Proposal slide

A study of crisis response , crisis timing strategies and involvement 危機回應策略，回應時機，與涉入程度 之探討 Advisor: Prof. Hui-Chung, Yao Student: Thi Hong Dan, Dang  Contents 1 Introduction 2 Literature review 3 Methodology  Introduction  Non-transparent and corruption in education is a familiar topic for Vietnamese population (Vu Xuan Nguyet Hong & Ngo Minh Tuan, 2011).  Media reports denouncing about corruption issues increased significantly (Nguyen Dinh Cu, 2007; the Vietnam Development Report of World Bank, 2010)  Education is an interest and special concern since education always have highly valued in Vietnamese culture (Vu Xuan Nguyet Hong & Ngo Minh Tuan, 2011).  Introduction  Zhang (2011) divided crisis in university into seven types of university crisis according its causes in their analysis on precaution and solutions of crisis in universities.  The crisis caused by public health emergency, natural disasters, politically sensitive events, campus security, the decline of professional ethics in universities, by damage on legal rights of teachers and students, and student mental health.  Introduction  Benoit (1997) gave list of image restoration strategies to cope with the crisis events.  Coombs (2004) developed previous crisis theories into Situational Crisis Communication Theory which guides for crisis managers to select appropriate crisis strategies to crises.  Introduction  Most of researchers had the same conclusion that mortification is the best strategy, next to corrective action (e.g., Dean, 2004; Lyon & Cameron, 1998; Bradford & Garrett, 1995; as cited in Kerkhof & Beugels, 2011).  Kim et al. (2009) found out the role of bolstering on minimizing the damage of crisis with the 3rd ranking after mortification/apology and corrective action.  Introduction  To decline the threat of crises to reputation assets, Benoit (1997) pointed out that the organization can utilize bolstering when it is accused of wrongful actions.  Bolstering may generate minimal opportunity to improve the reputation.  The organization should use bolstering as a supplement strategy to main strategies to make its highly efficient (Coombs, 2007a).  Introduction  Organizations utilize two types of crisis communication strategies to protect its reputation including crisis response strategies and crisis timing strategies.  The literature on crisis communication paid more attention on what organizations say as a response to an organizational crisis (Kerkhof, Schultz & Utz, 2011) while crisis timing strategies which can seem as an alternative strategy for crisis response strategies with equal effectiveness in declining the threat of crisis are neglected (Arpan & Roskos- Ewoldsen, 2005).  Introduction  The research of Claeys and Cauberghe (2012) examined the combination of between apology strategy and timing strategies.  How about the interactive relationships of between crisis timing strategies and other strategies such as bolstering, and corrective actions are.  Introduction  The important role of involvement in crisis communication pointed out in some research (Arpan & Roskos- Ewoldsen, 2005; Choi & Lin, 2009b; Coombs & Holladay, 2005) because involvement level influences the perceptions of stakeholders toward crisis event and organizations (Arpan & Roskos- Ewoldsen, 2005; Choi & Lin, 2009b; Mazursky and Schul, 1992).  Although crisis involvement determines significantly crisis outcomes (McDonald & Härtel, 2000), little research has tested its (Choi & Lin, 2009b).  Coombs and Holladay (2005) suggested that taking into account the involvement level role into crisis communication model is indispensable.  Introduction  A few of literature has debated on crisis communication strategies and crisis managers have paid less attention on what strategies are suitable and effective on different crisis situations in Vietnam (Nguyen, 2011).  Different situation, different culture will lead to different efficacy of crisis strategies (Huang, 2006).  It is necessary to explore and study the usefulness of each crisis communication strategy on each crisis situation  Objectives  Mindful of those research gaps and background in Vietnam, this study uses a crisis event caused from corruption in university and attracted much more attention of Vietnamese as crisis scenario  This experimental study contributes on crisis communication field according to three ways.  Firstly, this study affirms the previous study results about how the impacts of crisis response, crisis timing strategies are.  Secondly, this study extends the study of Claeys and Cauberghe (2012) that investigates the other crisis response strategies (e.g., corrective action and bolstering) combined with two conditions of crisis timing strategies.  Thirdly, by analysis the effect of involvement as moderating variable, this study attempts to improve to more comprehensive crisis communication models. Chapter 2: Literature review  Crisis response strategy  Mortification is the good choice strategy across different crisis situations (Bradford & Garrett, 1995).  According to Benoit (1995, 1997) and Benoit & Drew (1997), they concluded that corrective action is as effective and appropriate as mortification.  