The purpose of this study is to explore the positive outcomes of organizational resilience to see how resilient employees can support an organization by adapting to and initiating changes during th...

Organizational resilience and employee work-role performance after a crisis situation: exploring the effects of organizational resilience on internal crisis communication

The role of empathy in crisis communication: Providing a deeper understanding of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation

Exploring crisis communication in the internal context of an organization: Examining moderated and mediated effects of employee-organization relationships on crisis outcomes

Effects of data breaches from user-generated content: A corporate reputation analysis

Seeking sincerity, finding forgiveness: YouTube apologies as image repair

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to address the under-researched issue of how formal determinations of organizational responsibility for a crisis affect the effectiveness of the denial strategy in protecting organizational reputation. Because studies that omit later determinations of responsibility produce misleading representations of the value of denial, a pilot study and primary study investigated how later determinations of organizational culpability in a management misconduct crisis interact with crisis response strategies to affect reputation and anger.




Design/methodology/approach




Two studies used experimental designs to assess how denial interacted with determinations of crisis responsibility to influence reputation and anger.




Findings




The pilot study demonstrated reputational damage and stakeholder anger increased when an organization initially denied responsibility and then was found to be responsible for the crisis. The second study replicated the pilot study findings and also demonstrated that later determinations of guilt decreased reputation scores. When found guilty, the organization’s reputation was significantly more favorable when the positive action strategy was used. Comparison of three response strategies (no response, denial, and positive action) revealed the denial and no response conditions were significantly less effective than the positive response strategy when the organization was found guilty.




Research limitations/implications




Paper demonstrates the need for research on the denial strategy to consider later determinations of crisis responsibility (guilt) when assessing denial’s impact on organizational reputation.




Practical implications




When selecting response strategies in situations where crisis responsibility is unclear, practitioners should consider how later determinations of responsibility could affect reputation.




Originality/value




This paper questions past research on the value of the denial strategy, integrates findings from the trust violations research, and demonstrates the importance of considering formal judgments of organizational responsibility when selecting crisis response strategies.

Debunking the myth of denial’s effectiveness in crisis communication: context matters

Organizations in crisis often fail to select the optimal crisis response strategy, preferring strategies that avoid short-term losses over the ones that offer long-term gains. This article proposes a descriptive theory of behavioral crisis communication that uses principles of behavioral economics to explain the recurrence of suboptimal anomalies found in crisis communication. Based on decision-making literature we first argue that the distinct context in which crisis communication takes place (e.g., time pressure, information overload) determines whether or not decisions are made in an analytical or an intuitive manner. Behavioral economics further allows us to explain how intuitive decisions can sometimes be biased by heuristics, which can result in the choice for a suboptimal crisis response strategy in the heat of the moment.

Organizational Crisis Communication: Suboptimal Crisis Response Selection Decisions and Behavioral Economics

This study examines how sadness, expressed through the voice of a CEO of an organization in crisis, affects the public's perceptions in times of crisis. A first experiment shows that a sad voice in...

The power of empathy: the dual impacts of an emotional voice in organizational crisis communication

Preparing to face the media in times of crisis: Training spokespersons’ verbal and nonverbal cues

Purpose : The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of social media guidelines (SMGs), as well as their impact on control mutuality, a sub-dimension of the organization–employee relationship (OER). A total of two studies compare guidelines with a focus that is either predominantly incentive or restrictive. In addition, they investigate the moderating effect of guideline writing style and enforcement.

Design/methodology/approach : In total, two online experiments were conducted among Belgian employees. Participants read a social media policy manipulated in terms of focus (restrictive vs incentive) and style (conversational vs corporate; Study 1) or enforcement (signature requested vs not requested; Study 2).

Findings : Incentive guidelines increase employee branding behavior more than their restrictive counterparts, while also safeguarding employees' perceived control mutuality. However, solid SMGs will not compensate for an organization's bad reputation among employees. The guidelines' style and manner of enforcement did not seem to matter.

Practical implications : Communication executives can use our findings to draft SMGs in a way that increases opportunities (e.g. ambassadorship) and reduces risks (e.g. criticism) associated with employee social media use.

Originality/value : Prior research on SMGs is predominantly descriptive and focused on the organizational perspective. This research paper contributes to both theory and practice by studying the causal impact of these guidelines on employees.

An-Sofie Claeys

Papers

Debunking the myth of denial’s effectiveness in crisis communication: context matters

Organizational Crisis Communication: Suboptimal Crisis Response Selection Decisions and Behavioral Economics

The power of empathy: the dual impacts of an emotional voice in organizational crisis communication

Preparing to face the media in times of crisis: Training spokespersons’ verbal and nonverbal cues

Can organizations guide employees' social media behavior? The benefits of incentive rather than restrictive social media guidelines