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Corporate apology and crisis communication: The effect of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression on public's anger relief
Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932–934
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Public Relations Review
Research in brief
Corporate apology and crisis communication: The effect of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression on public’s anger relief Suman Lee a,∗ , Surin Chung b,1 a b
Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, 204B Hamilton Hall, Ames, IA 50011, United States KPR & Associates, 31-7 Jangchung-Dong, Chung-Ku, Seoul, Republic of Korea
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 20 February 2012 Received in revised form 13 July 2012 Accepted 7 August 2012 Keywords: Corporate apology Crisis communication Responsibility Sympathy
a b s t r a c t An online experiment was constructed as a 2 × 2 factorial design of independent variables (active-passive responsibility admittance vs. high-low sympathetic expression) on public’s anger relief with between-subjects comparison. An apology statement with active responsibility was more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with passive responsibility. There was no difference on public anger relief between a highly sympathetic apology statement and its counterpart. In the organization-public relationship, people may not show the same mercy to the organization as they do to other people. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Organizations are vulnerable to unpredictable crises in their relationship with publics. Product recalls, disasters, accidents and CEO’s corruption scandals are some of those crisis situations that organizations may face. Whenever a crisis caused by an organization happens, organizations usually apologize for the situation, admit their mistakes directly or indirectly, and ultimately try to relieve publics’ anger to protect organization’s reputation. The effectiveness of corporate apology is affected by numerous factors, such as accepting responsibility, expression of remorse/sympathy, compensation, and assurance (Benoit & Drew, 1997; Patel & Reinsch, 2003). Several studies indicated that whether or not an apology contains such components determines the level of forgiveness it achieves, the amount of anger victims feel, and organizational reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Scher & Darley, 1997; Tedeschi & Riordan, 1981). Accordingly, if an apology does not include proper components, it could be perceived as superficial and insincere to the eyes of public. A missing element from the previous studies on the components of corporate apology, however, is a lack of attention to the degree of each component (responsibility, sympathy, compensation, and assurance). Many previous studies tested people’s forgiveness and apology acceptance based not on different degree (e.g., high vs. low) of each apology component but on presence or absence (dummy variable) of apology component. The key question is not only whether a company admits responsibility and expresses sympathy in apology statement, but also how much it says so. Therefore, this study posits the following hypotheses and a research question:
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 515 294 0496. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Lee), [email protected] (S. Chung). 1 Tel.: +82 70 8248 6489. 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.08.006
S. Lee, S. Chung / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932–934
933
Hypothesis 1. An apology statement with active responsibility is more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with passive responsibility. Hypothesis 2. An apology statement with a high level of sympathy is more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with a low level of sympathy. Research question. Is there an interaction effect between responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression of corporate apology on public anger relief? 2. Method A total of 5000 undergraduate students were randomly selected at a large research university in Midwest. The invitation was sent out and the response rate was 3.3%. When subjects click the link, they read a fictional news article about an oil spill accident by a company called Marco Oil & Energy. After reading a news report, people were asked to answer about their feelings of anger toward Marco Oil & Energy. Subsequently, the subjects read one of the four types of apology statement. Each apology statement reflects a specific combination of responsibility admittance (active vs. passive) and sympathetic expression (high vs. low). After reading an apology statement, the subjects were asked to express their feelings of anger toward the company again. In the active responsibility statement, it is clearly mentioned that the organization is responsible for the crisis and takes its responsibility on the misdeed. In the passive responsibility statement, an organization expresses its concern about the crisis situation and says perfunctory responsibility statements instead of directly admitting its responsibility. In the high level of sympathy statement, the company expresses emotional words that it felt as if the victim’s feelings were its own and tries to share many of the same feelings on the victims’ experiences. In the low level of sympathy