This document summarizes Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), which provides guidance on managing reputation during a crisis. SCCT evolved from attribution theory and focuses on shaping attributions of crisis responsibility. It categorizes crises on a continuum from victim to preventable based on perceived responsibility. SCCT recommends response strategies matched to the crisis type and reputational threat. Research tests SCCT assumptions and relationships between crisis responsibility, emotions like anger, and outcomes like negative word-of-mouth. Findings show anger mediates these relationships, demonstrating a "Negative Communication Dynamic." Future research areas are identified to further advance SCCT.

1. Situational Crisis
Communication Theory (SCCT)
Develop
Evolution
Application

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

4. Attribution Theory
• People motivated to find reasons for events
• Attributions
– Internal
– External

5. Why care about attributions?
• Attributions influence affect and behavior

6. Crises
• Attributions shape
– Affect concerning organization
– Behaviors toward organization
– Reputations (there is damage)

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

9. Crisis Type
Dominant Situational Factor

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

12. Original Matrix

13. Modification:
Crisis Types organized by
Attributions of Crisis Responsibility
Victim
Accidental
Preventable

14. Victim (very little crisis responsibility)
• Natural disasters
• Rumor
• Workplace violence
• Product tampering

15. Accidental (minimal crisis
responsibility)
• Challenges
• Technical-error accidents
• Technical-error product harm

16. Preventable (significant crisis
responsibility)
• Human-error accidents
• Human-error product harm
• Organizational misdeed
– No injuries
– Injuries
– Management misconduct

17. Change to Crisis Types
• Shift from Grid to a Continuum
• Dropped external control
• Centered on crisis responsibility
• New continuum based on survey research

18. Other Situational Factors

19. Veracity of evidence
• Proof there is a crisis
– True
– False
– Ambiguous

20. Application Today
• Hidden factor
• Choice to use denial
• Ambiguity is key factor in accidental crises

21. Stakeholders
• Victim
• Non-victim

22. Revision Today
• Victims
• Potential victims
• Voyeurs
– News media
– Social media

23. Damage
• Harm inflicted by crisis
– Severe
– Minor

24. Current Application
• Relevant but mixed results
• Future
– Treat as susceptibility
– Relationship to anxiety

25. Performance history
• Past relationship with stakeholders
– Positive
– Negative

26. Currently an Intensifier
• Positive prior reputation
• Neutral/unknown
• Negative prior reputation—the driver

27. Other Intensifier: Crisis History
• No history of crises
• No knowledge of history
• Had a crisis in the past

29. Revision
• No longer use decision tree
• List of recommendations

30. Original Response Strategies
• Nonexistence
– Denial
– Clarification
– Attack
– Intimidation
• Ingratiation
– Bolstering
– Praise others

31. Original Response Strategies
• Distance
– Excuse: deny intention and/or control
– Justification: minimize harm done
• Mortification
• Suffering
– Organization as victim

32. Revised Response Strategies
• Arranged from
– Defensive: protect organization
– Accommodative: help the victims

33. Crisis Responses
• Deny: no connection
– Denial, Attack Accuser, and Scapegoat
• Diminish: reduce responsibility
– Excuse and Justification
– Reinforce existing frame
• Rebuild: attempt to improve reputation
– Compensation and Apology

34. Crisis Responses
• Bolstering: draw on goodwill
– Reminder, Ingratiation, and Victimage
– Supporting strategies

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

44. Beliefs
• Theory-driven (beyond description)
• Evidence-based (tested)

45. Research to test
• Assumptions
• Relationships between variables
– Existence
– Strength

47. Initial outcome
• Reputation

48. Other outcomes
• Emotion (anger)
• Purchase intention
• Negative word-of-mouth

49. Example of Research in Detail:
Negative Communication Dynamic

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

61. Negative Communication Dynamic
Visual Representation
Anger
Crisis Negative
WOM

62. Visual Representation II
Anger
Crisis Purchase
Intention

63. What does this mean
for crisis managers?

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