The effects of different sources of social media communication on organizations’ perceived responsibility for crisis : an Experimental Study

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THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT SOURCES

OF SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATIONon

organizations’ perceived responsibility for crisis

An Experimental Study

Name: Nika Prpić

UvAnetID:11795379

Supervisor: dr. J. M. Slevin

Corporate communication

Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam

Master’s Thesis January 31, 2020

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Abstract

The lack of understanding of what entails a successful crisis communication strategy on social media, causes organizations and their CEOs to create unintended negative

consequences on the perceived responsibility for the crisis. This situation created a reasoning for examining the effects of different sources of communication and types of companies communicating on social media, on the perceived responsibility for the crisis. After exposing 146 people to four different types of messages written by either a CEO or an Official Twitter account of a public or private organization, the three main findings arose. Firstly, people found the organizations which communicate via their CEO in crisis as less responsible for the crisis they were in, in comparison to organizations who used an official Twitter page to communicate about the crisis. Secondly, there was no difference in perceived responsibility for the crisis for public and private companies. Finally, the third finding suggests that the interaction between the source of communication and the type of organization

communicating, decreases the positive effect of using the CEO as the main source of social media communication for both types of companies. Since the study uses Contingency theory as the basis, these findings suggest a new direction in researching the area of crisis

communication with a bigger focus on 'who' is communicating, instead of 'what' is being communicated which is mainly present in previous studies. Communication practitioners can take these two findings and use them for implementation in their communication strategies for dealing with crisis in order to benefit their perceived responsibility for the crisis.

Keywords: crisis communication, CEO, public organization, private organization, crisis

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Introduction

The use of social media is continuing to take part in the ways technology is reshaping communication practices in both private and public sphere (Golbeck, Grimes, & Rogers, 2010; Kim, & Liu, 2012). CEOs of companies are becoming increasingly mediatized, which inevitably changed the nature of their own and their company's visibility (Thompson, 2005). In other words, it is not unusual that CEOs become celebrities on a much larger scale than their field of expertise covers (Thompson, 2005). As previous research already confirmed, CEOs decisions, including the ways in which they communicate with the public has a direct effect on the success of the organization (Bai, Yan, & Yu, 2019). Likewise, these trends appear in both private and public organizations whose majority of communication takes place on social media (Smith, 2010).

Even though most of the CEOs of large corporations own Twitter accounts with thousands of followers, they tend to focus on reporting the positive information about their company or on addressing global issues (Grafstörm, & Falkman, 2017). Rarely do they step into the role of spokesperson of their own crisis which dehumanizes their role in the crisis (Grafstörm, & Falkman, 2017). By doing so, CEOs are creating the unintended, negative consequences for their organizations. Furthermore, since the communication on Twitter has less formal connotation in comparison to communication through press releases or an official spokesperson this might be a reason for organizations to have difficulties in balancing their communication in situations that require a high level of formality, such as crisis situations (Grafstörm, & Falkman, 2017). One of the prominent examples of misuse of social media in a global company is the case of Ryan Air crisis which emerged due to the leakage of a video of a racist assault on one of their flights (Kunkle, 2018). Not only did the company fail to include CEO in any type of social media communication, but they also unsuccessfully addressed the crisis without an apology which shows how organizations still struggle to fit

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adequate communication methods on social media when encountering a crisis (Kunkle, 2018).

Despite a big interest for researching these trends, the field still has a quite narrow overview of which practices and sources of information could be beneficial for the

organizations to use when in crisis. Just like in the variety of other fields, social media has imposed itself as a relevant source of information and more and more research on crisis communication are looking into the most prominent and adequate practices in social media communication in crisis. Among various platforms, Twitter has stand out as the most relevant one for the opinion makers to share their thoughts alongside with their private and official statements (Smith, 2010).

On the other hand, public and private organizations undergo different levels of public scrutiny for their actions taken in the public space (Gilber, & Li-Ping Tang, 1998). Since the public organizations are exposed to more red tape, which is not followed by developing unique communication styles that would level the playing field for both types of

organizations, public companies are inevitably facing the issues with perceived responsibility for their actions. The problem that both public and private companies face here is not having the ability to find the adequate source of crisis communication in order to decrease their perceived responsibility for the crisis, which leads to the following research questions:

1. To what extent does using a CEO’s private Twitter account as the primary source for crisis communication have a favourable effect on the organization’s perceived crisis responsibility as opposed to using the organization’s official Twitter account for crisis communication?

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By taking a step back from the popular Situational Crisis Communication Theory this research focuses more on who is the important communicator in the crisis and not so much what type of message is going to be successful. Ultimately, the research showcases that CEOs can give a more human perspective to the crisis and potentially decrease the perceived

responsibility for it. Therefore, the research clarifies who should be the one communicating when a certain type of organization faces a crisis, in order to minimize the responsibility perceived by the public. It shines a light on other aspects of crisis communication and the ways in which Contingency Theory can be useful when researching crisis management. Ultimately, the practice benefits by adhering to a new way of communication and by

subsequently diminishing a strategy that is shown inefficient. This way, the present research provides both practical and theoretical implications; by firstly providing the organizations that are struggling to determine which strategy they should communicate in crisis with a solution to shape their communication, and secondly, by giving a new direction for the future research.

