Influence of the structure of information about a crisis situation in a company on its reputation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14659/PJOEP.2013.04.04Keywords:
reputation, crisis, causality, dispositional attribution, data pattern.Abstract
Building the reputation of companies is a long process and requires a large investment in promotional activities in the fields of advertising and public relations. A company’s involvement in a crisis can quickly destroy years of investment. In an experimental study, four factors were manipulated in order to determine how they affect the reputation of companies: (1) kind of crisis situation, (2) consensus, (3) distinctiveness, and (4) consistency. Information about the crisis situations were presented to respondents in the form of news articles. 400 college students took part in the study. The analysis showed a relationship between attributing causes of the negative event to a company and the deterioration of the company’s reputation. In the four-factor multivariate analysis of variance, the impact of the kind of crisis situation and information about the consistency of the company’s behavior over time was also statistically significant for these dimensions of reputation: perceived innovation, Machiavellianis, stability, and reliability of the company.
References
Berens, G ., van Riel, C.B.M. (2004). Corporate associations in the academic literature: Three main streams of thought in the reputation measurement literature. Corporate Reputation Review, 7(2), 161-178.
Black, S. (2003). Public relations. Wydawnictwo Oficyna Ekonomiczna. Carlston, D.E., Skowronski, J.J. (2005). Linking Versus Thinking: Evidence for the Different Associative and Attributional Bases of Spontaneous Trait Transference and Spontaneous Trait Inference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6), 884–898.
Cheng, P.W., N ovick, L .R. (1990). Where is the bias in causal attribution? W: K.J.Gihooley, M.T.K.Kayne, R.H.Logie, G .Erdos (red.), Lines of thinking (s.181-197). New York: Wiley.
Coombs, W.T. (1995). Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the “appropriate” crisis response strategies. Management Communication Quarterly, 8(4), 447-476.
Coombs, W.T. (1998). An analytic framework for crisis situations: Better responses from a better understanding of the situation. Journal of Public Relations Research, 10(3), 177-191.
Coombs, W.T. (2007). Protecting Organization Reputations During a Crisis: The Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(3), 163-176.
Coombs, W.T., Holladay, S.J. (1996). Communication and attributions in a crisis: An experimental study of crisis communication. Journal of Public Relations Research, 8(4), 279-295.
Coombs, W.T., Holladay, S.J. (2001). An extended examination of the crisis situation: A fusion of the relational management and symbolic approaches. Journal of Public Relations Research, 13(4), 321-340.
Coombs, W.T., Holladay, S.J. (2002). Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial tests of the situational crisis communication theory. Management Communication Quarterly, 16(2), 165-186.
Coombs, W.T., Holladay, S.J. (2004). Reasoned action in crisis communication: An attribution theory-based approach to crisis management. W: D.P. Millar, R.L. Heath (red.). Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication (s.95-115). Nowy Jork: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah.
Coombs, W.T., Holladay, S.J. (2006). Unpacking the halo effect: Reputation and crisis management. Journal of Communication Management, 10(2), 123-137.
Dalton, J., Croft, S. (2003). Managing Corporate Reputation: The New Currency. London: Thorogood.
Davies, G ., Chun, R., da Silva, R., Roper, S. (2004). Corporate character scale to assess employee and customer views of organization reputation, Corporate Reputation Review, 7(2), 125-146.
Dąbrowski, T.J. (2010). Reputacja przedsiębiorstwa. Tworzenie kapitału zaufania. Kraków: Oficyna Wolters Kluwer business.
Dean, D.H. (2004). Consumer reaction to negative publicity: Effects of corporate reputation, response, and responsibility for a crisis event. Journal of Business Communication, 41, 192-211.
Dowling, G . (2004). Corporate Reputations: should you compete on yours? California Management Review, 46(3), 19-36.
Druckman, J. N . (2001). The implications of framing effects for citizen competence. Political Behavior, 23(3), 225-256.
Formbrun, C.J., van Riel, C.B.M. (2004). Fame & Fortune – How companies build winning reputation. FT Prentice Hall.
Försterling, F. (2005). Atrybucje. Podstawowe teorie, badania i zastosowanie. Gdańsk: G WP.
Gilbert, D.T. (1989). Thinking lightly about others: Automatic components of the social inference process. W: J.S.Uleman, J.A.Bargh (red.), Unintended thoughts: Limits of awareness, intention, and control (s.189-211). New York: Guilford.
Gilbert, D.T., Jones, E.E. (1986). Perceiver-Induced Constraint: Interpretations of Self- Generated Reality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(2), 269-280.
Gorbaniuk, O ., Długoborska, J. (2010). Atrybucja przyczyn sytuacji kryzysowych w przedsiębiorstwach. Roczniki Psychologiczne, 13(2), 101-124.
Gorbaniuk, O ., Lebiedowicz, A. (2010). Taksonomia leksykalna i struktura cech osobowości przypisywanych przedsiębiorstwom. Czasopismo Psychologiczne, 16(2), 237-251.
Gorbaniuk, O ., Łubnicka, J. (2009). Wpływ sytuacji kryzysowych na wizerunek przedsiębiorstw: analiza z perspektywy sześcianu atrybucyjnego Kelley’a. Referat wygłoszony na VI Zjeździe Polskiego Stowarzyszenia Psychologii Społecznej. Lublin, 15.09.2009.
Helm, S. (2005). Designing a formative measure of corporate reputation, Corporate Reputation Review, 8(2), 95-109.
