- Email: [email protected]
Appraisal-based public relations stances in crisis situations: Conation revisited
Public Relations Review 42 (2016) 734–738
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Public Relations Review
Full length article
Appraisal-based public relations stances in crisis situations: Conation revisited Seth A. Oyer a,∗ , Jack V. Karlis b a
SUNY Buffalo State, Communication Department, 213 Bishop Hall, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222, USA Georgia State College and University, Department of Mass Communication, Campus Box 32, 231 W Hancock St Milledgeville, GA 31061 USA b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 29 August 2015 Received in revised form 20 January 2016 Accepted 16 May 2016 Available online 6 July 2016
a b s t r a c t Many studies have focused on the role of accommodation during crisis for contingency theory, most notably Jin and Cameron’s 2007 study of the effects of threat types and duration on PR practioner’s [sic] cognitive, affective and conative responses in crisis situations. However, none have compared the perceptions of accommodation stances between public relations practitioners, public relations faculty and public relations students. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This study replicated a portion of Jin and Cameron’s study and found differences between external, long-term threats and internal, short-term threats in action-based accommodation use; and external, long-term threats and internal, shortterm threats in qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations use. Significant differences were also found between students and practitioner responses for external and long-term threats action-based accommodation use for the practioners and students. A significant difference was also discovered between internal short-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use between educators and students.
1. Introduction The contingency theory of public relations is helpful in explicating the accommodation continuum for public relations practitioners’ stances during crisis situations (Cancel, Cameron, Sallot, & Mitrook, 1997). While it arguably contains more variables to consider than practical in professional use, it does provide a framework for identifying how and why practitioner stances change depending on crisis type. Many studies – both in public relations and interdisciplinary – have focused on the role of accommodation during crisis (Benoit, 1995; Benoit & Brinson, 1994; Blascovich & Mendes, 2000; Cancel et al., 1997; Cancel, Mitrook, & Cameron, 1999; Jin, Pang, & Cameron, 2005; Kim, 2009; Gordon & Arian, 2001; Shin, 2008; Strong, Anderson, & Dubas, 1993). However, none have compared the perceptions of accommodation stances between public relations practitioners, public relations faculty and public relations students. In 2007, Yan Jin and Glen T. Cameron published a study entitled, “The effects of threat type and duration on public relations practitioner’s (2007) cognitive, affective, and conative responses in crisis situations.” The experiment further developed the concept of threat and its operationalization within contingency theory. Public relations practitioners were used as participants, furthering the body of practical research.
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.A. Oyer), [email protected] (J.V. Karlis). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.05.003 0363-8111/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
S.A. Oyer, J.V. Karlis / Public Relations Review 42 (2016) 734–738
735
Meanwhile, it is often debated that there are disconnects between academic research findings and its impact on professional public relations practice. Concerns of a perceptual disconnect between public relations practitioners and their “real world” experiences and those of faculty and student “classroom” experiences are not new. However, few studies successfully compare the perceptions of these participant groups. In order to identify and study this perceived disconnect, the authors of this study replicated the accommodation variables of Jin and Cameron’s (2007) research using survey analysis in order to explore and compare responses among public relations faculty, students and – once again – practitioners. This study will add to the existing body of literature by specifically examining the possible disconnect among public relations faculty, practitioners and students—all invested stakeholders in the field of public relations crisis communications, and its implications for those in the field, those preparing to enter the field and those teaching those entering the field. Jin and Cameron’s “stance as degree of accommodation” were tested once more, using their multiple-item scale for public relations stance measurement (see Appendix A). The proposed hypotheses follow: H1.1. More action-based accommodations (AA) will be taken when exposed to external and long-term threat than internal and short-term threat. H1.2. More qualified-rhetoric-mixed accommodations (QRA) will be taken when exposed to external and long-term threat than internal and short-term threat. In addition, research questions were developed to identify agreement or disconnects between faculty and student responses with practitioner responses: RQ1: Will faculty and practitioner responses to hypotheses significantly differ? RQ2: Will faculty and student responses to hypotheses significantly differ? RQ3: Will student and practitioner responses to hypotheses significantly differ? 