The way in which this research is conducted is firstly, by examining the theoretical background of crisis communication and a body of existing knowledge on the topic. As previously mentioned, previous research in the field of crisis communication mostly use the Situational Crisis Communication Theory as the main theory, which in this research is not the case and is argued why is that so. Furthermore, I continue by examining the benefits and the risks that social media imposes when used in crisis management, as well as the CEOs everyday rhetoric on Twitter. Since the research has so far shown that privately and publicly owned organizations obey different sets of unwritten rules when operating in public space (Gilber, & Li-Ping Tang, 1998) the present research focuses on elaborating those differences and similarities. Finally, the paper gives an empirical contribution in the form of an

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experiment which is followed by a conclusion, discussion and limitations of the research, based on the literature and the results of examination.

Theoretical background

Crisis communication

A normative two-way communication model proposed by Grunig, & Grunig (1992), has been a guiding light for most of the PR research for decades. However, the suggestion of the authors that the communication between the organization and its publics should be a symmetrical 'two-way street' with equal participation of both sides remained only a guideline for practitioners in practicing a so-called ‘excellent PR’ (Grunig, & Grunig, 1992). The more recent theories questioned the possibility of symmetry in the communication between

organizations and their publics. More specifically, Holtzhausen, Petersen, and Tindall (2003) found that practitioners developed their communication practice which reflects a greater spectrum of the relationship between the organization and its publics based upon the larger economic, social, and political realities.

Right in the middle of those complicated relationships, Situational Crisis

Communication Theory stumbled upon a fruitful ground. This theory has to this day imposed itself as one of the only theories present in the field and seems to be used in almost all

contexts of crisis communication. The theory proposes several crisis response strategies whose implementation in various situations, depending on the cluster that specific crisis fits in, may benefit or diminish the overall reputation of the organization (Coombs, 2007). However, the present research is not going to focus on the importance of usage of various crisis response strategies but will aim to find a new angle of looking at crisis situation by examining more ‘who’ is sending the message instead of ‘how’ the message is being formulated. In order to move away from the dominant trend in the crisis communication

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research, it is necessary to first adequately define a crisis. One of the popular definitions is that the crisis is: “an event that is an unpredictable, major threat that can have a negative effect on the organization, industry, or stakeholders if handled improperly” (Pang, Cameron, & Jin, 2010). Since the definition does not imply what is exactly meant by ‘handled

(im)properly’ this leaves space for exploring other aspects, such as various sources of communication for determining what is the most suitable way for organization to handle a crisis.

Therefore, the constraints present in the Situational Crisis Communication Theory shifted the focus towards Contingency Theory as a guiding theoretical framework for examining the effects of organizational crisis communication practices on its perceived responsibility for the crisis. Even though this theory examines communication from a broader perspective than crisis situation, it also proposes to look at the crisis management from a more strategic perspective where organizations take certain stands on a communication continuum (from pure advocacy to the pure accommodation). This means that organizations and their public relations practitioners, based on this theory, choose from a variety of stances when representing organizations in relationships with various publics, and that these stances range on a continuum from total advocacy to accommodation (Kelleher, 2008). Since the continuum from full advocacy to full accommodation may seem abstract and difficult to measure, some researchers defined accommodation as a willingness to include public into dialogue (Kelleher, 2008). Consequently, practitioners who are not willing to include the public into the dialogue would be considered as the ones leaning more to the advocacy stance. Since this duality cannot give a general answer to which approach is better for a favourable attitudes among the public, and it depends on the specific situation which can now be positioned on a continuum between the two extremes (Cancel, Mitrook, & Cameron, 1999). However, research generally agrees with the fact that leaning towards the

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accommodation is more practiced and accepted by the companies (Cancel, Mitrook, & Cameron, 1999; Shin, & Cameron, 2005).

Finally, in order to put this theory in crisis context, it is beneficial to look into some supporting situational factors that might influence the positioning of the communication on the continuum, as proposed by Cancel (1999): (1) the urgency of the situation; (2)

characteristics of the other public; (3) potential or obvious threats; and (4) potential costs or benefits for the organization from choosing the various stances (Cancel et al. 1999). Based on the Contingency Theory and the overall acceptance of the accommodation approach within it, this research will only focus on the usage accommodation tactics in spreading the messages of the company and neglect the possible advocacy approach in communicating with the public.

Social media challenging crisis communication

Social media has increasingly become one of the main sources of communication not only for private but also for public organizations who are trying to take advantage of the immediacy of this channel of communication (Graham, Avery, & Park, 2015). As the previous research already explored, social media is enabling local governments to communicate important information in an open and dialogic manner, which eliminates barriers between the organization and its public. This is no surprise due to the fact that the goal of crisis communication is to deliver the right information to the right people, and social media enables a rapid exchange of information between the parties that are affected by the crisis (Graham, Avery, & Park, 2015). Furthermore, among all the platforms available for the public to consume information, Twitter has imposed itself as one of the most immediate and most trusted channels of communication on social media. More specifically, Schultz, Utz, & Goritz (2011) found that the crisis communication that went through Twitter was perceived

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as less negative than communication done via blog or newspaper. The researchers finally concluded that the medium mattered more than the message (Schultz, Utz, & Goritz, 2011). However, other research from the field, recognized some risks that come with using social media as a source for communicating in crisis. Since the information flow on Twitter is so fast, the research shows that important information easily gets lost in the sea of less important information (Zhao, & Rosson, 2009). Despite of the risk for readers to potentially fail to notice the important message, the cognitive cost of consuming this content will be decreased. (Zhao, & Rosson, 2009). Therefore, as Twitter enables organizations to have an immediate response to the public in a dialogic manner when in crisis, they are also encountering risks of not getting the right message across as successfully as intended. Consequently, companies use various tactics and sources of communication to distinguish their message from the others (Schultz, Utz, & Goritz, 2011; Zhao, & Rosson, 2009).

