Examining the interplay of an organization's prior reputation, CEO's visibility, and immediate response to a crisis

In one of only a few crisis communication research studies taking a relational approach, examining the effects of a company's prior reputation in publics’ responses to a given crisis situation, Lyons and Cameron (2004) found that both reputation and response profoundly affected publics’ attitude and behavioral intentions toward an organization involved in a crisis situation, using hypothetical, fictitious organizations and crises. Using actual organizations and crises, our research team designed a 2 (reputation: good vs. bad) × 2 (crisis response: apologetic vs. defensive) × 2 (CEO visibility in immediate crisis response: visible vs. invisible) within-subjects experiment (N = 102) to examine the variances in stakeholders’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward a company after being exposed to online video that delivered a corporate crisis response. Findings were counter-intuitive: a defensive response to a crisis is as acceptable to crisis stakeholders as an apologetic response if the CEO is visible (or audible) in the response and if the pre-crisis company-stakeholder reputation is positive. Good reputation, defensive crisis response and CEO visibility in immediate response to a crisis resulted in the best stakeholder attitudes and purchase intentions.

► We used actual organizations and crises they faced to test findings of a previous study conducted with hypothetical crisis situations.
► We confirmed that both reputation and response to a crisis influenced publics’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward an organization.
► We added a new variable, CEO visibility in a crisis, and tested the interaction of visibility, reputation and crisis response type.
► Our findings were counter-intuitive: a defensive response was just as acceptable as an apology given good reputation and CEO visibility.