2. Method 2.1. Participants The website www.PRopenmic.org, a social media forum with a membership comprised of public relations faculty, students and practitioners posted the survey in December 2012. The participants were asked to take the survey in order to advance research on crisis public relations. A total of 480 deliverable recruitment e-mails were sent out based on a convenience sample of the members of www.PRopenmic.org, with an overall 20% cooperation rate (96 usable responses). Screening questions about years of working experience in pubic relations and frequency of dealing with crisis communication were asked to select public relations practitioners who have more than 1 year working experience in the field and at least “sometimes,” “often,” and “very often” deal with crisis situations. As a result, 96 respondents completed the survey. Females comprised 63.5% percent (n = 61) of the sample while males 36.5% (n = 35). Age was broken down into five categories: 20–29 (n = 52, 54.2%), 30–39 (n = 11, 11.5%), 40–49 (n = 16, 16.7), 50–59 (n = 13, 13.5), and 60+ (n = 4, 4.2%). The majority of the sample held a bachelor’s degree (n = 40, 41.7%), while 25 respondents (26%) reported having some college. Sixteen people (16.7%) reported having a Ph.D, 14 people (14.6%) reported having master’s degrees and one person (1%) reported having only a high school degree. The majority of the sample were employed at an agency or firm (n = 18, 18.8%), followed by corporations (n = 11, 11.5%), not-for-profits (n = 3, 3.1), government (n = 3, 3.1), education (N = 6, 6.3) and two (2.1%) reported other. The majority of the sample were practitioners (n = 43, 44.8%), followed by students (n = 35, 36.5%) and 18 educators (n = 18, 18.8%). Of the 43 practitioners, 21 reported having “more than 10 years experience,” nine reported “less than 1 year,” nine reported “1 to 5 five years,” and four reported “6 to 10 years experience.” Of the educators, the majority (n = 21) reported “10 or more years of experience,” five reported “6 to 10 years experience,” and three “had 1 to 5 years.” Of the student portion of the sample, the majority were college seniors (n = 24), followed by graduate students (n = 7) and juniors (n = 7). 2.2. Stimulus materials The four treatments used as stimulus materials were replicated from Jin and Cameron’s, 2007 survey (see Appendix B). 2.3. Procedure The survey used in this study was linked from a posting on the website. Members were asked to consider taking the survey in order to participate in the study. Upon agreement to take the survey, participants were randomly administered one of four treatments: external threat, long-term; external threat, short-term; internal threat, long-term; internal threat, short-term (see Appendix B). After reading through the stimulus material, participants were asked to complete a 7-point Likert-type survey (administered on www.surveymonkey.com) to measure accommodation stance for the situation posed.
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3. Results To test H1, whether more action-based accommodations would be taken into account when exposed to external and longterm threats than internal and short-term threats, a t-test was computed. All assumptions (groups were approximately the same size, the variances of the two populations were equal, the observations were independent, and the dependent variable was normally distributed. There was a statistically significant difference t(65) = 44.78, p = 0.000 between external and longterm threats (M = 23.27, SD = 4.22) and internal and short-term threats (M = 16.10, SD = 7.31) in action-based accommodation use. H1 was fully supported. H2, whether more qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations would be taken when exposed to external and long-term threats than internal short-term threats, also used a t-test to extract any differences. All assumptions were met. There was a statistically significant difference t(65) = 38.21, p = 0.000 between external and long-term threats (M = 25.48, SD = 5.42) and internal and short-term threats (M = 15.73, SD = 6.15) in qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations use. H2 was fully supported. To answer RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, a one-way ANOVA was used to assess any differences among practitioners, faculty and students in action based accommodations (external and long-term threats, internal and short-term threats) and qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations (external and long-term threats, internal short-term threats). The assumptions of independent observations, homogeneity of variances and normal distributions of the dependent variable for each group were checked. There were not any statistically differences among the three groups in external and long-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use. There were also not any statistically differences among the three groups in internal and short-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use. There was a statistically significant difference F (2,63) = 6.11, p = 0.004 between groups for external and long-term threats action-based accommodation use. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for the practitioners (M = 21.71, SD = 3.55) was statistically significant when compared to the mean score of the students (M = 25.46, SD = 4.05). There was also a statistically significant difference F (2,46) = 4.41, p = 0.018 between groups for internal shortterm qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use. A post hoc Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for educator (M = 12.54, SD = 2.80) and student (M = 18.63, SD = 6.35).