CEO as a spokesperson for the crisis

The CEOs of companies have become increasingly important in organizations' everyday communication when it comes to maintaining good relationships with the public (Troester, 1991). However, Quarantelli (1988) argues that there are three challenges that organizations need to overcome, when dealing with the crisis situation: communication (information flow), exercising authority, and develop coordination. Within such challenges it is one of the priorities among organizations to address the issue before the media ‘steals the thunder’ from them since then they risk the reframing of the situation (Arpan, Pompper, 2003). Therefore, organizations communication channels, including CEOs become important in enhancing the image of the organization by spreading the message (Troester, 1991). Based on the previous research, by including the CEO as a designated spokesperson, the company makes it easy for itself to control the message and for the message to be presented in a

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consistent manner (Pang, Cameron, & Jin, 2010). Further research also found that when a company included the CEO as their spokesperson in their product harm crisis, the customers with the higher levels of power distance were more likely to have higher levels of trust towards the brand (Laufer, Garet, & Ning, 2018). Additionally, Bai, Yan, & Yu (2019) looked into how CEOs appearance on social media (media coverage, transmission and sentiment) affect organizations performance. They found that media transmission, which is the number of users who get and spread the information has a positive impact on enterprise performance which gave implications for the future research to explore other benefits for the CEO presence for the companies (Bai, Yan, & Yu, 2019). Taking into consideration all the mentioned reasonings lead me to the formulation of the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: An organization that uses the CEO’s private Twitter account for crisis communication, will have a lower perceived responsibility for the crisis in comparison to an organization that practices crisis communication via its official Twitter account.

Public vs. private organizations

In order to sufficiently explore the differences between public and private

organizations and the ways in which they communicate in times of crisis and how are their messages perceived by the public, it is important to have clear definitions of both types of organizations or, at least, a clear definition of differences between them. Ben, and Gaus (1983) proposed the distinction between public and private organizations based on three main dimensions: (1) interests which refers to distinguishing between communal and individual benefits and loses, (2) access which refers to the level of openness of the facilities, resources and information and finally, (3) agency which refers to whether a person or an organization is acting as an individual or as an agent of the community (Perry, & Rainey, 1988). Since the second dimension takes into consideration the openness and the flow of information in

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organizations, this gives a theoretical ground for investigating whether public and private organizations communicate differently in both, every day and also some rare occasions, such as in times of crisis.

So far, most of the current research in the field, focuses on the differences in management and leadership styles or behaviours among employees in private and public organizations and neglects the communication aspects as well as the aspects of public perception of both types of organizations (Rainey, 1982; 1989; Hansen, & Villadsen, 2010). These researchers found that there are significantly different leadership styles present in public and private organizations but that the behavioural patterns of the managers in both do not differ (Hansen, & Villadsen, 2010). Furthermore, Gold (1982) compared public and private organization and found out that the ideas about mission and vision of managers among public companies was more ambiguous in comparison to their colleagues from the private sector who were able to give a clear and coherent explanation of their company’s mission and vision. What research mostly agrees with, however, is the fact that based on managers perceptions of control in a given situation, they will make decisions and participate in certain actions in all companies (Fiol, 1995). Most of the researchers also agree that public organizations have higher levels of formalization and centralization which is explained by the higher red tapein comparison to the private organizations (Gilber, & Li-Ping Tang, 1998). All of this, according to Bozeman, and Kinglsey (1989) leads to higher level of risk

averseness among managers in public organizations in comparison to the ones in private organizations.

Furthermore, not all research focus solely on the managerial perspective of public and private organizations. When it comes to taking communication perspective into

consideration, a research by Johansen, Aggerholm, & Frandsen (2012) explored the

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between companies in the two sectors but in the area of internal communication. They found out the municipalities (public organizations) are in general better equipped in terms of formal crisis management or contingency plans, but they appear to have less focus on the internal dimension compared to private organizations (Johansen, Aggerholm, & Frandsen, 2012). Even though present research lacks in presenting how private organizations are being perceived by the public as opposed to the public organizations, these findings suggest various differences among the two. Therefore, the leadership style in which managers from public organizations are more ambiguous when defining goals (mission or vision) of the company and are exposed to more red tape, leads to logical reasoning that these organizations will be more likely to be under more public scrutiny complemented with less of their own flexibility for responding to the crisis. This will result in less trust from the public which will ultimately lead to more perceived responsibility in times of crisis:

Hypothesis 2: A public organization that is dealing with the crisis will have a higher perceived crisis responsibility in comparison to the private organization.

Based on the theoretical framework displayed in this section, the following interaction hypotheses were formulated:

Hypothesis 3a: An organization that uses the CEO’s private Twitter account for crisis communication, will have a lower perceived crisis responsibility and this effect will be stronger for private organizations as opposed to public organizations.