statement, the company expresses its understanding what the problems are in the crisis and what is bothering the victims. All four types of apology statements are six to eight lines long and contain a similar number of words. The degree of anger was measured by the average of five items: (1) angry; (2) mad; (3) irritated; (4) annoyed; and (5) outraged. Participants answered the question “To what extent do you feel toward the Marco Oil & Energy?” Ratings were made on seven-point scales ranging from “1 = not at all” to “7 = very much.” Cronbach alpha reliability check showed .94 after reading news report and .96 after reading apology statement. The degree of anger relief was calculated by D-score of two average anger scores measured after reading a news article and apology statements respectively. Zero means no anger relief, positive score means anger relief, and negative one does anger increase. 3. Results Among all respondents, there were more female respondents (53%) than male respondents (47%). The majority (95%) of the respondents were 18–25 years old. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was conducted to check main effects of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression, and interaction effect on public’s anger relief. There was a significant difference of anger relief (F = 9.26; p = .003) between the group of active responsibility statement (M = .69; SD = 1.28; n = 81) and the one of passive responsibility statement (M = .16; SD = 54; n = 66). Hypothesis 1 was confirmed. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test showed that there was no significant difference of anger relief (F = .62, p = 43) between the group of high sympathy statement (M = .53; SD = 1.21; n = 79) and the one of low sympathy statement (M = .36; SD = .80; n = 68). Hypothesis 2 was not confirmed. There was no interaction effect between responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression of apology statement on respondents’ anger relief (F = 2.50; p = .12). 4. Discussion Interestingly enough, people sensitively detected the difference between active responsibility and passive responsibility even though two statements were slightly different in linguistic expression. Since the oil spill accident was clearly caused by Marco Oil & Energy, an apology statement with passive responsibility may appear defensive or morally unacceptable to people. Therefore, publics negatively respond to organization’s passive responsibility admittance when the organizational responsibility is apparent in a crisis. Sympathetic expression did not turn out as a significant factor to relieve public’s anger, differently from the previous studies (e.g., Coombs & Holladay, 2008). One possible explanation is that previous studies compared the dependent variable based on too simple conditions: apology with sympathy vs. apology without sympathy. This study used sympathetic expression as high and low condition. Even though respondents captured the difference between high and low sympathetic expressions, it was not good enough to create a significant difference on anger relief. The effect of sympathetic expressions on anger relief could be influenced by other factors. In close interpersonal relationships, people tend to forgive other people when they hear a sincere apology. However, in the organization-public relationship, people may not show the same mercy to the organization as they do to other people. As people generally do not trust big corporations, they may cast a big doubt on the truthfulness of corporation’s sympathetic apology and disregard it as a flowery rhetoric. An organization has to carefully consider the employment of high sympathy in relation to responsibility admittance.
934
S. Lee, S. Chung / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932–934
This study brought in new elements to the previous crisis communication studies by introducing elaborated variations of two key apology components: (1) active vs. passive responsibility admittance and (2) high vs. low sympathetic expression. The most common way to measure these variables in other studies was dummy coding (presence or absence of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression). By measuring people’s anger levels at two different time points (after reading a news report and after reading an apology statement), this study tried to advance anger measurement from the previous studies, which mostly measured anger only once. The level of public’s anger toward an organization changes over time and this study paid attention to that dynamic even though using a limited experiment setting. References Benoit, W. L., & Drew, S. (1997). Appropriateness and effectiveness of image repair strategies. Communication Reports, 10, 153–163. Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (2008). Comparing apology to equivalent crisis response strategies: Clarifying apology’s role and value in crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 34, 252–257. Patel, A., & Reinsch, L. (2003). Companies can apologize: Corporate apologies and legal liability. Business Communication Quarterly, 66, 17–26. Scher, S. J., & Darley, J. M. (1997). How effective are the things people say to apologize? Effects of the realization of the apology speech act. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 127–140. Tedeschi, J. T., & Riordan, C. A. (1981). Impression management and pro-social behavior following transgression. In J. T. Tedeschi (Ed.), Impression management theory and social psychological research (pp. 223–244). New York: Academic Press.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Public Relations Review
