Business Commons^™

Impact Of Moral Ethics On Consumers’ Boycott Intentions: A Cross-Cultural Study Of Crisis Perceptions And Responses In The United States, South Korea, And Singapore, Kyujin Shim, Hichang Cho, Soojin Kim, Su Lin Yeo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study investigates the effects of individuals’ ethics on perceptions and responses to a company’s crisis. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, it empirically tests a theoretical model of crisis attribution and emotional reaction with two antecedents (i.e., individualizing moral and binding moral) on three outcomes (i.e., crisis attribution, emotions, and boycott intentions), using more than 3000 samples from three culturally-diverse countries - the U.S., South Korea, and Singapore. The study finds that individualizing and binding moral foundations have significant effects on attribution, emotional reaction, and behavioral intentions related to corporate irresponsibility, but that their effects are distinct and vary across …

Serena, Inc.: Using Instagram To Build Brand Equity After A Crisis, Frauke Hachtmann

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Serena Williams is one of the most successful athletes of all time. In addition to dominating the professional tennis circuit for decades, she has also built a massive business empire while becoming a first-time mother and wife. During this time of transition, Williams experienced a significant crisis moment during the 2018 US Open. Williams did not publicly acknowledge or apologise for the crisis and instead focused on a new sense of direction after living through the experience, much of which is documented and promoted on her Instagram account. This exploratory case study focuses on Serena Williams’s use of Instagram as …

Crisis Communication And Executive Leadership: Ethical Shortcomings In Government, Daniel Davidoff

School of Professional Studies

This research thesis project is an analysis of how and why governments fail in their attempts at crisis communication. The hypotheses tested are: there exists a negative correlation between unethical leadership and successful crisis communication practices. And governments are more likely to experience these failures due to ethical disconnects in modern politics. Research includes a review of relevant academic literature regarding crisis communication theory, as well as the ethical framework that can be applied to that theory. Cases considered are Hurricane Katrina, the choking death of Eric Garner, and the COVID-19 global pandemic. The research project concludes with a recommendation …

Using The Theory Of Emotional Stakeholders To Experimentally Test The Influence Of Proxy Communicators About Organizational Crises In Digital News Reports, Alicia Mason, Elizabeth Spencer, Kelley Macek, Alison Smith, Stephanie Potter

Faculty Submissions

The emergence of new and social media has transformed the way that stakeholders and organizations interact between and amongst each other. Online news consumers are now able to directly respond to crisis news reports by offering their own interpretation, thus expanding the diversity of viewpoints audiences are exposed to (Carpenter, 2010; Springer, 2014). Using the Theory of Emotional Stakeholders framework our study aims (1) to understand how positive and negative user-generated comments in response to online news reports of crisis events impacts audience perceptions of organizational blame; (2) to examine the persuasive effects of user comments when expert or official …

Evolution Of Corporate Reputation During An Evolving Controversy, Siyoung Chung, Mark Chong, Jie Sheng Chua, Ji Cheon Na

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of online sentiments toward a company (i.e. Chipotle) during a crisis, and the effects of corporate apology on those sentiments. Design/methodology/approach: Using a very large data set of tweets (i.e. over 2.6m) about Company A’s food poisoning case (2015–2016). This case was selected because it is widely known, drew attention from various stakeholders and had many dynamics (e.g. multiple outbreaks, and across different locations). This study employed a supervised machine learning approach. Its sentiment polarity classification and relevance classification consisted of five steps: sampling, labeling, tokenization, augmentation of semantic …

Communicating In The Post‐Truth Era: Analyses Of Crisis Response Strategies Of Presidents Donald Trump And Rodrigo Duterte, Natasha Binte Mohamed Ismail, Marie Angeline Pagulayan, Carlo Miguel Alfonso Francia, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The rhetoric of then U.S. President‐elect Donald Trump and Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte had triggered a shift in global political discourse (Greene, 2016). This study examines their responses on three similar crises: disrespectful remarks towards women, associations with controversial political figures, and remarks threatening geopolitical relations. Data from prestige publications, Washington Post (U.S.) and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, were analyzed during the acute stage of each crisis. Findings showed that both men employed confusing strategy combinations in their crisis responses. Despite incoherent application and contradictory strategies, they survived threats to their image as evidenced by poll results. New strategies (diversion …

Crisis Communication And Ethics: The Role Of Public Relations, Yan Jin, Augustine Pang, Joshua Smith

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the veracity of the contingency model of ethical crisis communication by examining the factors of influence in a time of crisis including what constitutes ethics in a time of crisis; the role of public relations (PR) practitioners as the “moral conscience” of an organization and perceptions of the PR’ role within top management. Design/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were conducted among ten senior PR managers with crisis communication experience in North America. Findings: This research identifies and investigates six ethical variables – the nature of the crisis, the role of top management, the …