Hypothesis 3b: An organization that uses the official Twitter account for crisis communication, will lead to higher perceived crisis responsibility but this effect will only occur in public organizations as opposed to private organizations.

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Conceptual model

Figure 1: Conceptual model displaying the relationship between constructs

The unpredictable and fast paced nature of crisis situations in combination with immediate social media sources of communication, created a specific way in which organizations nowadays communicate with their public. A wide range of possibilities for communicating through social media yielded practices among which some decrease and some increase their responsibility for the crisis among the public. Even though this relationship attracts a lot of interest by practitioners, the practice still lacks empirical evidence which would specify which sources of social media communication are the most successful. The moderating role of the type of company that is experiencing the crisis creates a conceptual model with both main and interaction relationships between the measured concepts.

Source of

communication on

Social media

(Twitter)

Type of company

(based on ownership)

Perceived

responsibility for

the crisis

H3a, H3b

H1

H2

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Methods

In order to sufficiently measure all the variables in the present study, a survey

embedded experiment with four equally represented groups was conducted. Since the study is formulated as a two-by-two between subject’s factorial experimental design where both factors have two conditions, ultimately there was a total of four different experimental groups. This type of design enabled to explore two-way interactions between the factors. All of the participants were exposed to one of four experimental groups: (1) either exposed to a message with a Tweet by a CEO of a private company communicating about the crisis via his/ her private Twitter account, (2) to a Tweet in which a private organization is

communicating about the crisis via its official account, (3) to a Tweet in which the CEO of a public organization is communicating about the crisis on his private account or finally, (4) or to a Tweet in which a public organization is addressing the crisis via its official account. After the manipulations, all the participants answered questions regarding the dependent variable and the manipulation check. The survey was conducted with the use of Qualtrics, an online survey platform.

Selection

For the survey, participants were recruited via social media - Facebook and LinkedIn as well as the use of WhatsApp tool. The method used in this case is the convenience

sampling method that enabled the researcher to spread the survey within her own social network, posting it on her private LinkedIn page, spreading through her contact list and posting the survey on Facebook groups as well as with the help of Survey Circle - an online platform designed for spreading surveys among other researchers. The aim was to collect participants who would represent the general public who were on the other hand familiar with social media practices and fluent in English. The exclusion criteria for the minors and people

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above the age of 65 since was created because it was assumed that participants above that age might not be familiar with the social media practices and the language barrier might have been more present. By using this method of collecting the participants, it was made sure that people are familiar with social media since they had to be its users in order to enter the survey. On the other hand, by spreading the questionnaire via social media within survey exchange groups without any compensation, there was a high possibility of having a high entry rate but lower number of actual participants that filled in the whole survey with their full attention.

Sample

The final sample of the study was 146 participants. Out of 256 participants that originally entered the survey, after excluding all participants that did not sufficiently fill in the survey, 146 participants were taken into final sample. The high rate of exclusion can be explained by two main factors. Firstly, the survey was structured in a way that participants were able to skip a question without being forced to leave the survey and their answers were still recorded and secondly, since the survey was spread out on several Facebook and

LinkedIn groups, this increased the visibility of the survey which initially inevitably attracted participants who were not ready to commit for a ten minute long study or were discouraged after having to answer to manipulation check. Participants were between the ages of 19 and 64, among which there were 88 female participants (60.3%) and 58 participants who

identified themselves as male (39.7%). In the sample, there were 54.8% of participants with the graduate degree, 23.3% participants with a postgraduate degree, 8.9% with a higher secondary certificate and 13% participants with a high school degree. Data was collected in the period of three weeks between the 1st and the 21st of December.

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Procedure

After giving the written consent to participate in the study, the participants were first exposed to a material that gave a description of the situation (giving more detail on which company experienced the crisis) which was followed by the description of the crisis that the organization encountered. Organizations crisis situation matched the Twitter message they were shown later on. This initial message gave an explanation on what type of a company experienced the crisis (it was mentioned multiple times whether they are exposed to the message of a private or a public company) and also gave details about the specific crisis so that participants can visualize the situation more carefully and ultimately give more valid answers in the following questionnaire. Since the main factor is the source of communication on Twitter in times of crisis (CEO private account or the organizations official account) this shaped the look of the second manipulation which came in the form of an artificial Tweet by either the CEO of the company or the official Twitter account of the company. To specify, all of the participants of the experiment were (1) exposed either to a message that showcased a Tweet posted by a CEO of a private company communicating about the crisis via his/ her private Twitter account, (2) to a Tweet in which a private organization was communicating about the crisis via its official account, (3) to a Tweet in which the CEO of a public

organization was communicating about the crisis on his private account or finally, (4) or finally to a Tweet in which a public organization addressed the crisis via its official account. After the manipulations, all the participants answered questions regarding the dependent variable and the manipulation check which will be further explained in the operationalization section. Finally, all of the participants went through a debriefing process in which they were notified about the artificiality of the given situation which desensitized them to the content of the experiment (see Appendix A for the full survey).

