The public perception of crisis responsibility
Why people´s impressions of companies are important to determine their perceived crisis responsibility
Master´s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master´s programme Communication Science
By: Nora Naper Freberg Student ID: 12346136
Supervisor: Pytrik Schfraad Date of completion: 31.01.2020
Abstract
This research aimed to investigate the public´s impressions of companies, and whether these predicted their perception of crisis responsibility. Additionally, “trust in news” and “general news consumption” were tested as moderators to determine if people´s news habits made a difference in perceived crisis responsibility. This study is relevant because there is a missing gap of knowledge in academia as the relationship between an established impression towards a company and perceived crisis responsibility has only been assumed by scholars but has never been proven. The study is also relevant for companies as they need the public´s opinion to determine how to handle corporate crises. Therefore, the goal of this study was to answer the research question: “To what extent do the public´s impressions of companies relate to their perceived crisis responsibility? And do their news habits affect this
relationship?”
The research was based on the four companies Equifax, Yahoo, Volkswagen, and Toyota, and their equivalent corporate crises. An online questionnaire was conducted over a span of three weeks to obtain data from the general public. The results of the study indicated that there was a predicting relationship between impression towards the company and perceived crisis responsibility in the majority of the companies. Furthermore, they
demonstrated that trust in news did have a moderating effect on this relationship. However, general news consumption did not moderate the relationship as it appeared to be a complex concept to measure.
Introduction Background for research
Corporate crises tend to arise quite often these days. Whether it is the company causing the crisis itself or somebody is trying to harm the company, there is a high risk that
crises of some kind will occur in most companies in various fashions. Crises are perceived as unfortunate events that are both negative and unexpected (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). When corporate crises happen, external communication is an important tool to minimize its
reputational threat. The way a company communicates with the public can determine people´s perceptions of, and attitudes towards, a company. Thus, crisis communication is utterly important for all companies.
Crisis communication is planned for and executed through different communication channels, and often through news media (An, Gower & Cho, 2006). According to Utz, Schultz & Glocka (2013), people regard online newspapers as more credible than social media channels, and would, therefore, obtain crisis information through online newspapers. This information can be strategically framed either by the company in crisis or by the news agency providing the news. From this information, people form an opinion of the corporate crisis, and on who they perceive responsible for it. Typically, people would want to place responsibility for events happening on specific people or companies because it helps them making sense of the situation (Brown & White, 2011).
Perceived responsibility can be defined as whether or not stakeholders believe that the company´s action was the cause of the crisis (Coombs, 1995). Perceived responsibility is essentially a matter of people´s opinions, and may sometimes deviate from who is actually responsible for the crisis. An interesting aspect of responsibility is, therefore, actual versus perceived responsibility. A previous study by Brown and White (2011) looked at the
relationship between attribution of crisis responsibility from the perspective of the public with an existing relationship with an organization. In particular students and their university. This was interesting because people who liked the university placed less responsibility on the university, and people who did not like the university placed more responsibility on the university. However, this was done with a company they already had an existing relationship
with. No previous study has been focusing on who the public in general believes is
responsible for a corporate crisis with a company they might or might not have experience with. This is an interesting perspective because when the general public is obtaining information about a corporate crisis, it is a mix of people with, and without previous experiences with a company.
An important factor for perceived responsibility is people´s impressions of the company in crisis. According to Coombs´s (2007) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), he assumes that prior relationship reputation is one of the main factors that influence people´s perception of crisis responsibility. However, he does not study this relationship any further. Coombs (2007) also explains three types of crises by dividing them into clusters: victim cluster (the organization is also a victim of the crisis), accidental cluster (the
organizational actions leading to the crisis were unintentional), and preventable cluster (the organization could have prevented the occurrence of the crisis). A previously established impression of a company might predict who people believe is responsible for a crisis,
regardless of the actual responsibility of the crisis. Therefore, the category of crisis might not matter that much if a person already has a good or bad impression of a company.
Simultaneously, since news is one of the main sources people obtain information about corporate crisis (Einwiller, Carroll & Korn, 2010), it is relevant to investigate why they perceive the company in crisis as responsible or not, as this can be determined by personal news habits such as if they trust news and if they consume a lot of news. Trust in news is an important factor because it can determine who people think are responsible for a crisis (Tsfati, 2003). People with higher levels of trust in news consequently expose themselves to news media more often (Tsfati & Cappella, 2005). News consumption is another important factor because how often people consume news can influence how informed they are (McLeod et al., 1999), and therefore how informed they are about a corporate crisis.
Taking into consideration the above information, the study aims to explore the
public´s perceptions of crisis responsibility more closely. In order to do this, it is important to study people´s opinions concerning corporate crises that have already happened. Most
research in the field of crisis communication is focusing on topics such as strategies to minimize reputational threat, what strategy works best in different types of crises, framing of crises in the media, and best practices in crisis communication (Coombs & Holladay, 2012; Coombs, 2007; Seeger 2006; Kim & Cameron, 2011). However, research focusing on people´s opinions of corporate crises is almost neglected in crisis communication research. This is surprising because people´s opinions about a company before, under and after a crisis is a crucial part of its perceived corporate reputation. Coombs (2007) is only assuming that prior relationship reputation is an important factor determining responsibility. This
relationship has not been tested any further, and this study will, therefore, fill a gap in academia. Second, this study is of relevance to the wider society because it will help companies to understand the importance of impression determining perceived crisis responsibility.
