of integrity with apology external. After reading a scenario based hypothetical situation they respond to a questionnaire. Each participant was presented with one of the scenarios.The results revealed a significant interaction whereby positive emotions were produced more successfully when kindergarten apologized with an internal attribution in matters of violation concerned matters of competence but apologized with an external attribution when the trust violation concerned matters of integrity. Initial trust positively moderates the relationship between apology with internal and external attributions in matters concerning competence and integrity and positive emotions. Keywords: Trust Violation, Competence, Integrity, Apology, Attribution, Kindergarten, Emotions, Initial Trust, Public Organization

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE RESPONSE STRATEGIES TO NEGATIVE ONLINE WORD OF MOUTH ON COMPLAINERS’ BRAND ATTITUDE

The advent of customer empowering technologies has provided customers with a plethora of online venues to exchange negative experiences with companies and a multitude of other consumers. To mitigate the effect of negative electronic word of mouth (eWOM) companies are increasingly reacting to customers’ online complaints. However, little attention has been paid to examine the impact of companies’ responses via various online platforms on complainers’ brand attitude change. In addition, previous research has not examined whether customers’ motives in voicing their complaints online and their choice of the online platform influence the effectiveness of corporate responses. The objectives of this research are threefold. First, the research aims to examine the impact of various corporate response strategies (accommodative, defensive and no reply) on customers’ brand attitude. In addition, it examines the moderating impact of platform type (company social networking sites/ third party platforms) and customers‘ motives to write negative comments (venting, redress seeking and altruism) on the relationship between corporate response strategies and customers’ brand attitude. The proposed conceptual model aims to explain the factors influencing the effectiveness of companies’ responses to online negative WOM

Effects of crisis severity and crisis response strategies on post-crisis organizational reputation

2019 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Using situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), this study investigates the impact of crisis severity and crisis response strategies on post-crisis organizational reputation within the field of crisis communication. In the experiments, 289 respondents participated in a 2 (crisis severity: low vs high) x 2 (crisis response strategy: match vs mismatch) between-subjects factorial design. The results show that in the case of high crisis severity, a matched crisis response strategy positively influenced post-crisis organizational reputation as compared to a mismatched crisis response strategy. However, in the case of low crisis severity, there was no impact of a matched or mismatched crisis response strategy on organizational reputation. The study discusses its theoretical and empirical implications and limitations

Kearifan Lokal dan Strategi Komunikasi Public Relations di BUMN dan Perusahaan Swasta

This study describes the connection between communication strategies of state-owned enterprises (BUMN) and private companies in Indonesia with its local culture. Contructivism was applied to explore qualitative data, involving the practitioners from BUMN and private companies. The research finds two propositions, i.e. the more local wisdoms are understood, the easier to create communication strategy of public relations that builds good relations with the public; communication strategy based on local wisdoms is used by both BUMN and private companies. The research contributes to enrich public relations study within Indonesian local perspectives

A Measure of Perceived Severity in Organizational Crises: A Multidimensional Scale Development and Validation

This study proposed a definition of perceived crisis severity and created a valid and reliable scale to measure the construct following Churchill’s scale development procedure. The proposed scale, after rigorous pilot testing and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, contains 3 factors with 12 items. This study discusses potential applications of the developed measures and provides future research directions

The role of empathy in crisis communication : providing a deeper understanding of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation

This study advances our theoretical knowledge of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation. Prior research solely emphasizes the importance of organizational crisis responsibility in this process. Three experiments show that stakeholders' empathy toward the organization provides a second explanation. The first two experiments demonstrate that victim crises not only inflict less reputational damage than preventable crises because stakeholders consider the organization less responsible for the events, but also because they are more likely to empathize with the company. The third study shows that empathy can also explain the outcomes of crisis communication. An apology arouses empathy among stakeholders and subsequently increases reputation repair, unlike denial. The role of empathy in the crisis communication process has implications for both theory and practice

Assist or accuse?: Identifying trends in crisis communication through a bibliometric literature review

Communication has always been key to crisis management research, but even more so in recent years, from multiple disciplinary angles. In this bibliometric study and review of the literature, we aim to identify different clusters of crisis communication research in the literature and whether and how much these crisis communication research clusters overlap. With different fields taking an interest in crisis communication, we ask ourselves where the interests of these fields overlap, and to what extent the different communities are aware of each other's work. Apart from offering an overview of topical clusters in crisis communication research and connections between those clusters of studies on crisis communication, we identify and explain two main approaches to crisis communication: a political or accusatory approach, and a functional or assistory approach. We conclude in our study and discussion that these approaches may need to broaden their research horizons to ensure the applicability of crisis communication strategies beyond the countries, media platforms, and audience orientations that have predominantly shaped the existing research landscapeSecurity and Global Affair

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

Assessing tourists' cognitive, emotional and behavioural reactions to an unethical destination incident

AbstractStudies of how tourists react to unethical incidents in destinations are scarce. Based on an online survey (n = 1350) and grounded in cognitive appraisal theory, this study examines people's reactions to a hypothetical breach of ethics at a tourism destination. Results from a structural equation model suggest that the more severe the incident and the greater the attribution of responsibility to agencies within the destination, the more likely it is that an individual will develop hostile emotions toward the destination. The tourist may then decide to avoid the incident emotionally or to spread negative word of mouth (WOM) about it. The study also highlights the importance of a positive destination image in reducing hostile emotions during such incidents. Moreover, tourists will be more likely to re-visit a destination if they choose to avoid engaging emotionally with an unethical incident and less likely to do so if they spread negative WOM

Different Brands Stealing Thunder: How Brand Personality Impacts Crisis Response Strategy Choice

This study aimed to examine the impact of brand personality on participants\u27 brand perceptions and crisis response evaluation. To be more specific, the study aimed to examine how stealing thunder (i.e., brands disclosing the crisis and response before revealed by the third-party) as a proactive response strategy could impact brands with different personalities in crisis. Employing a 2 (brand personality: sincere vs. exciting) × 2 (crisis response type: proactive vs. reactive) experimental design, the study found the main effect of brand personality on participants\u27 perceived credibility, brand attitude, and purchase intention, such that sincere brands were perceived more credible and obtained more favorable brand attitude and higher purchase intention in crisis. However, the interaction between brand personality and type of response strategy (proactive vs. reactive) had a different impact on participants\u27 crisis management evaluation, i.e., perceived crisis, blame attribution locus, negative emotions, and negative word-of-mouth. These findings contributed to the extant brand personality literature and provided a potential boundary of the stealing thunder strategy