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Operationalization

Manipulation

Both independent and moderator variables in this study were transformed into

manipulations based on which all the participants were exposed to one of the four conditions. The independent variable in this research is labelled as the source of Twitter communication. Since the variable has two conditions – either the CEO is the one communicating about the crisis via his private Twitter account, or the organization is communicating via its official Twitter account, all the participants were assigned to one of the conditions. These two sources of communication were chosen based on previous research that found that the

immediacy of communication, and the usage of communication channel that connects people in real time beneficial for creating opportunities to ask and respond to questions much more quickly than using channels for asynchronous fashion (Stephens, Barrett, & Mahometa, 2013). As one of the immediate sources of communication and one of the most frequently used channels for strategic communication by the organizations, Twitter, was chosen to be the medium through which the organizations/ CEOs would communicate with its public (Waters, & Jamal, 2011).

Just like manipulating the independent variable, the moderator which represents the type of company based on ownership had two conditions – either a private or a public company. By creating this manipulation, it was possible to make conclusions about whether different sources of information result in different scores for the perceived crisis

responsibility of the organization (dependent variable). The biggest struggle while creating manipulation regarding the moderator variable was making sure that the participants will notice which type of company they have exposed to. Since the participants could not go back to check which type of company they have been reading about, this might have lowered the scored for manipulation check since it was difficult to point out the type of company without

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doing it in an obvious manner which would affect participants judgement. Even though this might have affected manipulation check scores, the decision to permit participants to go back and revise the manipulation was made in order to minimize the possibility for participants to become aware of what manipulation was and to answer the questions based on their instinct instead of revealing the manipulation for them.

Perceived responsibility for the crisis

In this experiment, the dependent variable is the perceived crisis responsibility which was previously defined by Coombs as “ the degree to which stakeholders blame the

organization of the crisis event” (Brown, & Ki, 2013). Following this definition, the concept was measured with the pre-existing crisis responsibility scale that consists of three different dimensions based on the factor analysis: accountability (Eigenvalue= 5.24), intentionality (Eigenvalue= 1.73), and locality (Eigenvalue= 1.35) (Brown, & Ki, 2013) (for the whole scale see Appendix A). The accountability in this scale is conceptualized as “the degree to which the organization could have avoided the crisis”. The intentionality as “the degree to which the crisis was created purposefully by a member or members of the organization,” and finally, locality as “the degree to which the crisis is an internal matter.” The average score of all the items combined will give a final result on the perceived crisis responsibility. The scale has a total reliability of α= .95, and each dimension has the following levels of reliability: intentionality (α = .91), accountability (α = .97), and locality (α = .89)(Brown, & Ki, 2013). These pre-existing scores for reliability and validity of scales were tested by conducting a principal axis-factor analysis with a direct oblimin rotation. Principal axis factor analysis extracted three factors with Eigenvalues above one which confirmed the existence of three factors; intentionality (Eigenvalue=1.70), accountability (Eigenvalue=5.16) and locality (Eigenvalue=1.18). Further scale reliability analysis showed slightly different levels of

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reliability than previous research did with intentionality α=.63, accountability α= .90 and locality α= .78. Despite relatively low reliability score for items of intentionality, the items were not disregarded because of the previous evidence of the reliability of the scale. These lower scores for reliability are explained by potential error in the sample. The items are measured on a seven-point scale (1: strongly disagree, 2: disagree, 3: somewhat disagree, 4: neither agree nor disagree, 5: somewhat agree, 6: agree, 7: strongly agree).

Results

Manipulation check

In order to check whether the participants perceived the manipulation as intended, manipulation check was performed. The analysis showed that participants in conditions with the source of message being the CEO scored significantly higher on the item: “To what extent was the source of message the CEO of the company?” (M=4.81) in comparison to the ones being exposed to the message by the official Twitter page of the organization (M=3.07),

F(1,142)=35.28, p<.001. The following manipulation check showed that the participants

exposed to the private company scored significantly higher on the item labelled: “To what extent is the company from the text a privately-owned organization?” (M=5.23) in

comparison to participants exposed to the message from a public company (M=3.76),

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Quality check

The preliminary analysis didn’t entail a formulation of a classic pre-test analysis but was conducted in a qualitative manor, where 15 people were exposed to the survey and gave feedback on the structure and the composition of the questionnaire. In the initial

questionnaire sent to the first group of participants, the participants were exposed to the manipulation check items at the end of the questionnaire which was - based on the feedback provided by the participants, asked too late in the questionnaire and made them forget the nature of the manipulation they were exposed to. Therefore, the manipulation check items were moved to the beginning of the questionnaire, straight after participants were exposed to the manipulation. Other minor changes in the form of formulation of the text and grammar were also made after the consultation with the first set of participants.

Hypotheses testing

In order to sufficiently test Hypothesis 1, which proposed that the organization that uses private Twitter account of their CEO in crisis communication will have lower perceived responsibility for the crisis, one way ANOVA analysis was conducted. The analysis showed that people exposed to Twitter message by CEO scored lower (M = 3.92) than people exposed to the message that did not revolve CEO – the official Twitter page of the

organization (M = 4.17), however the difference was not significant, F (1,144) = 2.26, p= .14. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was rejected.

However, since the measured construct of perceived responsibility for the crisis consists of three related constructs of locality, accountability and intentionality, further analysis was conducted to determine more specific effects of CEO communication in crisis. This one way ANOVA analysis showed that people exposed to Twitter message from the CEO score significantly lower on the construct of locality (M = 3.65) in comparison to the

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people exposed to the message from the official Twitter page of the organization in the crisis (M = 4.16), F (1,144) = 5.67, p= .02. Other two constructs, accountability and intentionality showed slight differences in results for perceived responsibility for the crisis between

participants exposed to the message of a CEO and official Twitter page, but those differences were not significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was rejected but its further exploratory analysis gave significant results about the Hypothesis 1.