Mortification and corrective action are strategies with highest responsibility acceptance rather than bolstering strategy with lower responsibility (Weiner, 1995).  Crisis response strategy  Kim et al. (2009) pointed out that mortification is the best strategy, next to corrective action and then bolstering.  Huang (2008) also argued that mortification/apology and corrective action generate not only positive effects but also more credibility to organization than other strategies in stakeholder’s evaluation.  Hypothesis 1 • H1: Mortification and corrective action lead to more positive effect on (a) responsibility, (b) organizational credibility, (c) anger, (d) NWOM than bolstering.  Crisis timing strategy  Stealing thunder is effective strategy regarding to creating the trustworthiness on stakeholder’s perceptions (Arpan & Pompper, 2003; Arpan & RoskosEwoldsen, 2005).  Stealing thunder leads to more trustworthy on stakeholder’s perception and improve the organizational credibility than thunder condition (Arpan & Pompper, 2003; Arpan & RoskosEwoldsen, 2005; Wigley, 2011; Williams et al, 1993).  This strategy brings about the humorous advantage which generates the greater sympathy of stakeholders to organization. Pfau (1997)  Crisis timing strategy  Another benefits coming from stealing thunder is to create the story for organization (Arpan & Pompper, 2003).  It allows the organization to adjust the meaning of crisis to reduce the degree of severity crisis, and organizational responsibility (Williams et al., 1993).  Hypothesis 2 H2: When an organization steals thunder, it leads to more positive effect on (a) responsibility, (b) organizational credibility, (c) anger, (d) NWOM than when it does not steal thunder.  The interaction of crisis response and crisis timing strategies  According to Claey et al., (2010), the rebuilt crisis response strategy, mortification and corrective action included, leads to more effective than the diminish strategy with bolstering as one of components on thunder condition.  Kim et al. (2009) concluded that the effectiveness of corrective action and mortification are overwhelming bolstering strategy in thunder condition.  The interaction of crisis response and crisis timing strategies  Mortification, corrective action and stealing thunder are strategies with full of organizational responsibility to mitigate the crisis damage.  SCCT proposed that when the organization wants to receive responsibility for crisis event, they should use rebuild crisis response strategies, quick and proactive strategies (Coombs, 2007a).  Arpan & Roskos-Ewoldsen (2005) demonstrated about the equal effectiveness of both these strategies.  Hypothesis 3 & 4 • H3: In case of stealing thunder, mortification, corrective action versus bolstering has no significant different impact on (a) responsibility, (b) organizational credibility, (c) anger, (d) NWOM . • H4: In case of thunder, mortification, corrective action will have more significantly positive impact on (a) responsibility, (b) organizational credibility, (c) anger, (d) NWOM compared to bolstering.  The moderating impact of involvement level  Some of experts aim crisis involvement as a potential moderating variable which affects the relationship between crisis response strategies and crisis types in reducing the crisis damage (Choi & Lin, 2009a; Coombs & Holladay, 2005).  Individual with high involvement is more interested in acquiring information about product (Zaichkowsky, 1985), and more motivated to comprehend the relevant messages (Greenwald & Leavitt, 1984) than one with low involvement.  The moderating impact of involvement level  A high felt involvement consumer creates more complex and counterarguments (Wright, 1974; Celsi & Olson, 1988), focus on more detail issues (Chaiken, 1980).  High involved individual tends to pay more attention on the content of messages compared with low involved individual (MacInnis, Rao, & Weiss, 2002).  Minimally involved individual concentrates on non- content messages (Petty et al., 1983; Yoo & MacInnis, 2005).  Hypothesis 5 • H5: The involvement level moderates the relationship between crisis timing strategy and (a) responsibility, (b) organizational credibility, (c) anger, (d) NWOM.  The moderating impact of involvement level  Attitudes of people will be affected by the message quality. A strong message quality makes people with highly involvement become more attention than a lower message quality (Mazursky and Schul (1992)  Lowly involvement people are not influenced by the high quality message as high involvement people because individual with low involvement level do not pay attention on content messages, they move their concentration on non-content information (Petty et al., 1983)  The moderating impact of involvement level  Highly-involved people tend to attend to crisis responses that fit with their values, their needs (Celsi & Olson, 1988; Choi & Lin, 2009b; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981, 1986b; Salmon, 1986). If crisis response strategies do not satisfy people’s need, they can generate counterarguments to organization.  On the study of Choi and Chung (2013), post- response strategies like as apology can generate more favorable attitudes and increasing purchase intentions with people who are highly involved rather than people who are minimally involved.  Hypothesis 6 • H6: The involvement level moderates the relationship between crisis response strategy and (a) responsibility, (b) organizational credibility, (c) anger, (d) NWOM.  Proposal Model  Choi and Chung (2013) demonstrated that crisis involvement is a worthy variable to consider the effectiveness of crisis response strategies in any crisis situation.  It is clear to see that different strategy have different impact on stakeholders upon the level of involvement.  Choi and Chung (2013) Claeys and Cauberghe (2014) concluded that SCCT have high effectiveness when stakeholders are highly involved level with a crisis event.  Proposal Model  According involvement literature, involvement can act as moderator variable which influences the relationship between crisis response strategies and crisis responsibility, organizational credibility, anger, NWOM.  Thus, it is reasonable to expect that a new path was added from involvement level to the link between crisis response strategy and crisis responsibility, organizational credibility, anger, NWOM on SCCT model. • Research Question: Will the proposed SCCT model hold?  Chapter III: METHODOLOGY  A scenario experiment was conducted with a fictional university – Hoa Mai University describing crisis situation, corrective action, bolstering, mortification statements and questionnaires.  This study used a fictitious university to exclude the crisis history factor which can influence the results of research.  Zhang Zhitu and Zhejiang (2011) shown that the decline of professional ethics in university is one of main crisis types in current university.  A bribed action between teacher and student is built to use for this research.  Chapter III: METHODOLOGY  The experimental design was a six between- subjects 2 (crisis timing strategy: stealing thunder vs. thunder) x 3 (crisis response strategy: mortification vs. corrective action vs. bolstering) factorial design.  Six fictitious scenarios manipulate crisis timing strategy, crisis response strategy. A conceptual framework of the study is proposed as below (Figure 3.1) Chapter III: METHODOLOGY Crisis timing strategies:  Steeling thunder Responsibility  Thunder Organizational credibility Crisis response Anger strategies: NWOM  Corrective action  Mortification  Bolstering Involvement level:  High  Low Figure 3.1: The conceptual framework of the research  Chapter III: METHODOLOGY  A sample is collected from 300 participants who have different age, living location, gender in Vietnam and 210 responses were returned with 70 % response rate.  Among 210 responses, 9 responses were not used for the reason that the participants did not complete the questionnaires. After eliminating the unsuitable response, 198 were valid and used for further analysis.  Responsibility scale  A four-item seven-point Likert scale ranging from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree) based on work of Coombs (1998) that was adapted from Griffin, Babin, and Darden (1992) measures crisis responsibility.  “Circumstances, not the university, are responsible for this problem,  Organizational credibility scale  A four-item seven-point Likert scale was used to measured perceptions of credibility (Beltramini’s, 1982).  “The university is trustworthy”  Anger scale  The level of anger toward organization is measured by three items of Coombs and Holladay (2005, 2007).  “I feel annoyed toward the university for what happened”  NWOM scale  To measure negative word-of-mouth, three items seven-point Likert scale from Coombs and Holladay (2008) was used.  “I would encourage friends or relatives NOT to study in Hoa Mai University”  Involvement scale  To examine the level of crisis involvement, five items based on Kopalle & Lehmann (2001) and Mc Quarrie & Munson’s (1992) were created.  “The bribing action matters a great deal to me,” or “The bribing action is very worthless to me”.  Data analysis  Statistical Program for the Social Sciences 20 (SPSS 20) is utilized to analyze the data collected from the survey. All statistic tests are required to be significant.  Descriptive analysis was initially performed to analysis and to present the demographic variables of the survey population.  Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of the multi-item scales used to measure the variables of interest (Cronbach’s, 1951).  Data analysis  To check the different effect between stealing thunder and thunder on crisis responsibility, organizational credibility, anger and NWOM, an independent sample T-test is conducted.  A series of one-way ANOVAs were conducted to determine if crisis response strategies influence crisis communication outcomes (e.g., Crisis responsibility, organizational credibility, anger and NWOM).  Using the regular linear regression menu item in SPSS, moderating effect, proposal model is tested.