IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/crepre/v22y2019i4d10.1057_s41299-019-00064-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Empirical Test of Image Restoration Theory and Best Practice Suggestions Within the Context of Social Mediated Crisis Communication

Author

Listed:
  • Samantha Nazione

    (Berry College)

  • Evan K. Perrault

    (Purdue University)

Abstract

Crises are inevitable for any company, and the fate of a company’s image rests in how well they are responded to. Few studies have experimentally tested the impact that common types of company responses can have on consumers’ perceptions when a negative complaint has been made online. This research sought to expand the strategies put forth for crisis management by image restoration theory (IRT) using best practice research within the context of social mediated crisis communication. An online experiment examined the effect of a company’s response to an online complaint (i.e., professional apology, personal apology, deleting the comment, ignoring the comment, control group) on participants’ perceptions of the company (i.e., perceptions of company caring, attitude). The potential for perceptions of company caring to mediate the relationship between these expanded strategies and IRT’s ultimate aim of attitude change was also tested. An apology, whether professional or personal, improved participants’ perceptions compared to deleting or ignoring the complaint. Caring significantly mediated the relationship between response strategy and participant attitude. Compared to a control group, which had no transgression, ignoring or deleting the complaint led to negative attitudes about the company, while responding to the complaint with a personal or professional apology led to positive attitudes about the company via perceptions of company caring. Results indicate that online complaints could also be seen as opportunities to improve a company’s image, as attitudes toward the company were highest when a transgression occurred and was responded to positively, compared to not having the transgression take place at all (i.e., control condition). Potential extensions to current image repair strategies in the social media environment are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Samantha Nazione & Evan K. Perrault, 2019. "An Empirical Test of Image Restoration Theory and Best Practice Suggestions Within the Context of Social Mediated Crisis Communication," Corporate Reputation Review, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(4), pages 134-143, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:crepre:v:22:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1057_s41299-019-00064-2
    DOI: 10.1057/s41299-019-00064-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41299-019-00064-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41299-019-00064-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carolyn Bonifield & Catherine Cole, 2007. "Affective responses to service failure: Anger, regret, and retaliatory versus conciliatory responses," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 85-99, June.
    2. Keith S. Coulter & Anne Roggeveen, 2012. "“Like it or not”," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(9), pages 878-899, August.
    3. Grégoire, Yany & Salle, Audrey & Tripp, Thomas M., 2015. "Managing social media crises with your customers: The good, the bad, and the ugly," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 173-182.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valeria L M A Freundt & Luiza Venzke Bortoli Foschiera, 2024. "The Impact of Voluntary Recall on the Trust of Loyal and First-Time Consumers in a High Awareness Brand After a Functional Transgression," Corporate Reputation Review, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(3), pages 172-184, August.
    2. Giampiero Giacomello & Oltion Preka, 2021. "Targeting Reputation: A New Vector for Attacks to Critical Infrastructures," Computer and Information Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(3), pages 1-63, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weitzl, Wolfgang J. & Einwiller, Sabine A., 2020. "Profiling (un-)committed online complainants: Their characteristics and post-webcare reactions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 740-753.
    2. Béal, Mathieu & Suri, Anshu & Nguyen, Nguyen & Grégoire, Yany & Sénécal, Sylvain, 2022. "Is service recovery of equal importance for private vs public complainers?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 392-400.
    3. Obeidat, Zaid Mohammad & Xiao, Sarah Hong & Qasem, Zainah al & dweeri, Rami al & Obeidat, Ahmad, 2018. "Social media revenge: A typology of online consumer revenge," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 239-255.
    4. Zhou, Yuanyuan & Tsang, Alex S.L. & Huang, Minxue & Zhou, Nan, 2014. "Does delaying service-failure resolution ever make sense?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 159-166.
    5. Wenyan Zhou & Oliver Hinz & Alexander Benlian, 2018. "The impact of the package opening process on product returns," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 11(2), pages 279-308, September.
    6. M. S. Balaji & Subhash Jha & Marla B. Royne, 2015. "Customer e-complaining behaviours using social media," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(11-12), pages 633-654, August.
    7. Yang Gao & Wenjing Duan & Huaxia Rui, 2022. "Does Social Media Accelerate Product Recalls? Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(3), pages 954-977, September.
    8. Yan Li, 2011. "Emotions and new venture judgment in China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 277-298, June.
    9. Chen, Ke & Chen, Jianxun & Zhan, Wu & Sharma, Piyush, 2020. "When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 628-641.
    10. Amélie Guèvremont & Bianca Grohmann, 2018. "Does brand authenticity alleviate the effect of brand scandals?," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(4), pages 322-336, July.
    11. Xiong, Feng & Chapple, Larelle & Yin, Haiying, 2018. "The use of social media to detect corporate fraud: A case study approach," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 623-633.
    12. Hill Cummings, Krista & Seitchik, Allison E., 2020. "The differential treatment of women during service recovery: How perceived social power affects consumers’ postfailure compensation," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 647-658.
    13. Patel, Pankaj C. & Pearce, John A. & Bachrach, Daniel G., 2018. "Psychological Distress is increasing among customer-facing retail employees: Evidence from 1997 to 2015," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 21-26.
    14. Dewi Anggraeni & Serena Ghean Niagara & Mohammad Anwar, 2018. "Legal Protection Againts Buyers due to not Performing Seller in Electronic Transaction," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 8(5), pages 168-171.
    15. Yany Grégoire & Renaud Legoux & Thomas M. Tripp & Marie-Louise Radanielina-Hita & Jeffrey Joireman & Jeffrey D. Rotman, 2019. "What Do Online Complainers Want? An Examination of the Justice Motivations and the Moral Implications of Vigilante and Reparation Schemas," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 167-188, November.
    16. Wang, Saerom & Kirillova, Ksenia & Lehto, Xinran, 2017. "Reconciling unsatisfying tourism experiences: Message type effectiveness and the role of counterfactual thinking," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 233-243.
    17. Sharifi, Seyed Shahin & Aghazadeh, Hashem, 2016. "Discount reference moderates customers' reactions to discount frames after online service failure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4074-4080.
    18. Liebrecht, Christine & Tsaousi, Christina & van Hooijdonk, Charlotte, 2021. "Linguistic elements of conversational human voice in online brand communication: Manipulations and perceptions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 124-135.
    19. Döring, Matthias, 2020. "“Explain, but make no Excuses”: Service Recovery after Public Service Failures," SocArXiv txmdy, Center for Open Science.
    20. Thomas O. Uitz & Eva Jancikova, 2021. "Service Failures and How the Perception of Justice Affects the Level of Satisfaction," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(1), pages 105-117.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:crepre:v:22:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1057_s41299-019-00064-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.