In order to sufficiently test Hypothesis 2 that proposes that public organization that deals with the crisis will have a higher perceived responsibility for the crisis, one way ANOVA analysis was conducted. The analysis showed that participants exposed to the messages from a public organization in crisis score slightly higher (M= 4.10) on perceived responsibility for the crisis than participants exposed to the message from a private

organization (M= 4.03). However this difference was not statistically significant, F (1,144) = 0.16, p= .69. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was rejected.

In order to sufficiently test Hypotheses 3a and 3b that propose interaction effect between the source of communication and the type of company in crisis, two way ANOVA analysis was conducted. Firstly, the two way ANOVA analysis for Hypothesis 3a which predicts that an organization which uses CEO’s private Twitter account for crisis communication, will have a lower perceived crisis responsibility and this effect will be stronger for private organizations as opposed to public organizations did not find a significant effect, F (1,142) = 0.58, p= .81. The analysis found that people exposed to the messages of CEOs of private organizations indeed, have the lowest scores for perceived responsibility for the crisis (M= 3.89) in comparison to participants who were exposed to the message of the CEO of a public company (M= 3.97) but this difference is extremely low. Furthermore, the participants who were exposed to the message from the official Twitter page of the private organization (M= 4.17) and the official Twitter page of the public organization (M= 4.17) did

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score hisher on the perceived responsibility for the crisis in comparison to the participants exposed to the message of the CEO, but the differences were not significant. Hypothesis 3a was rejected.

Hypothesis 3b which proposes that an organization which uses the official Twitter account for crisis communication, will lead to lower perceived crisis responsibility but this effect will only occur in public organizations as opposed to private organizations was tested as a part of the same two-way ANOVA analysis. The anaylsis showed there is no significant differences between the participants exposed to the content from an official Twitter page of a public company (M=4.17) and a private company (M=4.17). The Hypothesis 3b was rejected.

Conclusion

Since the CEOs rarely step into the role of a spokesperson of their crisis, they are creating the unintended, negative consequences for their organizations with regards to its perceived responsibility for the crisis. The lack of their involvement, as shown by this, as well as the previous studies, displays the importance of including CEOs in crisis

communication in order to humanize the situation and decrease the perceived responsibility for the crisis.

Therefore, the purpose of the study was to determine to what extent does using a CEO’s private Twitter account as the primary source for crisis communication have a favorable effect on the organization’s perceived crisis responsibility as opposed to using the organization’s official Twitter account for crisis communication. Even though the majority of studies in the field of crisis communication draw conclusions about the crisis communication practices from the perspective of Situational Crisis Communication Theory (Coombs, 2007), the present study aimed to look into the relationships from the less prominent perspective of accommodation stance in Contingency Theory. By doing so it gave three main findings based

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on the empirical research that was conducted in a form of survey embedded experiment with four groups of participants.

The first finding of the research discovered the importance of CEO communication on social media in the crisis for the benefit of reducing the perceived responsibility for the crisis. This means that when CEOs communicate about the crisis, they humanize the situation which makes people perceive that someone outside the organization is responsible for the crisis instead of the organization itself. This conclusion was made by initially rejecting, and by further exploring Hypothesis 1. It predicted that an organization which uses the CEO’s private Twitter account for crisis communication, will have a lower perceived responsibility for the crisis in comparison to an organization that practices crisis communication via its official Twitter account. Even though the results showed that the organizations which communicate through their CEO instead of communicating through the official Twitter page in crisis, have lower perceived responsibility for the occurred crisis, this result was only statistically significant on one dimension of the measured construct of perceived

responsibility - the locality of the crisis.

The results of the exploratory analysis, gave a solid ground for making conclusions about separate dimensions of the construct of perceived responsibility for the crisis. Since the locality - previously defined as “the degree to which the crisis is an internal matter,'' (Brown, & Ki, 2013) gave significant results, it imposed the conclusion that people assign different levels of responsibility to the company based on their thinking whether the crisis was the internal matter or something outside of the organization caused the crisis. More specifically, when the CEO is the one communicating about the crisis, people are less likely to consider that internal matters caused the crisis in comparison to the when the official Twitter page is the main source of communication- then, the crisis is seen more as an internal matter. These results complement the existing materials that showcase the importance of directly involving

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the CEO in crisis communication and giving a more personal perspective to handling the crisis instead of using a seemingly generic and dehumanized way of communicating through the official Twitter page of the organization (Grafstörm, & Falkman, 2017).

The second finding of the research focused on the distinction between private and public companies and their perceived levels of responsibility. Hypothesis 2 which predicted that private companies that experience crisis would be perceived less responsible for the crisis did not bring significant results. This leads to the conclusion that when it comes to communicating through Twitter in crisis, there is no difference in people's perception of the responsibility for the crisis between public and private organizations. This research proves that even though these companies might differ in other aspects (such as managerial

approach), the same communication practices are equally applicable to both types of companies.