Helm, S. (2007). One reputation or many? Comparing stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate reputation. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 12(3), 238-254.
Highhouse, S., Broadfoot, A., Yugo, J.E., Devendorf, S.A. (2009). Examining corporate reputation judgments with generalizability theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(3), 782-789.
Hilton, D.J., Slugoski, B.R. (1986). Knowledge-Based Causal Attribution: The Abnormal Conditions Focus Model. Psychological Review, 93(1), 75-88.
Ipsos (2003). Postawy wobec społecznej odpowiedzialności biznesu. Raport z badań. Warszawa: Ipsos.
Jasiecki, K. (2004). Społeczna odpowiedzialność biznesu w ocenach Polaków. W: L .Kolarska-Bobińska (red.), Świadomość ekonomiczna społeczeństwa i wizerunek biznesu (s.213-242). Warszawa: Instytut Spraw Publicznych.
Jones, G ., Jones, B., L ittle, P. (2000). Reputation as reservoir: Buffering against loss in times of economic crisis. Corporate Reputation Review, 3(1), 21-29.
Kassin, S.M. (1981). Consensus Information, Prediction, and Causal Attribution: A Review of the Literature and Issues. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(11), 1966-1981.
Kelley, H . H . (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. W: D. Levine (red.), Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Kelley, H .H. (1973). The Process of Causal Attribition. American Psychologist, 28(2), 107-128.
King, G . (2004). Crisis Management & Team Effectiveness: A Closer Examination. Journal of Business Ethics, 41(3), 235-249.
Lin, Z., L i, D., Huang, W. (2003). Reputation, Reputation System and Reputation Distribution: An Explanatory Study in Online Consumer-to-Consumer Auctions. W: R. Azari (red.), Current Security Management & Ethical Issues of Information Technology (s.249-266). USA: Idea Group Inc.
McArthur, L A. (1972). The how and what of why: some determinants and consequences of causal attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22(2),171-193.
Newell, S.J., Goldsmith, R.E. (2001). The development of a scale to measure perceived corporate credibility. Journal of Business Research, 52(3), 235-247.
Orvis, B.R., Cunningham, J.D., Kelley, H .H. (1975). A closer examination of causal inference: The roles of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(4), 605-616.
Renkema, J., Hoeken, H . (1998). The Influence of Negative Newspaper Publicity on Corporate Image in the Netherlands. The Journal of Business Communication, 35(4), 521-535.
Roguska, B. (2004). Właściciel, pracodawca, obywatel – rekonstrukcja wizerunku prywatnego przedsiębiorcy. W: L .Kolarska-Bobińska (red.), Świadomość ekonomiczna społeczeństwa i wizerunek biznesu (s.103-132). Warszawa: Instytut Spraw Publicznych.
Rydzak, W. (2011). Reputacja a działania informacyjne organizacji w sytuacjach kryzysowych i determinanty ich wyboru. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Poznaniu.
Samardakiewicz, E., Gorbaniuk, O . (2011). Zarządzanie antykryzysowe a wizerunek firmy. Organizacja i Kierowanie,147(4), 79-92.
Seymour, M., Moore, S. (2000). Effective Crisis Management. New York: Cassell.
Simola, S. (2003). Ethics of Justice and Care in Corporate Crisis Management. Journal of Business Ethics, 46(4), 351-361.
Sjovall, A., Talk, A. (2004). From Actions to Impressions: Cognitive Attribution Theory and Formation of Corporate Reputation. Corporate Reputation Review, 7(3), 269-281.
Slovic, P. (1993). Perceived risk, trust, and democracy: A systems perspective. Risk Analysis, 13(6), 675-682.
Snyder, P., Hall, M., Robertson, J., Jasinski, T., Miller, J. (2006). Ethical Rationality: A Strategic Approach to O rganizational Crisis. Journal of Business Ethics, 63(4), 371-383.
Trope, Y . (1986). Identification and Inferential Processes in Dispositional Attribution. Psychological Review, 93(3), 239-257.
Tucker, L ., Melewar, T.C. (2005). Corporate reputation and crisis management: the threat and manageability of anti-corporatism. Corporate Reputation Review, 7(4), 377-387.
Ulmer, R.R., Sellnow, T.L. (2000). Consistent Questions of Ambiguity in Organizational Crisis Communication: Jack in the Box as a Case Study. Journal of Business Ethics, 25(2), 143-155.
Zyglidopoulos, S.C. (2001). The impact of accidents on firms’ reputation for social performance. Business and Society, 40(4), 416-441.
Downloads
Issue
Section
License
Authorship
The Author (Co-authors) declares that the submitted paper does not infringe on the third parties’ copyright, consents to submitting the paper to the reviewing procedure and introducing editorial changes in it, and conveys proprietary copyright to the paper free of charge to publisher for uses stipulated in paragraph 50 of the Polish Bill on Copyright and Related Rights of 4.02.1994, provided that the paper has been accepted for publication and published.
Conditions of use
The Publisher owns the proprietary copyright to all materials published in the journal. Articles are made available on the basis of non-exclusive Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 licence. The full text of the licence can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode, and its accessible summary a thttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en.
Posting the text in the repository, on the author’s homepage or other website is permitted on condition that it does not entail gaining material benefits and the text is equipped with full source documentation (including the title, volume, issue and internet address of the journal).
All those interested in using the materials published in the journal for commercial purposes are kindly requested to contact the Editors.