Therefore, there are two main focuses of this study; (1) whether there is a predicting association between the public´s impression toward a company and their perceived crisis responsibility, and (2) if trust in news and news consumption has a moderating effect on this relationship. Thus, the main research questions this study aims to answer is:
“To what extent do people´s impressions towards companies relate to their perceived crisis responsibility? And do their news habits affect this relationship?”
Theoretical Framework
Crisis Responsibility
Crisis communication is an extensively researched topic. It is defined as the ability to communicate as fast and effectively as possible in a professional manner during and after a crisis (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). The Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) by Coombs (2007) is a framework with guidance for decision making for crisis communication to maximize positive corporate reputation after a crisis occurs and is one of the most
recognized theories of crisis communication. A central concept of this model focuses on crisis responsibility. Crisis responsibility can be defined as “how much stakeholders believe
organizational actions cause the crisis” (Coombs, 1995). The framework shows that crisis type, crisis response strategy, prior relationship reputation, and crisis history affects crisis responsibility. Crisis type is how the crisis at hand is being framed (Coombs, 2007). Crisis response strategies are what the management of a company communicate or do right after the crisis has happened (Coombs, 2007). Prior relationship reputation is how the company is perceived to have treated their stakeholders in a different situation (Coombs, 2007). Crisis history is whether or not the company in crisis has had any crisis happening to them in the past (Martinko et al., 2004). All of these individual factors together determine the
responsibility linked to the crisis.
The SCCT framework works well for communication managers to determine what communication strategy to choose in times of crisis (Schwarz, 2008). However, the
framework does not focus on the general public´s perception of responsibility. SCCT research often investigates the effect of various crisis response strategies, but the basic assumptions about the influence of crisis type, crisis response strategy, prior relationship reputation, and crisis history is only assumed to affect the size of the reputational threat in the end. However,
they might also affect the crisis responsibility perception of the stakeholders. Who the general public as a stakeholder thinks is responsible, is essentially what matters the most for
reputational threat. The public’s opinion about responsibility can differ from who is actually responsible for a crisis. Responsibility is also often studied where researchers look at how news media frame the crisis (Coombs, 2006; An & Gower, 2009). This is interesting because people tend to seek information about a crisis from the media and thereby evaluate crisis responsibility based on the way media cover the crisis (An & Gower, 2009). However, these studies do not evaluate the personal opinions of the general public. Therefore, a gap is identified in research where there is a need to investigate how people perceive crisis responsibility.
Impression towards the company
As mentioned earlier, Coombs (2007) argues in his SCCT framework that one of the factors leading to perceived crisis responsibility is prior relationship reputation. This is what impressions of the company stakeholders have prior to the crisis (Coombs, 2007). However, Coombs never actually test if there is a predicting relationship between prior relationship reputation and perceived crisis responsibility. Therefore, it is relevant to test this to see if there is an association between the two. The role of “prior relationship reputation” will in this study be tested through “impression” which is also constructed before receiving crisis info.
Impression toward a company is the beliefs stakeholders have about it, which according to Sherman (1999) is the overall, immediate, and external perception of the
company. Impression, reputation, and image towards a company can be similar to each other. An impression is an immediate perception a person has when thinking of a company, while reputation, in contrast, is developed over a longer period of time (Origgi, 2018; Highhouse, Brooks & Gregarus, 2009). Hence, the single impression a person can have might not be the
same as the total reputation. An image, on the other hand, is developed both from the organization and the audiences to relate to the company (Williams & Moffitt, 1997).
According to Gotsi & Wilson (2001, p.103) “staff´s behavior projects images that characterize the organization in the eyes of the external stakeholders”. It is also defined as how the top management wants the external audiences to see the company (Whetten, Lewis & Mischel, 1992). Impression is chosen for this study because the researcher does not want to study the long-term reputation nor the image sent out from the company itself. The study intends to investigate people`s immediate and individual perceptions of a company because they may or may not be familiar with the company.
Previous research has been done on impression towards a company. For example, a study was done on impression towards a company and how it has a substantial effect on trust in the company (Fearn-Banks, 1996). Another study was done by Lee (2005) where he tested the actual responsibility of a crisis towards the impression of the company people would end up with after a crisis. However, no research is done on how the impression of a company can affect the perceived organizational responsibility of a crisis. This research aims to investigate how the public perceives crisis responsibility, and it is plausible to assume that their initial impression of a company in crisis might be one of the key factors as to why people place responsibility. This is one of Coombs (2007) basic assumptions, but it has never actually been tested. Therefore, it can be assumed that a person´s impression of a company will predict their perceived responsibility for that company´s crisis. Thus, the first hypothesis is as follows:
H1: It is predicted that people with a good impression of a company will perceive the company as less responsible for a crisis than people with a bad impression of a company, regardless of the actual responsibility for the crisis
Trust in news
Trust in news can be defined as how much the people receiving information through news channels can trust the information source (Fletcher & Park, 2017). Previous research shows that how much trust people have in the news they consume can determine who they think is responsible for a crisis (Tsfati, 2003). Additionally, a study by Kiousis (2001) shows that mistrust in news can lead to non-consummation of news which again can lead to less informed people. Therefore, if people do not trust the news they read, it can predict their perception of responsibility for a company in crisis because they feel less informed about the details of the crisis.