More specifically, the average results for the perceived responsibility for the crisis were almost the same for people exposed to the messages of private and public companies. Even though the theory proposes that public companies go under more public scrutiny for their actions and are exposed to more red tape in comparison to private companies (Gilber, & Li-Ping Tang, 1998), the results of the present study do not align with the previous trends. These results suggest that whether the company that experienced the crisis was private or public does not affect people's perception about the responsibility for the crisis. It seems that even though previous research mention different trends in communication practices between officials of private and public companies, such as, more formal style (Gilber, & Li-Ping Tang, 1998) and less flow and openness of information among public organizations in comparison to private organizations (Perry, & Rainey, 1988), this research adds to the existing body of knowledge in different manner.

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The third finding of the present research shows that when the source of

communication is moderated with different types of organizations communicating in crisis, that the positive effect of having a CEO as the main source of communication on perceived responsibility for the crisis is decreased. More specifically, the exploration of interaction Hypotheses 3b and 3b presented in the study shows that when the two factors combined (different sources of communication and different types of communication) the results for the perceived responsibility for the crisis tend to be similar for all groups.

Discussion

With respect to the three main findings of the present research a couple of limitations emerged which gave a foundation for future research in the field. Firstly, when it comes to limitations of the present study, the survey embedded experiment which was spread through social media, gave a wide range of participants, but also resulted in relatively high dropout rate. The high dropout rate can be explained due to the less committed participants which were not externally or internally motivated enough to finish the study, or by the design itself which for some might have been too long or too demanding. However, even though this way of spreading the questionnaire introduced some unwanted consequences, on a more positive note, it enabled the filtering of participants who are not familiar with social media and increased the diversity among the participants since it has been posted on different platforms (both LinkedIn and Facebook). Furthermore, a high percentage of participants who entered the study, did not sufficiently finish the questionnaire and were consequently excluded from the study (did not give answers to more than two questions of the study). Therefore, future studies might benefit from disabling participants to proceed with the questionnaire if they do not give an answer to a question.

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Furthermore, as previously mentioned, one of the dimensions that differentiate public and private organization, according to Ben, and Gaus (1983) is the flow and the openness of the information (Perry, & Rainey, 1988). Since the private organizations are considered to be more open and transparent in comparison to public organizations, the weak difference in results between public and private organizations might be explained due to the same

formulation of the message of both types of companies. This way, the same level of openness and information flow has been present in both types of companies which might not reflect the ways in which the two types of companies would communicate with their public in reality. Nevertheless, the decision to compromise and only apply accommodation stance from the Contingency theory and to create one unique message for both types of companies was made in order to shift the focus of the research from the effects of different types of messages to the source of the message. However, this also became a limitation to a certain degree. By

creating the experiment content in this manner, it was extremely important that participants perceive which type of company is communicating the message solely depended on how carefully they read the text. For further research to be able to rely less on the level of focus of the participants it would be beneficial to find a way in which they could distinguish the two types companies in more obvious and intuitive way.

Despite these limitations, the fact that the present study took a step back from examining the effects of various clusters of messages proposed in Situational Crisis Communication Theory, and focused on differentiating the messages by the source of communication and the type of company communicating on social media in crisis, gave a whole new direction for future research.

Therefore, in future research, it would be interesting to see a further focus on different sources of communication or types of companies communicating about a crisis. Based on this example, future research can consider investigating the effects of other social media in crisis

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communication, or other sources of communication (employees of the company etc.) on the perceived responsibility for the crisis among the companies.

Finally, while the present study provides a new direction for the future research to focus on the various sources of messages in the external crisis, it also lays a groundwork for investigating a whole new field of internal communication crisis. Since the it is shown that the CEO represents a vital part of an organization, and his messages on Twitter positively affect the perceived responsibility for the crisis, future research could use this one to examine the consequences of CEO communication on social media on the internal perception of the crisis. Therefore, the present research provides tools for practitioners to use CEO as their beneficial communicator in terms of perceived responsibility for the crisis, and it instructs them not to differentiate communication techniques depending on whether the crisis took place in a private or a public organization.

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Appendix A: Questionnaire and manipulation

Introduction: Dear participant,

With this letter, I would like to invite you to participate in a research study to be conducted under the auspices of the Graduate School of Communication, a part of the University of Amsterdam.

When entering this survey, you will be exposed to two different texts explaining a specific situation, which I kindly ask you to read carefully. After that you will be asked a set of questions. The research is focused on investigating specific elements in crisis communication so consequently, the texts as well as the questions will be revolving around the topic of crisis communication.

The study will take about 5 -10 minutes.

As this research is being carried out under the responsibility of the ASCoR, University of Amsterdam, we can guarantee that:

1. Your anonymity will be safeguarded, and that your personal information will not be passed on to third parties under any conditions, unless you first give your express permission for this.

2. You can refuse to participate in the research or cut short your participation without having to give a reason for doing so. You also have up to 24 hours after participating to withdraw your permission to allow your answers or data to be used in the research.

3. Participating in the research will not entail your being subjected to any appreciable risk or discomfort, the researchers will not deliberately mislead you, and you will not be exposed to any explicitly offensive material.

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For more information about the research and the invitation to participate, you are welcome to contact the project leader Nika Prpic at any time.

Should you have any complaints or comments about the course of the research and the

procedures it involves as a consequence of your participation in this research, you can contact the designated member of the Ethics Committee representing 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.

