8^th Journal Review:

Attribution Theory as a guide for post-crisis communication research

W. Timothy Coombs 


Post-crisis communication is a robust area of research in communication and management. In communication-based crisis research, we have an over abundance of rhetorical studies that attempt to use descriptive data to claim issues of causality and theory building. There are also problems in preoccupations with finding “genres” in crisis communication that contribute little to theory development and testing. Apologia was a gateway for many into crisis communication. It was useful to think of organizations using communication to protect their public personas/reputations and provided a wealth of resources for developing crisis response strategies (Hearit, 2006). Rhetorical cases’ studies provided the roots for the study of crisis communication in the communication field. Crisis communication research should adopt the perspective of evidence-based management. This piece argues that attribution theory provides one useful beacon for this evolutionary track.

Two key traits of crises are that they are unexpected and negative, which also the key characteristics that Attribution Theory expert Bernard Weiner identified as driving people’s need to search for causes of an event (Weiner, 1985,1986). The first true studies of crisis communication appear in the management literature with works appearing in the 1980s. Attribution Theory posits that people look for the causes of events, especially unexpected and negative events. Most experts agree that a crisis is negative and unexpected. When using Attribution Theory, the threat of a crisis is largely a function of crisis responsibility/blame.

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) applies Attribution Theory based ideas to a wider array of crises. SCCT draws upon experimental methods and social–psychological theory and begins with the crisis manager examining the crisis situation in order to assess the level of the reputational threat of a crisis. The threat is the amount of damage a crisis could inflict on the organization’s reputation if no action is taken. Three factors in the crisis situation shape the reputational threat: (1) initial crisis responsibility, (2) crisis history, and (3) relationship history/prior reputation.

9th Journal Review:

Apologies and Public Relations Crises at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo

Keith Michael Hearit

Analyzes the corporate apologetic discourses of three paradigmatic cases (at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo) and examines the use of persuasive descriptions and strategic dissociations preferred by these corporate apologists. Shows how organizations label their wrongdoing in a way that displays sorrow but limits culpability and use dissociations to distance themselves from the wrongdoing. Conversely, corporations that choose to address charges of wrongdoing early, in an attempt to provide a competing public account of the alleged wrongdoing, risk an increase in the currency of the charges. Indeed, a denial of wrongdoing may have the unintended consequence of increasing the stature of the story. Given the inherent inadequacy of silence to resolve public relations crises, this analysis instead focuses on those times when an organization is charged with wrongdoing and uses communication to mitigate its perceived or actual guilt. When an organization faces charges of wrongdoing, whether the charges result from corporate incompetence or a lack of concern for community, such charges often coalesce a crisis situation.

            An organization charged with wrongdoing seeks to accomplish three objectives, which are its attempt to present a convincing and plausible description of the situation, to diffuse the anger and hostility directed at the company, and he organization engages in dissociation to remove the linkage of the organization with the wrongdoing.

            The initial charges of wrongdoing often carry considerable effect: and in the sense that the apologist has to respond to those charges, the accuser initially has control over the terms of the persuasive exchange. An apologetic response uses a persuasive account in an attempt to reassert terminological control over the interpretation of the act with a counter-interpretation of events. Organizations charged with wrongdoing regularly choose to deliver statements of regret that convey sorrow in order to diffuse public hostility toward the corporation; this is the second communication strategy available to corporate apologists. A third communicative strategy that corporations accused of wrongdoing utilize is a strategy of dissociation in which they attempt to distance themselves from the wrongdoing.

            Given the terminological nature of crises, crisis management
is a form of issue management, in which crisis managers attempt to control the terms used to describe corporate actions. Corporations like Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo that take their case directly to the public find that they may still face legal sanctions for their wrongdoing. he presentation of an apologia is indeed a difficult communication maneuver. This analysis illumines how corporations attempt to use this discourse of defense, known as apologia, to manage public relations crises for which they bear primary responsibility.

Bibliography:

• Coombs, W. (2006). Attribution Theory as a guide for post-crisis communication research. 135-139. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2006.11.01
•         Hearit, K. (1994). Apologies and Public Relations Crises at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo. 20(2), 113-125.

By: Putri Dena Ramadhania (135120207121025)