Product-harm crisis management: Time heals all wounds?

This paper focuses on product-harm crises and examines consumer responses associated with product defect in three time periods (i.e., 3 days, 3 months and 1 year after a crisis). An experiment was conducted based on three widely accepted- influences on product-harm crisis management (i.e., crisis extent, social responsibility and organizational responses). The fourth influencing factor, time, was introduced in the present study. The four-factor model for measuring the effectiveness of product-harm crisis management was tested with particular attention to the impact of time. Crises were described in scenarios for a fictitious mobile phone. The results demonstrate that the effects of a crisis are minimal a few months after the crisis has occurred. Consumers tend to “forget” about the crisis and its effects, especially in cases when the company is socially responsible, and when the company issues a voluntary recall of its product.