Trust in news is also a personal factor that may vary between people. Mistrust in news media is a personal feeling that the mainstream media are not to be credible or reliable (Tsfati, 2010). This is relevant to look at as it can explain why a person thinks the company is
responsible or not for a crisis. If a person trusts the news, he or she will most likely place responsibility in accordance with the news media he or she is consuming. On the contrary, if a person does not trust the news, he or she might place responsibility independently of what the news media is reporting. How trust in news affects the relationship between impression towards a company and perceived crisis responsibility have not been studied before.
Therefore, trust in news will be included as a moderator to determine the role it plays on the relationship between impression towards companies and perceived organizational
responsibility. Thus, the second hypothesis is as follows:
H2: Trust in news moderates the relationship between impression towards company and perceived crisis responsibility
General news consumption
General news consumption can be defined as how often people consume news (Peiser, 2000). News consumption has previously been studied extensively. For example, recent studies show that young people reading traditional newspapers is declining, while they at the same time increasingly consume news through new media such as social networks (Casero-Ripollés, 2012; Best & Engel, 2011). According to Triling & Schoenbach (2013), news exposure is spread out across many different media outlets, not only the traditional big news outlets such as radio and television. General news consumption is also very individual as some people like to consume a lot of news every day, while other people do not like to consume news at all (Van Cauwenberge, d´Haenens & Beentjes, 2010). Simultaneously, how often people consume news can influence how informed they are (McLeod et al., 1999).
Typically, a crisis consequently ends up as negative publicity for the company in the news media (Dean, 2004). News media are usually considered a credible source of
information (Mizerski, 1982). As corporate crises are usually portrayed and explained on different news channels, how often a person consumes news can determine who he/she thinks is responsible for the crisis. Deephouse (2000, p. 1091) argues that media reputation, which is defined as “the overall evaluation of a firm presented in the media” is important. The more news a person consumes, the more likely that person is to have information on the crisis. Moreover, that person will also form its personal media reputation, which again can determine the perceived responsibility of the crisis.
Studies looking at the relationship between news consumption habits and their perceived organizational responsibility is lacking in academic research. We can assume that those who consume news often will most likely retrieve more information about the crisis than those who do not consume news at all, which in turn might affect their perceived crisis responsibility. Therefore, it is plausible to predict that the more news a person consumes will
affect the relationship between impression towards the company and perceived crisis
responsibility. Thus, general news consumption will be included as a moderator to determine the role it plays between the impression of the company and perceived organizational
responsibility. Hence, the third hypothesis is as follows:
H3: It is predicted that general news consumption will moderate the relationship between impression towards company and perceived crisis responsibility
Figure 1: Conceptual Model
Methods Research Design
For the present study, a cross-sectional survey design was applied to answer the following research question: “To what extent do people´s impressions towards companies relate to their perceived crisis responsibility? And do their news habits affect this
relationship?”
A cross-sectional survey design was chosen because the sample studied was collected at a single point in time which makes it both efficient and inexpensive (Sedgwick, 2014). The
a link distributed through email and social media. The survey was first pre-tested to make sure all the content in the survey made sense, and to estimate approximately how much time it would take to complete the survey. When the pre-test was approved, the respondents were able to complete the survey via either a computer or smartphone. The survey format was a self-report survey as the general public’s own opinions were important for this study. The setting for the survey was individual as the participants could fill out the survey on their own wherever they want. Participants were informed that the questionnaire would take between 5-10 minutes to complete. This type of questionnaire improved the researcher´s ecological validity because it allowed the participants to answer the questionnaire in their natural habitat as opposed to for example a lab setting.
Sample/participants
The sample was obtained through a non-probability convenience sample. This was done because the researcher had limited incentives and time. This sampling method cannot provide any generalizable results; however, it can give some insight for companies and people working in the field of corporate communication (Fox, Hunn & Mathers, 2009). The sample consisted of the general public. This very broad group was chosen because of the subject under study; namely the general public´s opinion about crisis responsibility which concerns all genders and ages. The respondents did not receive any incentives to take part in the survey. Together the sample consists of 181 people (N=181). However, people answering control questions wrong were removed from the sample. Additionally, participants who did not complete the survey or who answered that their English level was not sufficient enough to understand the text presented was also excluded from the sample. Therefore, the remaining sample after exclusions criteria and dropouts was 148 (N=148) participants.
Out of the sample of 148 people, 78 people were female and 70 people were male. Based on the participants´ age 27 people between 18-24 years old, 71 people were between the age of 25-34, 12 people were between the age of 35-44, 9 people were between the age of 45-54, 21 people were between the age of 55-64, and 8 people were above 64. Based on their nationality 116 people were from Europe, 9 people were from Asia, 6 people were from Africa, 14 people were from North-America and 3 people were from South-America. Based on education level, 3 people had a high school degree, 7 people had an associate degree, 52 people had a bachelor´s degree, 85 people had a master´s degree and 1 respondent had a doctorate degree.
Procedure
The duration of the data collection was approximately three weeks, from the 16th of
December until the 6th of January. The survey was distributed online through Qualtrics. The
participants received a link to the questionnaire through email or Facebook Messenger. When they clicked on the link, they saw the front page of the questionnaire with instructions for the study they were taking part in. They were informed that the questionnaire would take between 5-10 minutes depending on how fast they read. Additionally, they were also informed that they had to read the text carefully and that they had to answer according to their personal opinions. Then they had to click agree to participate in the survey.