Domestic Violence And The National Football League, Kelsey Rentner

Master of Arts in Media and Communication Plan II Graduate Projects

In 2014, the National Football League (NFL) faced extreme criticism for the way it handled the three domestic violence cases that emerged into the spotlight. The Ray Rice video that showed him punching his at-the-time fiancé, as well as the several other domestic violence cases among NFL players that quickly followed, shed a light on what seemed to be a well-hidden problem within the league. Since being in the public eye, the league has not been effective with its communication efforts to prevent the issue of domestic violence and rebuild its reputation among stakeholders. This project uses evidence-based literature to …

Did Bp Atone For Its Transgressions? Expanding Theory Of “Ethical Apology In Crisis Communication, Audra Diers-Lawson, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Ethical communication during crisis response is often assessed by external perceptions of the organization's intentions, rather than an assessment of the organization's communicative behaviors. This can easily lead researchers to draw editorial conclusions about an organization's ethics in crisis response rather than accurately describing its communicative behaviors. The case of BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provides a prime example for the importance of accurately assessing the ethical content of an organization's crisis response because the ethics of BP's response have been discussed in news and academic sources; yet little direct examination of the ethical content in …

Parody Social Media Accounts: Influence And Impact On Organizations During Crisis, Sarah Wan, Regina Koh, Andrew Ong, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the uptake of the use of social media, the communication field has seen a rise in a new phenomenon: parody social media accounts. Through study of five such accounts, this paper shows how parody social media accounts can arise from a crisis or paracrisis, which is “a publicly visible crisis threat” that is triggered online (Coombs & Holladay, 2012, p. 409). The study also examines the behavior of these accounts and how they enforce negative perceptions and impede an organization's efforts and initiatives. Using the social-mediated crisis communication model as its theoretical lens, this study seeks to examine parody …

Stakeholder Perceptions Of A University Response To Crisis, Katherine M. Kelley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to contribute to current theory-driven research in crisis communication by examining the perceptions of multiple stakeholder groups to a university crisis response strategy. Two main questions were examined in this dissertation. The first question attempted to determine if a significant difference existed between stakeholder groups and their perception of university reputation, responsibility for the crisis, and potential supportive behaviors toward the university following the university’s response to a crisis. The second asked if Coombs’s Situational Crisis Communication Theory is a practical application for universities.

The participants were from 4 stakeholder groups associated with a …

Developing And Teaching The Crisis Communication Course, Mitchell Friedman

Communication Studies

Comer (2010) noted the absence of literature offering guidance to instructors charged with developing standalone courses on crisis management. This article aims to fill this void, relating the author’s experience in developing two crisis communication classes (one offered online, one in a traditional classroom setting). Drawing on 15 years of teaching experience (including single sessions devoted to crisis communication, reputation management, and related issues in public relations and business courses) plus the investigation of scholarly contributions related to the development of such courses, syllabi, and feedback from practitioners who develop and deliver related training, the article delivers the essential components …

Social Media Hype In Times Of Crises: Nature, Characteristics And Impact On Organizations, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article extends Vasterman’s (2005) concept of media hype by analyzing how it applies in the social media context. It then develops the concept of social media hype, its nature, characteristics through examination of five cases that attracted much social media attention. Social media hype can be defined as a netizen-generated hype that causes huge interest that is triggered by a key event and sustained by a self-reinforcing quality in its ability for users to engage in conversation. It involves a trigger event, followed by interest waves, and sustaining of the interests on different social media platforms. In response, organizations …

Corporate Historical Responsibility (Chr): Addressing A Past Of Forced Labor At Volkswagen, Claudia Janssen Danyi

Claudia I. Janssen Danyi, PhD

This article introduces corporate historical responsibility (CHR), a concept that can guide organizations when addressing dark corporate histories. CHR holds that organizations have responsibilities toward victims of past corporate practices and toward present reconciliatory discourse. Volkswagen’s discourse about its history of forced labor during WW II serves as an example of CHR. The rhetorical analysis illustrates that CHR hinges on the recognition of the past as a moral issue and on the organization’s ability to create historical accountability, take responsibility, make public acknowledgements, and remember its past. It further illustrates that CHR creates sustainable policies that can strengthen corporate citizenship …

Corporate Historical Responsibility (Chr): Addressing A Past Of Forced Labor At Volkswagen, Claudia Janssen Danyi

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This article introduces corporate historical responsibility (CHR), a concept that can guide organizations when addressing dark corporate histories. CHR holds that organizations have responsibilities toward victims of past corporate practices and toward present reconciliatory discourse. Volkswagen’s discourse about its history of forced labor during WW II serves as an example of CHR. The rhetorical analysis illustrates that CHR hinges on the recognition of the past as a moral issue and on the organization’s ability to create historical accountability, take responsibility, make public acknowledgements, and remember its past. It further illustrates that CHR creates sustainable policies that can strengthen corporate citizenship …

The Final Countdown To Y2k: Is Your Small Business Ready?, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

No abstract provided.