Empathy as a driver of consumers’ attitudinal responses to organizational crises and crisis communication

This study provides a deeper understanding of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect organizational reputation. Prior research emphasizes the importance of attributions of organizational responsibility in this process. By means of two experiments this study shows that the public’s empathy towards organizations in crisis provides an additional explanation for the impact of crises and crisis communication on reputation. The first experiment shows that responsibility attributions generated by the crisis type (victim vs. preventable) impact post-crisis reputation both directly and indirectly through empathy. Lower levels of organizational responsibility induce higher levels of empathy, which minimizes reputational damage. A second study illustrates that the outcomes of communication strategies can also be explained by empathy towards the organization. An organizational apology, contrary to denial, arouses empathy and subsequently increases reputation repair. These findings provide an explanation for the positive impact of apologies on post-crisis reputation, which was repeatedly established in prior research.

Publication year:2018