The participants were first asked about their impressions of four companies (independent variable). These were Equifax, Yahoo, Volkswagen, and Toyota. The four companies were chosen based on Coombs (2007) theory on the attribution of crisis responsibility. In his study, he identifies three different clusters; victim cluster (where the organization is a victim to the crisis), accidental cluster (where the crisis happened due to an accident), and preventable cluster (where the crisis could have been prevented by the
organization). Due to the nature of this study, two companies were chosen from the victim cluster (Equifax Data breach and yahoo data Breach) and two from the preventable cluster (Volkswagen Emission Scandal and Toyota Pedal Scandal) as the researcher wanted crises examples where the company was either responsible or not responsible for the crisis. Therefore, the study did not include organizational crisis examples from the accidental cluster.
The respondents were presented with a short text of each company and then asked to determine their impression of them (independent variable). Then they were presented with a news article explaining a corporate crisis that each of the four companies had been in. After this, they were asked to what extent they had any knowledge about the crisis prior to reading the text (control variable). Then they were asked about their perceived crisis responsibility of the crisis explained (dependent variable). The four news articles were chosen from CNN´s online news platform because the researcher found the articles to be explanatory and neutral. This was important for the purpose of the study as the public was to decide the level of responsibility the company should bear. Then the respondent was asked to answer some questions about news consumption (moderator), and then about trust in news (moderator). Then they were presented with four control questions to check whether or not they read the text properly. Lastly, questions about their demographics were asked. All survey questions and text can be found in Appendix 1.
Measures
Impression towards company. Impression towards company is the independent variable in this study and can be defined as the overall, immediate, and external perception of the company (Sherman, 1999). Participants will be presented with a short text with
impression towards the company. Impression towards the company will be measured using Lee´s (2005) six items on a 7 – point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Participants will be asked to indicate how much they agree/disagree with the 6 items on the scale. Examples of items are “My impression of (the organization) is positive” and “(The organization) ´s overall image is favorable to me”. All items are presented in Appendix 2. The items were proved reliable (Cronbach´s alpha = .95, M = 2.41, SD = 1.13)
Perceived organizational responsibility. Perceived crisis responsibility is the
dependent variable in this study and can be defined as to what extent stakeholders believe that the company´s action was the cause of the crisis (Coombs, 1995). Participants will be
presented with a news article about the same companies as for the independent variable. The news article is informing the reader about a corporate crisis the company was in. Perceived organizational responsibility will then be measured using an adapted version of Lee´s (2005) scale taken from (Jeong, 2015). The scale includes two items on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Participants are asked to indicate; (1)“I think
[Organization Name] should be blamed for the crisis” and (2) “I think [Organization Name] should bear responsibility for the crisis.” The items were proved reliable (Chronbach´s alpha = .96, M = 3.89, SD = 2.15).
Trust in news. Trust in news is the first moderator for the present study and can be defined as whether people receiving the information can trust the information source (Fletcher & Park, 2017). This will be measured using an adapted version of Meyer´s (1998) scale retrieved from Turcotte et al. (2015). The scale includes 5 items measured on a 7-point Likert scale from 1(strongly disagree) to 7(strongly agree). The measures assess whether a news outlet is 1) trustworthy, 2) accurate, 3) unfair, 4) tells the whole story, and 5) biased. The
news outlets measured using this scale are traditional newspapers in paper format, television, radio, news through social media and news websites. When running a reliability check to determine how valid the scale was, the researcher experienced that the item asking
participants if they thought “paper-format (news outlet) tells the whole story” was making the reliability weak because it can be interpreted as both negative and positive. Therefore, this item was removed to make a reliable scale measuring what was intended to be measured. The remaining items were proved reliable (Chronbach´s alpha = .85, M = 3.23, SD = .96).
General news consumption. General news consumption is the second moderator in this study and can be defined as how often people consume news (Peiser, 2000). This will be measured by asking the participants questions about different news outlets “How often do you consume news through (news outlet)?” adapted from Peiser (2000). They will answer from (a) every-day to (e) never. News outlets measured using this scale are traditional newspapers in paper format, television, radio, news through social media and news websites. The items were proved reliable (Chronbach´s alpha = .60, M = 3.51, SD = .80).
Previous crisis knowledge. Previous crisis knowledge is the control variable in this study and is measured by asking participants the question “Did you have any knowledge about (company)´s corporate crisis before reading this text?”. They will answer from (1) Not at all to (5) To a large extent.
Results
A PROCESS analysis by Andrew Hayes in SPSS was executed to investigate the relationship between impression towards company, perceived crisis responsibility, trust in news, and general news consumption. Model 2 in PROCESS was chosen because this model
measures double moderation, which is what the researcher wants for this study. The
researcher added the independent variable (impression towards company) to the X variable, the dependent variable (perceived crisis responsibility) to the Y variable, the first moderator (trust in news) to the moderator variable W, and the second moderator (general news
consumption) to the moderator variable Z. Then this was measured all together with
bootstrapping 5000 subsamples with a 95% confidence interval. The PROCESS analysis was done four times. One time for each company.
