This document discusses a study analyzing the impact of time on consumer perceptions during IKEA's 2013 meatball crisis. The study found that in the weeks following the crisis: - Consumers' impressions of IKEA improved over time - Perceived risk, anger, and perceptions of severity decreased - Intentions to purchase IKEA meatballs and furniture in the future increased The study concludes that while crises can negatively impact perceptions for years, the IKEA crisis appeared to be mitigated as time passed and consumer perceptions grew more positive. The document calls for future research developing models to estimate the temporal impact of crises over time.

1. The Impact of Time on
Product-Harm Crises:
The Case of IKEA’s Meatballs
Dr. Aikaterini Vassilikopoulou
Peter J Stavroulakis
1st WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTER SUPPORTED EDUCATION

2. CRISIS: A DISRUPTION THAT
AFFECTS THE ENTIRE CORPORATE
SYSTEM AND THREATENS ITS BASIC
PRINCIPLES
Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992

3. Product-harm
crises
are
incidents where a product is
found to be unsafe for
consumers,
defective
or
dangerous.
Dawar & Pillutla, 2001

4. Brand Crises Typology:
o Performance-related
o Values-related
Dutta & Pullig, 2011

5. The Organizations’ Response to a
Crisis May Significantly Affect
Consumers’ Attitudes,
Perceptions and Reactions
•Denial to Super-Effort
(Shrivastava and Siomkos , 1989)
•Three Basic Accommodative Strategies
(Coombs, 2007)

6. The impact of time on
product-harm crises
 Literature is limited
 Time span may be critical (Standop, 2006)
 Consumers seem to forget (Vassilikopoulou,
2009)
Limitations: Research was based on hypothetical
scenarios and a great deal of time had passed
between the crisis and the research

7. IKEA Meatball Crisis
Timeline
 Feb 25th 2013, traces of horsemeat are found
in samples of IKEA’s meatballs in the Czech
Republic and the information goes public,
IKEA recalls meatballs from 14 EU countries
 7 weeks afterwards the meatballs are back on
the shelves with a discounted retail price

8. Methodology
 Three days after the crisis goes public
 124 respondents given a questionnaire
 41% men
 56% college graduates
 30% were 18-25 years old

9. Questionnaire
 I have a good impression about IKEA
 How would you characterize the decision of whether to





buy meatballs from IKEA’s restaurant?
I hold IKEA responsible for the product harm
I feel angry about the event
How severe was the event
I intend to buy meatballs from IKEA’s restaurant in the
future
I intend to buy furniture from IKEA in the future
All items were formulated in 7-point Likert-type scale format.

10. Results
Item
Impression
Mean Scores
3 days after 1 week 2 weeks 4 weeks 6 weeks
after
after
after
after
3.45
4.67
4.66
4.89
5.01
Perceived risk
Item
4.91
4.20
4.13
3.87
3.65
3 days after 1 week 2 weeks 4 weeks 6 weeks
after
after
after
after
Anger
5.09
4.32
4.22
3.75
3.73
Severity
4.88
4.52
4.44
4.29
3.95
Purchase
intentions
(meatballs)
Purchase
intentions
(furniture)
2.54
3.68
4.16
4.54
4.69
5.89
6.02
6.07
6.12
6.20

11. Impression and Perceived
Risk

12. Blame, Anger and Severity

13. Purchase Intentions

14. Conclusions
 While it may take people years to forget
negative experiences deriving from a crisis
and for them to form more positive
perceptions (Kanso, Levitt and Nelson, 2010),
it would seem that the crisis has been
mitigated
 Time is an altering factor

15. Future Directions
 Model of estimating the temporal impact of a
crisis utilizing growth curves

16. Thank you for your
attention!