4. Discussion While H1 and H2 were fully supported, as expected based on Jin and Cameron’s (2007) previous research, the comparison between groups identifies differences in stance accommodation. In regard to RQ1, RQ2, and RQ3: Student participants reported to take a significantly more accommodative stance than public relations practitioners when faced with external, long-term AA scenarios. These findings may indicate that students report an increased likelihood to utilize AA accommodations due to a lack of professional experience. It may be that unfamiliarity with the resource expenses involved are not fully realized or it may be simply the variable of experience by practitioners who have previously practiced crisis communications in previous situations. Future research is needed to further understand this finding. This may elicit a call for more internships and practical experiences that expose students to real crisis situations, instead of just studying and theorizing about previous cases. In addition, faculty and student responses significantly differed in regard to internal, short-term QRA scenarios. Faculty participants were much less likely than student participants to engage QRA accommodations in such situations. Interestingly, practitioner responses (while not statistically significant with either faculty or students) fell in between the scores. This finding may be indicative of a disconnect between faculty and student approaches to crisis management. Alternatively, this could also be associated with student responses “tempering” when in the workforce. It could also be a result of millennial culture or the inexperience of youth. Future research should consider exploring the nature of this relationship, at the minimum to discover if it is causal or correlational.
5. Limitations While this study was conducted in a forum that is no longer in use and data was collected four years ago, its relevance and findings add to the existing body of literature in the disconnect between practitioners, faculty and students, and still holds significance to public relations today. Further research and a new replication study could find new data, culminating in a longitudinal analysis of conation literature among the three subject groups.
6. Conclusion The findings in this replication study posit the need for a better dialogue among public relations practitioners, faculty and students in handling conation in crisis management. Perhaps more experiential learning in this area or consultation with those currently in the field by using guest speakers would help lessen the disconnect and establish a more widely shared
S.A. Oyer, J.V. Karlis / Public Relations Review 42 (2016) 734–738
737
operationalization of conation, thus improving the handling of such situations. New graduates would be better prepared to handle accommodation going forward. Appendix A. Stance (Degree of Accommodation) Measurement Scale (Jin & Cameron, 2005) “Given the situation, I will be (1 = completely unwilling, 7 = completely willing:” AA: Action-Based Accommodations 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
To yield to the public’s demands To agree to follow what the public proposed To accept the public’s propositions To agree with the public on future action or procedure To agree to try the solutions suggested by the public QRA: Qualified-Rhetoric-Mixed Accommodations
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
To express regret or apologize to the public To collaborate with the public in order to solve the problem at hand To change my own position toward that of the public To make concessions with the public To admit wrongdoing
Appendix B. Situation 1: External and Long-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a major pharmaceutical company, which is not publicly traded. This morning a news story regarding one of your company’s brands broke out in the major media, with the headline: “Research shows Brand A Pills may be a major cause of breast cancer.” Inquiry phone calls from consumers have been flooding in ever since, and your CEO is holding an emergency meeting to discuss how this might influence the survival of the brand and the longterm marketing plan of the whole corporation. Your task is to deal with the consumers who are concerned or angry and threatening lawsuits. Situation 2: External and Short-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a major clothing company. On the way to your office, you observe protests concerning your company’s use of child labor in its overseas factories. The press has reported that the protestors have indicated that they will keep up their activity through the remainder of the week in which your company’s board of directors is in town. Situation 3: Internal and