For Equifax, all five predictors are useful for predicting perceived crisis responsibility, F(5,142) = 49.21, p <.001, R2 = .63. The analysis shows a large effect size, and it can,
therefore, predict a lot variance in perceived crisis responsibility. For Yahoo, all five
predictors are useful for predicting perceived crisis responsibility, F(5,142) = 61.95, p <.001, R2 = .69. The analysis shows a large effect size, and it can, therefore, predict a lot of variance in perceived crisis responsibility. For Volkswagen, all five predictors are useful for predicting perceived crisis responsibility, F(5,142) = 12.93, p <.001, R2 = .31. The analysis shows a medium effect size, and it can, therefore, predict some variance in perceived crisis responsibility. For Toyota, all five predictors are useful for predicting perceived crisis responsibility, F(5,142) = 6.45, p <.001, R2 = .66. The analysis shows a large effect size, and it can, therefore, predict a lot of variance in perceived crisis responsibility.
Impression towards company predicting perceived crisis responsibility
For Equifax, the process analysis showed that impression towards Equifax is predicting perceived crisis responsibility, b = 0.79, t(142) = 6.74, p = .001, 95% CI [0.56, 1.03]. For Yahoo, the process analysis showed that impression towards Yahoo is predicting perceived crisis responsibility, b = 0.78, t(142) = 7.56, p = .001, 95% CI [0.57, 0.98]. For Volkswagen, the process analysis showed that impression towards Volkswagen is predicting
perceived crisis responsibility, b = 0.25, t(142) = 3.30, p = .001, [0.10, 0.40]. For Toyota, the process analysis showed that impression towards Toyota does not predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = 0.17, t(142) = 1.40, P = .167, 95% CI [-0.07, 0.40]. The impression
towards companies in three out of four companies is predicting perceived crisis responsibility. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 is partially supported.
Trust in news as a moderator on the relationship between impression towards company and perceived crisis responsibility
For Equifax, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Equifax and trust in news does predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.73, t(142) = -6.13, p = .001, 95% CI [-0.96, -0.49]. For Yahoo, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Yahoo and trust in news does predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.62, t(142) = -6.56, p = .001, 95% CI [-0.81, -0.44]. For
Volkswagen, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Volkswagen and trust in news does predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.25, t(142) = -3.57, p= .001, [-0.39, -0.11]. For Toyota, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Toyota and trust in news does predict perceived crisis
responsibility, b = -0.29, t(142) = -2.66, p = .008, 95% CI [-0.50, -0.07]. For all four companies, the interaction effect of impression towards company and trust in news does predict perceived crisis responsibility. This means that the more people trust the news, the less responsible they perceive the companies to be for the crises. Conversely, the less people trust the news, the more responsible they perceive the companies to be for the crises. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 is supported.
General news consumption as a moderator on the relationship between impression towards company and perceived crisis responsibility
For Equifax, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Equifax and general news consumption does not predict perceived crisis
responsibility, b = 0.17, t(142) = 1.39, p = .167, 95% CI [-0.07, 0.42]. For Yahoo, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Yahoo and general news consumption does not predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.03, t(142) = -0.25, p = .804, 95% CI [-0.24, 0.18]. For Volkswagen, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Volkswagen and general news consumption does not predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.00, t(142) = -0.03, p = .975, 95% CI [-0.20, 0.19]. For Toyota, the process analysis showed that the interaction effect of impression towards Toyota and general news consumption does not predict perceived crisis responsibilityb = -0.23, t(142) = 1.54, p = .127, 95% CI [-0.06, 0.52]. For all four companies, the interaction effect of impression towards company and general news consumption does not predict perceived crisis responsibility. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 is not supported.
For overview of all main effects and interaction effects for all companies see tables in appendix 3.
Robustness check
For Equifax, the process analysis showed that the controlling effect of previous crisis knowledge does predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.34, t(142) = -2.91, p= .004, 95% CI [-0.57, -0.11]. This means that the more previous knowledge people had about the crisis, the less responsibility they place on Equifax. For Yahoo, the process analysis showed that the controlling effect of previous crisis knowledge does not predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = -0.14, t(142) = -1.54, p= .125, 95% CI [-0.32, -0.11]. For Volkswagen, the
process analysis showed that the controlling effect of previous crisis knowledge does predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = 0.23, t(142) = -2.93, p= .003, 95% CI [0.07, 0.38]. This means that the more previous knowledge people had about the crisis, the more responsibility they place on Volkswagen. For Toyota, the process analysis showed that the controlling effect of previous crisis knowledge does not predict perceived crisis responsibility, b = 0.06, t(142) = 0.56, p= .574, 95% CI [-0.15, -0.28].
The robustness check showed significant results for Equifax and Volkswagen. However, with the added control variable it did not change the main effect or interaction effects (see appendix 4). Therefore, the results are still valid as they are presented above.
Discussion and Conclusion
The goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship between people´s impressions of a company and if this predicted their perceived crisis responsibility. Furthermore, the researcher wanted to examine if this relationship was moderated by the factors “trust in news” and “general news consumption”. This was tested four times through four different companies and their equivalent crises. The companies chosen for this study are Equifax, Yahoo,
Volkswagen, and Toyota (for further explanation see methods part). This study provides an answer to the research question;“To what extent do people´s impressions towards companies relate to their perceived crisis responsibility? And do their news habits affect this
relationship?”