We hope that we have provided you with sufficient information. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you in advance for your assistance with this research, which we greatly appreciate.

Kind regards,

Nika Prpić

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.

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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 future, I can contact Nika Prpić. 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.

Are you older than 18? Yes/No Demographics:

1. Age: __

2. What is your biological sex? Male/ Female/ Other 3. Please indicate your exact age:

4. What is your level of education?

 Post graduate/ professional degree

 Graduate degree

 Higher secondary certificate

 High school certificate

 Middle school certificate

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1. group: CEO x Private organization

In the following paragraphs you will read about a private organization and the crisis situation that this private company went through. Please read the text carefully and answer the

questions that will follow.

Description of the situation:

NewsOne Channel (NOC) is a private Television broadcasting company recognized as one of the leaders among high quality news organizations. This private company has been

broadcasting on a national level since 1970 and has a long tradition in providing 24-hour news, in depth reports and information programs.

Crisis:

This October, one of the longtime NOC anchors, Nick Cohen, has been accused of sexual harassment by Barbara Lewis, a former news production assistant at NOC. Even though he denies all of the accusations, Mrs. Lewis filed a lawsuit against the famous anchor as well as the News One Channel.

Below you can see what the company’s CEO tweeted on his own Twitter page regarding the crisis.

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Text from the Tweet: In the light of recent events at NewsOne Channel, I would like to announce that we are working hard on investigating the truth behind all allegations against our colleague, Nick Cohen:

I would like to start by saying that I personally apologize to everyone involved in this unpleasant situation, including all of our viewers. This is an upsetting event for all of us at NewsOne Channel! We understand the strong feelings many wish to express in this moment, and we are listening. Our team is urgently working with the authorities to reach a detailed review of what happened. There is a legal process under way, and we believe that it will

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bring clarity about all the allegations of sexual misdemeanor by our employee. We are also inviting everyone who might have any information about the incident to reach out to us and we are asking for your patience while resolving the issue.

Sincerely, James Owens

2. group: Official Twitter page x Public organization

In the following paragraphs you will read about a public organization and the crisis situation that this public company went through. Please read the text carefully and answer the

Description of the situation:

NewsOne Channel (NOC) is a public Television broadcasting company recognized as one of the leaders among high quality news organizations. This public company has been

Crisis:

This October, one of the longtime NOC anchors, Nick Cohen, has been accused of sexual harassment by Barbara Lewis, a former news production assistant at NOC. Even though he

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denies all of the accusations, Mrs. Lewis filed a lawsuit against the famous anchor as well as the News One Channel.

Below you can see what the company tweeted on their official Twitter page regarding the crisis.

Text from the Tweet: In the light of recent events at NewsOne Channel, we would like to announce that we are working hard on investigating the truth behind all allegations against our colleague, Nick Cohen:

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We would like to start by apologizing to everyone involved in this unpleasant situation, including all of our viewers. This is an upsetting event for all of us at NewsOne Channel! We understand the strong feelings many wish to express in this moment, and we are listening. Our team is urgently working with the authorities to reach a detailed review of what

happened. There is a legal process under way, and we believe that it will bring clarity about all the allegations of sexual misdemeanor by our employees. We are also inviting everyone who might have any information about the incident to reach out to us and we are asking for your patience while resolving the issue.

Sincerely, ChannelOne

3. group: Official Twitter page x Private organization

In the following paragraphs you will read about a private organization and the crisis situation that this private company went through. Please read the text carefully and answer the

NewsOne Channel (NOC) is a private Television broadcasting company recognized as one of the leaders among high quality news organizations. This perivate company has been

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Below you can see what the company tweeted on their official Twitter page regarding the crisis.

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We would like to start by apologizing to everyone involved in this unpleasant situation, including all of our viewers. This is an upsetting event for all of us at NewsOne Channel! We understand the strong feelings many wish to express in this moment, and we are listening. Our team is urgently working with the authorities to reach a detailed review of what

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who might have any information about the incident to reach out to us and we are asking for your patience while resolving the issue.

4. group: Public organization x CEO private Twitter account

In the following paragraphs you will read about a public organization and the crisis situation that this public company went through. Please read the text carefully and answer the

NewsOne Channel (NOC) is a public Television broadcasting company recognized as one of the leaders among high quality news organizations. This public company has been

Crisis:

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I would like to start by saying that I personally apologize to everyone involved in this unpleasant situation, including all of our viewers. This is an upsetting event for all of us at NewsOne Channel! We understand the strong feelings many wish to express in this moment, and we are listening. Our team is urgently working with the authorities to reach a detailed review of what happened. There is a legal process under way, and we believe that it will bring clarity about all the allegations of sexual misdemeanor by our employees. We are also

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inviting everyone who might have any information about the incident to reach out to us and we are asking for your patience while resolving the issue.

Sincerely, ChannelOne

Manipulation check:

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statements regarding the situation that you just read about:

1. The CEO was the source of the Twitter message that you observed. 1- Strongly disagree ... 7- strongly agree

2. The official Twitter page of the organization was the source of the Twitter message that you observed.

1- Strongly disagree ... 7- strongly agree

3. The organization from the text is a privately-owned organization. 1- Strongly disagree ... 7- strongly agree

4. The organization from the text is a publicly owned organization. 1- Strongly disagree ... 7- strongly agree

Dependent variable: