INTERPLAY OF NARRATIVES AND SELF-DISCLOSURE IN ORGANIZATIONAL CRISIS COMMUNICATION
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Diddi, Pratiti
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 08, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Fuyuan Shen, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Denise Sevick Bortree, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Denise Sevick Bortree, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Lee Ahern, Committee Member
Mary Beth Oliver, Outside Member
Fuyuan Shen, Committee Chair/Co-Chair - Keywords:
- Narratives
Stealing Thunder
Organizational crisis
Crisis Communication - Abstract:
- This study examined the effects of crisis response format and crisis timing on post crisis attitudinal and behavioral outcomes in context of a product-harm organizational crisis. An online 2 (Crisis response format: Narrative response vs. Informational response) X 2 (Crisis Timing: Stealing Thunder vs. Not stealing Thunder) between subject factorial experiment was conducted with 497 participants. The study found that when organizations were proactive in disclosing the crisis (i.e. stealing thunder), rather than waiting for it to be discovered by a third party and then responding to the same, it resulted in participants favorable attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The mediation analysis indicated that organizational credibility mediated the effect of crisis timing strategy on organizational related attitudinal and behavioral intentions. Similarly, the findings showed that compared to an informational crisis response, organizational crisis response in a narrative format was more effective in improving the attitudes towards the organization and in improving purchase intentions towards the product. The mediation analysis indicated that identification with the organization mediated this effect of crisis response format. The findings suggested that there was no significant interaction between crisis response format and crisis timing. Additionally, the study found that persuasion intent in the organizational message did not moderate the impact of either of crisis response format or crisis timing on attitudinal and behavioral intentions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.