Impression towards company predicting perceived crisis responsibility
The hypothesis that the established impression of a company is predicting perceived crisis responsibility was supported in this study. The stronger an established positive
impression of a company is perceived to be, to a lesser extent that company will be held responsible for occurring crises by people. Adversely, the more peoples’ impressions of a company come across as negative, the more crisis responsibility they tend to place on it. These results are aligned with Brown and White´s (2011) study where they found similar results with a company people already had experience with. Firstly, this is a relevant
implication theoretically as it shows that impressions matter regardless of actual experience with companies. Secondly, this is also a relevant implication for companies because it shows that impressions of companies are very important factors for determining crisis responsibility. Companies should focus more extensively on impression management for existing and new stakeholders, as the better impression people have of the company, the less responsibility stakeholders will place on them in times of crisis. Considering the fact that this hypothesis
was tested four times on four different companies and their equivalent crises, it makes the results more valid than testing it only once.
When testing this hypothesis on the four companies, it showed significant results for Equifax, Yahoo, and Volkswagen. From these results, we can demonstrate that for both Equifax and Yahoo chosen from Coombs´s (2007) victim cluster, where the company is also a victim to the crisis, people with good impressions of the companies tend to place less crisis responsibility on these companies. This might be because people have a good impression of these companies in the first place as the results in this study show, but also because the companies themselves did not do anything to intentionally harm as they were also victims of the hackers’ attacks. Hence, participants also understood this by reading about the crisis in the survey. This is aligned with Kim and Sung´s (2014) study where they found that crises from Coombs´s (2007) victim cluster, do not necessarily need specific reputation-management strategies if details of the crisis are provided so people understand the course of what happened. However, for Volkswagen, these results are more surprising as this crisis could have been prevented by the company itself, as it fits Coombs´s (2007) preventable cluster. Yet, according to the results, people that have a good impression of Volkswagen as a
company tend to place less crisis responsibility on them even though they know that the crisis could have been prevented. This can be explained merely because people like the company overall and can the see past the crisis.
Simultaneously as the results show that a good impression leads to less perceived crisis responsibility, the results also demonstrate that people with negative impressions of Equifax, Yahoo, and Volkswagen tend to place more crisis responsibility on these companies. This is aligned with the assumption that people that do not like a company will place more crisis responsibility on that company. For Equifax and Yahoo, this indicates that even though these two companies were also victims to their corporate crises, people who do not initially
perceive them positively, found them to be more responsible for the crises than people who like the companies. For Volkswagen, this makes sense because they could have prevented their corporate crisis from occurring. Participants did most likely understand this when reading the text in the survey concerning the Volkswagen crisis. Future studies could investigate what constitutes people´s favorability towards a company (i.e. explanatory
communicated CSR strategies) to explain this relationship better. For example, Kim´s (2012) study shows that companies with a CSR strategy leave a better impression on people than companies without.
For Toyota, the hypothesis that impression predicts perceived crisis responsibility was not met, which implies that people with a good impression of Toyota do not necessarily place less crisis responsibility on Toyota and vice versa. The reason for this might be that this crisis was older as it occurred in 2009, while the other three crises originated between 2015 and 2017. Participants in the survey may not have been so familiar with the crisis and did, therefore, judged simply based on the information provided in the survey. For example, as shown in appendix 6, only 17 participants had a large extent of knowledge about Toyota´s crisis before taking the survey. In comparison, 65 participants had a large extent of knowledge about the Volkswagen crisis before taking the survey, which means participants might have made up opinions about Volkswagen´s crisis before taking the survey. When controlling for previous crisis knowledge, the results showed significant results for Equifax and Volkswagen. This implies that the more insight people had about these crises, the less responsibility they place on these companies.
For the above reasons, the hypothesis that impression towards companies predicts perceived crisis responsibility, regardless of the actual responsibility of the crisis is consistent with the findings in three out of four companies.
Trust in news
The hypothesis that the relationship between impression towards companies and perceived crisis responsibility is moderated by trust in news was supported in this study. This effect was significant for all four companies measured, which is in line with the expectations for hypothesis number two. The public’s level of trust in the news, was reflected in its perception of how responsible for the crises the companies were. This is aligned with previous research such as Tsfati´s (2003) study stating that trust in news determines the perceived responsibility of crises. The effect of trust as a moderator is relevant because it shows that when people trust the details provided by the news media are less likely to place responsibility on the company in crisis. This means that they think the details brought forward by the news media are reliable. However, the results also show the opposite effect. If people do not trust the news, they tend to place more responsibility on the company in crisis, which is in accordance with expectations for the study. This might be because people that do not trust news feel that the details provided by the news media are not reliable, and they,
therefore, believe that these details are not necessarily true. Hence, they think the company in crisis is more responsible than what the news media frames it to be.
These results are relevant in science because they are aligned with Tasfati´s (2003) study that trust does affect perceived crisis responsibility. Hence, the results of the present study accentuate this effect further. The results are also relevant implications for companies because it shows that it does not always matter what is communicated by the media for people to for opinions concerning responsibilities for crises. Companies should consider other
channels to reach people that are skeptical of news media. Furthermore, companies should be careful of what details they are providing the news media. People that uncritically trust news, tend to place less responsibility on the companies in crisis.