Research in brief
Corporate apology and crisis communication: The effect of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression on public’s anger relief Suman Lee a,∗ , Surin Chung b,1 a b
Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, 204B Hamilton Hall, Ames, IA 50011, United States KPR & Associates, 31-7 Jangchung-Dong, Chung-Ku, Seoul, Republic of Korea
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 20 February 2012 Received in revised form 13 July 2012 Accepted 7 August 2012 Keywords: Corporate apology Crisis communication Responsibility Sympathy
a b s t r a c t An online experiment was constructed as a 2 × 2 factorial design of independent variables (active-passive responsibility admittance vs. high-low sympathetic expression) on public’s anger relief with between-subjects comparison. An apology statement with active responsibility was more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with passive responsibility. There was no difference on public anger relief between a highly sympathetic apology statement and its counterpart. In the organization-public relationship, people may not show the same mercy to the organization as they do to other people. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Organizations are vulnerable to unpredictable crises in their relationship with publics. Product recalls, disasters, accidents and CEO’s corruption scandals are some of those crisis situations that organizations may face. Whenever a crisis caused by an organization happens, organizations usually apologize for the situation, admit their mistakes directly or indirectly, and ultimately try to relieve publics’ anger to protect organization’s reputation. The effectiveness of corporate apology is affected by numerous factors, such as accepting responsibility, expression of remorse/sympathy, compensation, and assurance (Benoit & Drew, 1997; Patel & Reinsch, 2003). Several studies indicated that whether or not an apology contains such components determines the level of forgiveness it achieves, the amount of anger victims feel, and organizational reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Scher & Darley, 1997; Tedeschi & Riordan, 1981). Accordingly, if an apology does not include proper components, it could be perceived as superficial and insincere to the eyes of public. A missing element from the previous studies on the components of corporate apology, however, is a lack of attention to the degree of each component (responsibility, sympathy, compensation, and assurance). Many previous studies tested people’s forgiveness and apology acceptance based not on different degree (e.g., high vs. low) of each apology component but on presence or absence (dummy variable) of apology component. The key question is not only whether a company admits responsibility and expresses sympathy in apology statement, but also how much it says so. Therefore, this study posits the following hypotheses and a research question:
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 515 294 0496. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Lee), [email protected] (S. Chung). 1 Tel.: +82 70 8248 6489. 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.08.006
S. Lee, S. Chung / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932–934
933
Hypothesis 1. An apology statement with active responsibility is more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with passive responsibility. Hypothesis 2. An apology statement with a high level of sympathy is more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with a low level of sympathy. Research question. Is there an interaction effect between responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression of corporate apology on public anger relief? 2. Method A total of 5000 undergraduate students were randomly selected at a large research university in Midwest. The invitation was sent out and the response rate was 3.3%. When subjects click the link, they read a fictional news article about an oil spill accident by a company called Marco Oil & Energy. After reading a news report, people were asked to answer about their feelings of anger toward Marco Oil & Energy. Subsequently, the subjects read one of the four types of apology statement. Each apology statement reflects a specific combination of responsibility admittance (active vs. passive) and sympathetic expression (high vs. low). After reading an apology statement, the subjects were asked to express their feelings of anger toward the company again. In the active responsibility statement, it is clearly mentioned that the organization is responsible for the crisis and takes its responsibility on the misdeed. In the passive responsibility statement, an organization expresses its concern about the crisis situation and says perfunctory responsibility statements instead of directly admitting its responsibility. In the high level of sympathy statement, the company expresses emotional words that it felt as if the victim’s feelings were its own and tries to share many of the same feelings on the victims’ experiences. In the low level of sympathy statement, the company expresses its understanding what the problems are in the crisis and what is bothering the victims. All four types of apology statements are six to eight lines long and contain a similar number of words. The degree of anger was measured by the average of five items: (1) angry; (2) mad; (3) irritated; (4) annoyed; and (5) outraged. Participants answered the question “To what extent do you feel toward the Marco Oil & Energy?” Ratings were made on seven-point scales ranging from “1 = not at all” to “7 = very much.” Cronbach alpha reliability check showed .94 after reading news report and .96 after reading apology statement. The degree of anger relief was calculated by D-score of two average anger scores measured after reading a news article and apology statements respectively. Zero means no anger relief, positive score means anger relief, and negative one does anger increase. 3. Results Among all respondents, there were more female respondents (53%) than male respondents (47%). The majority (95%) of the respondents were 18–25 years old. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was conducted to check main effects of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression, and interaction effect on public’s anger relief. There was a significant difference of anger relief (F = 9.26; p = .003) between the group of active responsibility statement (M = .69; SD = 1.28; n = 81) and the one of passive responsibility statement (M = .16; SD = 54; n = 66). Hypothesis 1 was confirmed. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test showed that there was no significant difference of anger relief (F = .62, p = 43) between the group of high sympathy statement (M = .53; SD = 1.21; n = 79) and the one of low sympathy statement (M = .36; SD = .80; n = 68). Hypothesis 2 was not confirmed. There was no interaction effect between responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression of apology statement on respondents’ anger relief (F = 2.50; p = .12). 4. Discussion Interestingly enough, people sensitively detected the difference between active responsibility and passive responsibility even though two statements were slightly different in linguistic expression. Since the oil spill accident was clearly caused by Marco Oil & Energy, an apology statement with passive responsibility may appear defensive or morally unacceptable to people. Therefore, publics negatively respond to organization’s passive responsibility admittance when the organizational responsibility is apparent in a crisis. Sympathetic expression did not turn out as a significant factor to relieve public’s anger, differently from the previous studies (e.g., Coombs & Holladay, 2008). One possible explanation is that previous studies compared the dependent variable based on too simple conditions: apology with sympathy vs. apology without sympathy. This study used sympathetic expression as high and low condition. Even though respondents captured the difference between high and low sympathetic expressions, it was not good enough to create a significant difference on anger relief. The effect of sympathetic expressions on anger relief could be influenced by other factors. In close interpersonal relationships, people tend to forgive other people when they hear a sincere apology. However, in the organization-public relationship, people may not show the same mercy to the organization as they do to other people. As people generally do not trust big corporations, they may cast a big doubt on the truthfulness of corporation’s sympathetic apology and disregard it as a flowery rhetoric. An organization has to carefully consider the employment of high sympathy in relation to responsibility admittance.
934
S. Lee, S. Chung / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932–934
This study brought in new elements to the previous crisis communication studies by introducing elaborated variations of two key apology components: (1) active vs. passive responsibility admittance and (2) high vs. low sympathetic expression. The most common way to measure these variables in other studies was dummy coding (presence or absence of responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression). By measuring people’s anger levels at two different time points (after reading a news report and after reading an apology statement), this study tried to advance anger measurement from the previous studies, which mostly measured anger only once. The level of public’s anger toward an organization changes over time and this study paid attention to that dynamic even though using a limited experiment setting. References Benoit, W. L., & Drew, S. (1997). Appropriateness and effectiveness of image repair strategies. Communication Reports, 10, 153–163. Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (2008). Comparing apology to equivalent crisis response strategies: Clarifying apology’s role and value in crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 34, 252–257. Patel, A., & Reinsch, L. (2003). Companies can apologize: Corporate apologies and legal liability. Business Communication Quarterly, 66, 17–26. Scher, S. J., & Darley, J. M. (1997). How effective are the things people say to apologize? Effects of the realization of the apology speech act. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 127–140. Tedeschi, J. T., & Riordan, C. A. (1981). Impression management and pro-social behavior following transgression. In J. T. Tedeschi (Ed.), Impression management theory and social psychological research (pp. 223–244). New York: Academic Press.