Long-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a major personal computer company. Recently, your company was taken over by one of its major competitors. Your company’s name and brands are likely to change within 3 years. About 30% of the employees working for your company will be laid off in the next 3 years. Panic is spreading among employees, and your company’s reputation in employees’ minds is seriously damaged. Situation 4: Internal and Short-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a beauty product company. Recently, scandalous rumors about your CEO being involved in bribery in a foreign country have become widespread within the company. The media have yet to learn of this story or to give it credence. Evidence indicates that this story is actually a malicious rumor planted by a disgruntled employee. At this stage, the rumor appears to have run its course; however, you still face the challenge of how to repair the already marred reputation of your CEO as quickly as possible. References Benoit, W. L., & Brinson, S. L. (1994). AT&T: apologies are not enough. Communication Quarterly, 42(1), 75–88. Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: a theory of image restoration strategies. Albany: State University of New York Press. Blascovich, J., & Mendes, W. B. (2000). Challenge and threat appraisals: the role of affective cues. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Feeling and thinking (pp. 59–82). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Cancel, A. E., Cameron, G. T., Sallot, L. M., & Mitrook, M. A. (1997). It depends: a contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 9(1), 31–63. Cancel, A. E., Mitrook, M. A., & Cameron, G. T. (1999). Testing the contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Public Relations Review, 25, 171–197. Gordon, C., & Arian, A. (2001). Threat and decision making. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45, 196–215. Jin, Y., & Cameron, G. T. (2007). The effects of threat type and duration on public relations practitioner’s cognitive, affective and conative responses in crisis situations. Public Relations Research, 19(3), 251–281.
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Jin, Y., Pang, A., & Cameron, G. T. (2005). Explicating threats: towards a conceptual understanding of the faces and fabric of threat in an organizational crisis. In Paper presented at international communication association annual conference Kim, J. (2009). Making nice may not matter: the interplay of crisis type, response type and crisis issue on perceived organizational responsibility. Public Relations Review, 35(1), 86–88. Shin, J.-H. (2008). Contingency, conflict, crisis: strategy selection of religious public relations professionals. Public Relations Review, 34(4), 403–405. Strong, J. T., Anderson, R. E., & Dubas, K. M. (1993). Marketing threat appeals: a conceptual framework and implications for practitioners. Journal of Managerial Issues, 5, 532–546.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Public Relations Review
Full length article
Appraisal-based public relations stances in crisis situations: Conation revisited Seth A. Oyer a,∗ , Jack V. Karlis b a
SUNY Buffalo State, Communication Department, 213 Bishop Hall, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222, USA Georgia State College and University, Department of Mass Communication, Campus Box 32, 231 W Hancock St Milledgeville, GA 31061 USA b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 29 August 2015 Received in revised form 20 January 2016 Accepted 16 May 2016 Available online 6 July 2016
a b s t r a c t Many studies have focused on the role of accommodation during crisis for contingency theory, most notably Jin and Cameron’s 2007 study of the effects of threat types and duration on PR practioner’s [sic] cognitive, affective and conative responses in crisis situations. However, none have compared the perceptions of accommodation stances between public relations practitioners, public relations faculty and public relations students. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This study replicated a portion of Jin and Cameron’s study and found differences between external, long-term threats and internal, short-term threats in action-based accommodation use; and external, long-term threats and internal, shortterm threats in qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations use. Significant differences were also found between students and practitioner responses for external and long-term threats action-based accommodation use for the practioners and students. A significant difference was also discovered between internal short-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use between educators and students.
1. Introduction The contingency theory of public relations is helpful in explicating the accommodation continuum for public relations practitioners’ stances during crisis situations (Cancel, Cameron, Sallot, & Mitrook, 1997). While it arguably contains more variables to consider than practical in professional use, it does provide a framework for identifying how and why practitioner stances change depending on crisis type. Many studies – both in public relations and interdisciplinary – have focused on the role of accommodation during crisis (Benoit, 1995; Benoit & Brinson, 1994; Blascovich & Mendes, 2000; Cancel et al., 1997; Cancel, Mitrook, & Cameron, 1999; Jin, Pang, & Cameron, 2005; Kim, 2009; Gordon & Arian, 2001; Shin, 2008; Strong, Anderson, & Dubas, 1993). However, none have compared the perceptions of accommodation stances between public relations practitioners, public relations faculty and public relations students. In 2007, Yan Jin and Glen T. Cameron published a study entitled, “The effects of threat type and duration on public relations practitioner’s (2007) cognitive, affective, and conative responses in crisis situations.” The experiment further developed the concept of threat and its operationalization within contingency theory. Public relations practitioners were used as participants, furthering the body of practical research.
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.A. Oyer), [email protected] (J.V. Karlis). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.05.003 0363-8111/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
S.A. Oyer, J.V. Karlis / Public Relations Review 42 (2016) 734–738
735
Meanwhile, it is often debated that there are disconnects between academic research findings and its impact on professional public relations practice. Concerns of a perceptual disconnect between public relations practitioners and their “real world” experiences and those of faculty and student “classroom” experiences are not new. However, few studies successfully compare the perceptions of these participant groups. In order to identify and study this perceived disconnect, the authors of this study replicated the accommodation variables of Jin and Cameron’s (2007) research using survey analysis in order to explore and compare responses among public relations faculty, students and – once again – practitioners. This study will add to the existing body of literature by specifically examining the possible disconnect among public relations faculty, practitioners and students—all invested stakeholders in the field of public relations crisis communications, and its implications for those in the field, those preparing to enter the field and those teaching those entering the field. Jin and Cameron’s “stance as degree of accommodation” were tested once more, using their multiple-item scale for public relations stance measurement (see Appendix A). The proposed hypotheses follow: H1.1. More action-based accommodations (AA) will be taken when exposed to external and long-term threat than internal and short-term threat. H1.2. More qualified-rhetoric-mixed accommodations (QRA) will be taken when exposed to external and long-term threat than internal and short-term threat. In addition, research questions were developed to identify agreement or disconnects between faculty and student responses with practitioner responses: RQ1: Will faculty and practitioner responses to hypotheses significantly differ? RQ2: Will faculty and student responses to hypotheses significantly differ? RQ3: Will student and practitioner responses to hypotheses significantly differ? 2. Method 2.1. Participants The website www.PRopenmic.org, a social media forum with a membership comprised of public relations faculty, students and practitioners posted the survey in December 2012. The participants were asked to take the survey in order to advance research on crisis public relations. A total of 480 deliverable recruitment e-mails were sent out based on a convenience sample of the members of www.PRopenmic.org, with an overall 20% cooperation rate (96 usable responses). Screening questions about years of working experience in pubic relations and frequency of dealing with crisis communication were asked to select public relations practitioners who have more than 1 year working experience in the field and at least “sometimes,” “often,” and “very often” deal with crisis situations. As a result, 96 respondents completed the survey. Females comprised 63.5% percent (n = 61) of the sample while males 36.5% (n = 35). Age was broken down into five categories: 20–29 (n = 52, 54.2%), 30–39 (n = 11, 11.5%), 40–49 (n = 16, 16.7), 50–59 (n = 13, 13.5), and 60+ (n = 4, 4.2%). The majority of the sample held a bachelor’s degree (n = 40, 41.7%), while 25 respondents (26%) reported having some college. Sixteen people (16.7%) reported having a Ph.D, 14 people (14.6%) reported having master’s degrees and one person (1%) reported having only a high school degree. The majority of the sample were employed at an agency or firm (n = 18, 18.8%), followed by corporations (n = 11, 11.5%), not-for-profits (n = 3, 3.1), government (n = 3, 3.1), education (N = 6, 6.3) and two (2.1%) reported other. The majority of the sample were practitioners (n = 43, 44.8%), followed by students (n = 35, 36.5%) and 18 educators (n = 18, 18.8%). Of the 43 practitioners, 21 reported having “more than 10 years experience,” nine reported “less than 1 year,” nine reported “1 to 5 five years,” and four reported “6 to 10 years experience.” Of the educators, the majority (n = 21) reported “10 or more years of experience,” five reported “6 to 10 years experience,” and three “had 1 to 5 years.” Of the student portion of the sample, the majority were college seniors (n = 24), followed by graduate students (n = 7) and juniors (n = 7). 2.2. Stimulus materials The four treatments used as stimulus materials were replicated from Jin and Cameron’s, 2007 survey (see Appendix B). 2.3. Procedure The survey used in this study was linked from a posting on the website. Members were asked to consider taking the survey in order to participate in the study. Upon agreement to take the survey, participants were randomly administered one of four treatments: external threat, long-term; external threat, short-term; internal threat, long-term; internal threat, short-term (see Appendix B). After reading through the stimulus material, participants were asked to complete a 7-point Likert-type survey (administered on www.surveymonkey.com) to measure accommodation stance for the situation posed.
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3. Results To test H1, whether more action-based accommodations would be taken into account when exposed to external and longterm threats than internal and short-term threats, a t-test was computed. All assumptions (groups were approximately the same size, the variances of the two populations were equal, the observations were independent, and the dependent variable was normally distributed. There was a statistically significant difference t(65) = 44.78, p = 0.000 between external and longterm threats (M = 23.27, SD = 4.22) and internal and short-term threats (M = 16.10, SD = 7.31) in action-based accommodation use. H1 was fully supported. H2, whether more qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations would be taken when exposed to external and long-term threats than internal short-term threats, also used a t-test to extract any differences. All assumptions were met. There was a statistically significant difference t(65) = 38.21, p = 0.000 between external and long-term threats (M = 25.48, SD = 5.42) and internal and short-term threats (M = 15.73, SD = 6.15) in qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations use. H2 was fully supported. To answer RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, a one-way ANOVA was used to assess any differences among practitioners, faculty and students in action based accommodations (external and long-term threats, internal and short-term threats) and qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodations (external and long-term threats, internal short-term threats). The assumptions of independent observations, homogeneity of variances and normal distributions of the dependent variable for each group were checked. There were not any statistically differences among the three groups in external and long-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use. There were also not any statistically differences among the three groups in internal and short-term qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use. There was a statistically significant difference F (2,63) = 6.11, p = 0.004 between groups for external and long-term threats action-based accommodation use. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for the practitioners (M = 21.71, SD = 3.55) was statistically significant when compared to the mean score of the students (M = 25.46, SD = 4.05). There was also a statistically significant difference F (2,46) = 4.41, p = 0.018 between groups for internal shortterm qualified-rhetoric mixed accommodation use. A post hoc Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for educator (M = 12.54, SD = 2.80) and student (M = 18.63, SD = 6.35).
4. Discussion While H1 and H2 were fully supported, as expected based on Jin and Cameron’s (2007) previous research, the comparison between groups identifies differences in stance accommodation. In regard to RQ1, RQ2, and RQ3: Student participants reported to take a significantly more accommodative stance than public relations practitioners when faced with external, long-term AA scenarios. These findings may indicate that students report an increased likelihood to utilize AA accommodations due to a lack of professional experience. It may be that unfamiliarity with the resource expenses involved are not fully realized or it may be simply the variable of experience by practitioners who have previously practiced crisis communications in previous situations. Future research is needed to further understand this finding. This may elicit a call for more internships and practical experiences that expose students to real crisis situations, instead of just studying and theorizing about previous cases. In addition, faculty and student responses significantly differed in regard to internal, short-term QRA scenarios. Faculty participants were much less likely than student participants to engage QRA accommodations in such situations. Interestingly, practitioner responses (while not statistically significant with either faculty or students) fell in between the scores. This finding may be indicative of a disconnect between faculty and student approaches to crisis management. Alternatively, this could also be associated with student responses “tempering” when in the workforce. It could also be a result of millennial culture or the inexperience of youth. Future research should consider exploring the nature of this relationship, at the minimum to discover if it is causal or correlational.