General news consumption
The hypothesis that the relationship between impression towards companies and perceived crisis responsibility is moderated by general news consumption was not supported in this study as it was not significant for any of the four companies. These results are
surprising as it would be logical to assume that the results of general news consumption would correlate with the result of trust in news. However, they are not (see the table in appendix 5). A possible reason for this is that the concept of general news consumption is very complex and hard to measure. As mentioned in the methods part, the concept was measured asking how often people consumed news through different news outlets. This was chosen because the researcher thought it would measure total general news consumption better by splitting the measurement between news outlets. However, it is hard to tell if people are aware of how much news they consume (Wolf & Schnauber, 2015). This is due to all the different channels news is presented to us each day. For example, social media and
digitalization have enabled people to consume news through platforms where text, videos, pictures, and links are all connected. Hence, when people are asked how often they consume news through traditional and new news channels, they might not be aware of how often they use which channel.
In this study, the researcher asked how often people consumed news through five different news channels; newspapers, news websites, social media, television, and radio. Despite testing the hypothesis on each news channel individually to see if it made a difference to the results, it did not change the outcome. It can be plausible to assume that if a person is watching the news on the tv, they might see hashtag which they look up on Twitter, which will then provide them with a link to an online newspaper. Therefore, when asked to
determine how often they consume news on which channel might be hard as the channels are all interconnected. Other studies also show that the concept of news consumption is a hard
concept to measure. For example, Strömbäck & Kiousis (2010) also found that the concept of news consumption is hard to measure because people simply do not know how often they use news media. This means that general news consumption as a concept is hard to measure due to its complicated nature, and might be the reason for a no-significant result in this study.
Limitations and future studies
Even though the implications for the present study are interesting, some limitations should be considered. First, the sample size was quite limited. Even though 148 participants are a sufficient amount of people, a larger sample size would make the results more reliable. Therefore, a future study related to this study should include a larger sample with more participants.
Second, as discussed previously the way general news consumption was measured might have been inadequate due to the complexity of the concept. Even though the concept was measured as precisely as possible on different news outlets, this way of measurement may have been too specific as people do not, in reality, have an overview of how often they consume news through different news outlets. Therefore, a future study should perhaps make this measurement simpler by only asking a question in the likes of “How often do you
consume news?”. This way the concept of “general news consumption” will be measured without the difficulty to distinguish between news channels.
Third, the cross-sectional character of the study is a limitation. The researcher tried to use a logical timeline for the survey by starting with providing information about the
company, then measuring their impression of the company, then providing information about the crisis, and then measuring the perceived responsibility of the crisis. This was to ensure that that impression of the company was measured before and individually of the crisis. However, this study could have been more valid if done through a longitudinal panel study
where participants are asked about impressions of different companies, and then if a crisis occurs in any of those companies’ participants can be asked about their perceived crisis responsibility. A future study with more incentives and a longer time period should consider this.
Although there are some crucial limitations to this study, the findings are relevant for reference in future studies in the field of crisis communication. Most studies in crisis
communication are done through experiments or content analysis testing crisis strategies and framing of crises (An & Gower, 2009; Claeys & Opgenhaffen, 2016; Coombs, 2007;
Bradford & Garrett, 1995; Bowen & Zheng, 2015). However, very little research is done through survey research testing people´s opinions about the responsibility of crises. Therefore, the present study could be an outset for more survey research about people´s opinions about crisis communication. For example, an interesting approach to further develop this study is to include more moderating variables such as age, gender, and occupation to see what personal differences determine perceived crisis responsibility. Moreover, it is also possible to include a bigger number of companies and crises to obtain more data on
impressions towards companies and whether perceived responsibility correlates with actual responsibility. In general, more research should be done from the people´s perspectives of crises.
This study is of significant relevance in crisis communication research because it contributes to the SCCT framework. The findings show that previous impressions of
companies do predict perceived crisis responsibility. As far as the researcher knows, no other study is done examining the predicting association between these concepts. This is the first study to test the assumption Coombs (2007) is implying, and should, therefore, be further tested.
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Appendices Appendix 1 – Survey
Dear participant,
The following questionnaire is executed as a part of a master thesis at the University of Amsterdam. The study focuses on crisis communication and responsibility for companies. Thank you for participating in this research! The questionaire will take 5-10 minutes to complete. The goal of this questionaire is to get a better understanding of how the general public perceives crisis communication presented in the media, and what personal factors
influence this. Please note that there are no right or wrong answers to the questions. You are encouraged to provide your own personal opinion to the questions presented.
INSTRUCTIONS
In this questionaire, you will be asked to carefully read company descriptions and news articles. After each company description or news article, you will be asked to answer
questions related to your personal opinion about the text you just read. Therefore, please take the time to read each text carefully.
DECLARATION OF CONSENT
I hereby declare that I have been informed in a clear manner about the nature and method of the research, as described in the email invitation for this study.
I agree, fully and voluntarily, to participate in this research study. With this, I retain the right to withdraw my consent, without having to give a reason for doing so. I am aware that I may halt my participation in the experiment at any time.
If my research results are used in scientific publications or are made public in another way, this will be done such a way that my anonymity is completely safeguarded. My personal data will not be passed on to third parties without my express permission.
If I wish to receive more information about the research, either now or in the future, I can contact Nora Naper Freberg (nora.freberg@student.uva.nl). Should I have any complaints about this research, I can contact the designated member of the Ethics Committee
representing the ASCoR, at the following address: ASCoR secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020-525 3680; ascor-secr-fmg@uva.nl. Any complaints or comments will be treated in the strictest confidence. I understand the text presented above, and I agree to participate in the research study O Yes (1)
Survey questions measuring impression towards company
You will now be presented with descriptions of four companies. After each description, you will be asked a question about your impression of them.
