2. Overview: SCCT
• Research Method Experimental
• Strategic focus Reputation Repair
• Function Managing Meaning
• Phase Crisis
• Communication Receiver & Context
3. Origins
• Lists of response strategies and crisis types
• Emphasis on situation
• Connection to the practice
• Attribution theory and marketing research
7. Crisis and Reputation
• Reputational Capital
• Build through good work
• Crises spend some, but how much
8. Attributions of crisis responsibility
• Greater threat to reputation as they increase
• Connection between response strategies and
crisis type
– Crisis types reflect crisis responsibility
– Crisis response reflect acceptance of crisis
10. Original Dimensions
• Internal-External: locus of control from
Attribution Theory
• Intentional-Unintentional: controllability,
purposeful by an actor or not
• Shape attributions of crisis responsibility
11. Original Crisis types
• Faux Pas: interpretation of organizational
behavior
– Organization considers positive or neutral
– Stakeholders view are negative
• Accidents: things happen
• Terrorism: external attack
• Transgression: organization places
stakeholders at risk
17. Change to Crisis Types
• Shift from Grid to a Continuum
• Dropped external control
• Centered on crisis responsibility
• New continuum based on survey research
35. Reputational Threat
• How people perceive the crisis.
• Strong threat requires stronger response
(more perceived acceptance of responsibility)
36. Assess the Threat
• Initial Assessment: Crisis Type
• Frame used to view the crisis
• Grouped by attributions of crisis responsibility
– Victim
– Accidental
– Preventable
37. Intensifiers
• Crisis history: similar crises in past
• Prior relational reputation: how well or poorly
organization has treated stakeholders
38. Velcro Effect
• History of crises intensifies crisis responsibility
• Negative prior reputation intensifies crisis
responsibility
39. Boundaries
• Financial resources are constraints
– Afford the strategy?
• Crisis can be frame by media (includes
Internet)
– May need to follow and not try to reframe
40. Ethical Base Response
• Instructing Information: to protect selves
– Warnings
– Information about crisis (what happended)
• Adjusting Information: cope psychologically
– Express regret
– Corrective action
– Counseling
41. SCCT Recommendations
1. All victims or potential victims should receive
instructing information, including recall
information.
– This can be called the “public safety response.”
– This is one-half of the base response to a crisis.
2. All victims should be provided an expression of
sympathy, any information about corrective
actions, and trauma counseling when needed.
– This can be called the “care response.”
– This is the second-half of the base response to a
crisis.
42. SCCT Recommendations
3. For crises with strong attributions of crisis responsibility
(preventable crises and accidental crises with an intensifying
factor), add compensation and/or apology strategies to the
instructing information and care response.
43. SCCT Recommendations
4. The compensation strategy is used anytime
victims suffer serious harm
5. The reminder and ingratiation strategies can
be used to supplement any response
6. Denial and attack the accuser strategies are
best used only for rumor and challenge crises
7. Suffering part of response if organization is a
victim
50. Crisis Affect
• Emotions generated by a crisis
– Anger
– Sympathy
– Schadenfreude
• Anger most common (McDonald & Hartel,
2000)
51. Anger
• Typical reaction to a crisis
• Can be a catalyst for behaviors
– Negative word-of-mouth
– Purchase intention (Jorgensen, 1996)
52. Anger as Energizer
• Energize people to say or write negative things
about an organization/product/service
• We refer to as “The Negative Communication
Dynamic”
53. Current Focus in Crisis Communication
• Crisis and impact on reputation
• Limited on purchase intention
• Effects typically transitory—people forget
• Any effects from crisis can dissipate quickly
(McDonald & Hartel, 2000)
54. Potential Persistence of Anger
• Unhappy customers tell others (Power, 2006)
• Similarly, stakeholders unhappy about a crisis
and crisis management may tell others
• Dissatisfaction leads to negative word-of-
mouth
55. Word-of-Mouth
• A powerful force in shaping consumer
attitudes
• Negative word-of-mouth more power than
positive (Lacznial, DeCarlo & Ramaswami,
2001)
56. Lasting Effects of Word-of-Mouth
• Negative word-of-mouth spreads beyond
initial stakeholders
– Initially tell 6 to 15 people
– They in turn tell others
• Negative word-of-mouth can linger
– Remain on blogs, web sites, and discussion boards
after initial anger subsides.
57. Hypotheses
• H1: Higher attributions of crisis responsibility
and stronger feelings of anger from a crisis are
associated with higher levels of intended
negative word-of-mouth.
58. Hypotheses
• H2: Anger mediates the relationship between
crisis responsibility and negative word-of-
mouth.
• H3: Anger mediates the relationship between
crisis responsibility and purchase intention.
59. Results
• Negative word-of-mouth and crisis
responsibility correlated at .45
• Negative word-of-mouth and anger correlated
at .63
60. Results
• Anger did mediate the relationships between
– Crisis responsibility and purchase intention
– Crisis responsibility and negative work-of-mouth
64. Where to Next?
• Effects of crisis response strategies on anger
• Crisis factors that shape anger
• Duration of crisis anger
• Relationship of anger and schadenfreude