5. Limitations While this study was conducted in a forum that is no longer in use and data was collected four years ago, its relevance and findings add to the existing body of literature in the disconnect between practitioners, faculty and students, and still holds significance to public relations today. Further research and a new replication study could find new data, culminating in a longitudinal analysis of conation literature among the three subject groups.
6. Conclusion The findings in this replication study posit the need for a better dialogue among public relations practitioners, faculty and students in handling conation in crisis management. Perhaps more experiential learning in this area or consultation with those currently in the field by using guest speakers would help lessen the disconnect and establish a more widely shared
S.A. Oyer, J.V. Karlis / Public Relations Review 42 (2016) 734–738
737
operationalization of conation, thus improving the handling of such situations. New graduates would be better prepared to handle accommodation going forward. Appendix A. Stance (Degree of Accommodation) Measurement Scale (Jin & Cameron, 2005) “Given the situation, I will be (1 = completely unwilling, 7 = completely willing:” AA: Action-Based Accommodations 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
To yield to the public’s demands To agree to follow what the public proposed To accept the public’s propositions To agree with the public on future action or procedure To agree to try the solutions suggested by the public QRA: Qualified-Rhetoric-Mixed Accommodations
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
To express regret or apologize to the public To collaborate with the public in order to solve the problem at hand To change my own position toward that of the public To make concessions with the public To admit wrongdoing
Appendix B. Situation 1: External and Long-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a major pharmaceutical company, which is not publicly traded. This morning a news story regarding one of your company’s brands broke out in the major media, with the headline: “Research shows Brand A Pills may be a major cause of breast cancer.” Inquiry phone calls from consumers have been flooding in ever since, and your CEO is holding an emergency meeting to discuss how this might influence the survival of the brand and the longterm marketing plan of the whole corporation. Your task is to deal with the consumers who are concerned or angry and threatening lawsuits. Situation 2: External and Short-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a major clothing company. On the way to your office, you observe protests concerning your company’s use of child labor in its overseas factories. The press has reported that the protestors have indicated that they will keep up their activity through the remainder of the week in which your company’s board of directors is in town. Situation 3: Internal and Long-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a major personal computer company. Recently, your company was taken over by one of its major competitors. Your company’s name and brands are likely to change within 3 years. About 30% of the employees working for your company will be laid off in the next 3 years. Panic is spreading among employees, and your company’s reputation in employees’ minds is seriously damaged. Situation 4: Internal and Short-Term Threat You are a public relations professional working for a beauty product company. Recently, scandalous rumors about your CEO being involved in bribery in a foreign country have become widespread within the company. The media have yet to learn of this story or to give it credence. Evidence indicates that this story is actually a malicious rumor planted by a disgruntled employee. At this stage, the rumor appears to have run its course; however, you still face the challenge of how to repair the already marred reputation of your CEO as quickly as possible. References Benoit, W. L., & Brinson, S. L. (1994). AT&T: apologies are not enough. Communication Quarterly, 42(1), 75–88. Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: a theory of image restoration strategies. Albany: State University of New York Press. Blascovich, J., & Mendes, W. B. (2000). Challenge and threat appraisals: the role of affective cues. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Feeling and thinking (pp. 59–82). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Cancel, A. E., Cameron, G. T., Sallot, L. M., & Mitrook, M. A. (1997). It depends: a contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 9(1), 31–63. Cancel, A. E., Mitrook, M. A., & Cameron, G. T. (1999). Testing the contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Public Relations Review, 25, 171–197. Gordon, C., & Arian, A. (2001). Threat and decision making. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45, 196–215. Jin, Y., & Cameron, G. T. (2007). The effects of threat type and duration on public relations practitioner’s cognitive, affective and conative responses in crisis situations. Public Relations Research, 19(3), 251–281.
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