EQUIFAX
Equifax is a global data, analytics, and technology company. They believe knowledge drives progress. Equifax blends unique data, analytics, and technology with a passion for serving customers globally, to create insights that power decisions to move people forward. Headquartered in Atlanta, Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. Equifax is a common stock that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 11,000 employees worldwide.
Q1. On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements:
Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Somewhat disagree (3) Neither agree or disagree (4) Somewhat agree (5) Agree (6) Strongly agree (7) My impression towards Equifax is positive (1)
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I don´t like Equifax (2)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Equifax´s overall image is favorable to me (3)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I evaluate Equifax negatively (4)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I am disappointed with Equifax (5)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I have a negative impression of Equifax (6)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
YAHOO!Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo. Yahoo is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, and is one of the most visited websites on the internet. Yahoo provides internet services around the world, including search engine, web portal, Yahoo mail, directory services and more. In 2016 Yahoo was the most widely read news and media website with 7 billion views per month. The company employs around 8,500 employees worldwide.
Q2. On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements
Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Somewhat disagree (3) Neither agree or disagree (4) somewhat agree (5) Agree (6) Strongly agree (7) My impression towards Yahoo is positive (1)
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I don´t like Yahoo (2)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Yahoo´s overall image is favorable to me (3)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I evaluate Yahoo negatively (4)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I am disappointed with Yahoo (5)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I have a negative impression of Yahoo (6)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
VOLKSWAGENVolkswagen is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. Volkswagen comprises twelve brands from seven European countries:
Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Scania and MAN. Each brand has its own character and operates as an independent entity on the market. The product spectrum ranges from motorcycles to small cars and luxury vehicles. Volkswagen employs 664,496 people worldwide.
Q3. On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements:
Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (3) Somewhat disagree (4) Neither agree or disagree (5) Somewhat agree (6) Agree (7) Strongly agree (8) My impression towards Volkswagen is positive (1)
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I don´t like Volkswagen (2)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Volkswagen´s overall image is favorable to me (3)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I evaluate Volkswagen negatively (4)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I am disappointed with Volkswagen (5)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I have a negative impression of Volkswagen (6)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
TOYOTAToyota engages in the manufacture and sale of motor vehicles. We operate through the automotive and financial segment. The Automotive operations segment designs,
manufactures, assembles and sells passenger cars, minivans, trucks, and related vehicle parts. It is also involved in the development of intelligent transport systems. The Financial Services segment offers purchase or lease financing to Toyota vehicle dealers and customers. The company is headquartered in Toyota, Japan and employs about 364,445 people worldwide.
Q4. On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements:
Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Somewhat disagree (3) Neither agree or disagree (4) Somewhat agree (5) Agree (6) Strongly agree (7) My impression towards Toyota is positive (1)
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I don´t like Toyota (2)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Toyota´s overall image is favorable to me (3)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I evaluate Toyota negatively (4)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I am disappointed with Toyota (5)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I have a negative impression of Toyota (6)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Survey questions measuring perceived crisis responsibility
Next, you will be presented with four news articles. Each news article explains a corporate crisis happening to each of the four companies described previously. Read them carefully. Then you will be asked questions about your perceived responsibility of the crisis.
Equifax says a giant cybersecurity breach compromised the personal information of as many as 143 million Americans — almost half the country.
Cyber criminals have accessed sensitive information -including names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and the numbers of some driver's licenses. Additionally, Equifax said that credit card numbers for about 209,000 U.S. customers were exposed, as was "personal identifying information" on roughly 182,000 U.S. customers involved in credit report disputes.
The data breach is one of the worst ever, by its reach and by the kind of information exposed to the public. "This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do," said Equifax chairman and CEO Richard F. Smith. Equifax is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rates the financial history of U.S. consumers.
Unlike other data breaches, not all of the people affected by the Equifax breach may be aware that they're customers of the company. Equifax gets its data from credit card companies, banks, retailers, and lenders who report on the credit activity of individuals to credit reporting agencies, as well as by purchasing public records. - CNN September 8, 2017
Q1.Did have any knowledge about Equifax´s corporate crisis before reading this text?
o
Not at all (1)o
To a small extent (2)o
To some extent (3)o
To a moderate extent (4)o
To a large extent (5)Q2. On a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements:
Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Somewhat disagree (3) Neither disagree or agree (4) Somewhat agree (5) Agree (6) Totally agree (7) I think Equifax should be blamed for the crisis (1)
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
I think Equifax should bear responsibility for the crisis (2)o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Yahoo confirmed on Thursday data "associated with at least 500 million user accounts" have been stolen in what may be one of the largest cybersecurity breaches ever
The company said it believes a "state-sponsored actor" was behind the data breach, meaning an individual acting on behalf of a government. "The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers," Yahoo said in a statement.
Yahoo urges users to change their password and security questions and to review their accounts for suspicious activity.
A large-scale data breach was first rumored in August when a hacker who goes by the name of "Peace" claimed to be selling data from 200 million Yahoo users online. "If Yahoo knew about the hack as early as August, and failed to coordinate with law enforcement, taking this long to confirm the breach is a blatant betrayal of their users' trust," he said in a statement. - CNN September 23, 2016
Q3. Did you have any knowledge about Yahoo´s corporate crisis before reading this text?
