CRISIS COMMUNICATION: LOWERING ATTRIBUTIONS TO RESTORE BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS
Résumé
We examine four crisis communication strategies (scapegoating, apology, denial, and justification) on consumers' judgments of the firm. Study 1 examines the relationships between post-crisis communication strategies and consumer attributions. Building on the attribution framework, study 2 then compares the effect of crisis communication strategies on consumers' post-crisis firm judgments and behavioral intentions. We find that relative to a non-response strategy, scapegoating and justification enhance positive word of mouth. Results show that relative to denial, apology recovers loyalty. Scapegoating is significantly superior compared to deny in the case of channel loyalty and the tendency is the same, but not significantly, concerning retailer loyalty. We emphasized the impact of the switching costs when focusing on intent of changing of retailer or of channel. Indeed, the responses have no impact when respondents are high committed with the attacked retailer.
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