2008 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Transforming Crisis into Confidence: Public Relations Professionals’ Perceptions of the Effectiveness and Ethicality of Image Repair Strategies * PRSA Top Faculty Paper Award Denise P. Ferguson Indiana Wesleyan University Denise.Ferguson@indwes.edu J. D. Wallace Lubbock Christian University jd.wallace@lcu.edu Robert C. Chandler Pepperdine University Robert.Chandler@pepperdine.edu Abstract When crisis hits an organization, public relations professionals are called upon as communication experts to play a key role in mitigating damage to and maintaining stakeholder confidence in the organization. The relevance of crisis and post-crisis communication research to public relations practitioners lies in its utility in identifying factors that influence stakeholders’ perceptions before, during, and after organizational crises, and in identifying processes and strategies that are effective in maintaining or restoring the organizational reputation and image, and which rely on effective use of language, persuasive message strategies, and symbolic actions. While research in crisis communication and the use of image repair strategies is dominated by case study analysis, this study offers evidence-based decision making from empirical research based on practicing public relations professionals’ reported perceptions and use of specific strategies in different types of crisis situations. This study examines the use of crisis communication strategies among public relations professionals, focusing on judgments about which strategies are ethical, which strategies professionals are likely to use and recommend, and which strategies are most effective. These are contextualized within three common reputation crisis scenarios (accidents, product safety, and illegal activity). Literature Review Crisis management, issues management, corporate reputation management, and image and brand management are increasingly important in the wake of billions of dollars lost to organizations (e.g., corporate, nonprofit, government and education) due to reputation and brand erosion, as well as declining stakeholder (e.g., investor, customer, and donor) confidence due to such scandals. On a societal level, the events of 9/11 and recent devastating and far-reaching consequences of natural disasters demonstrate the increasingly frequent and catastrophic failures to public and private infrastructure that result when crises occur. Although organizations, their leaders and spokespeople will attempt a wide range of actions and messages as symbolic appeals to that organization’s constituent publics, there is little certainty about what types of actions and messages are persuasive (Benoit, 1997; Coombs & Holladay, 2002; Kim, Ferrin, Cooper & Dirks, 2004; Seeger, Sellnow, & Ulmer, 1998). 36
Characteristics of Organizational or Corporate Crises When organizations and leaders find themselves under scrutiny and targets of criticism that challenge their legitimacy or social responsibility (Hearit, 1995), their public response is an important factor in recovery from such a crisis, which arises suddenly and demands quick reaction (Coombs & Holliday, 2002; Fearn-Banks, 2001; Seeger & Ulmer, 2003). Communication activities involved in responding to a crisis, including determining the optimal timing, response priorities, specific messages conveyed to the media and/or to individuals, source(s) of messages, and priorities of crisis management, have implications for the organization and for crisis managers. Crisis and Post-Crisis Corporate Communication Crisis management encompasses the overall strategic planning to prevent, mitigate, respond, and recover routine operations during a crisis or negative occurrence. This is a process that removes some of the risk and uncertainty, promotes long-term viability, and allows the organization to be in greater control of its destiny (Fearn-Banks, 2001; Seeger & Ulmer, 2003). Crisis communication is a broad area of research and application that includes pre-crisis decision making, training, planning, teamwork, goal setting, and crisis communication plans. Public crisis communication focuses on the verbal, visual, and/or written interaction between the organization and its publics (sometimes directly and sometime mediated through the news media) before, during, and after the negative event, and “is designed to minimize damage to the reputation of the organization” (Fearn-Banks, 2001, p. 480; Fearn-Banks, 1996) and to maintain stakeholder confidence. While public crisis communication must include conveying the facts surrounding the event (e.g., the presence of an explosion, or the occurrence of a crash), it also focuses on questions of context, cause, responsibility, blame, relative harm and remedial action, which usually are disputed during and following a crisis (Coombs & Holladay, 2002; Kim, Ferrin, Cooper & Dirks, 2004; Seeger, Sellnow, & Ulmer, 1998). Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) begins with the assessment of reputational threat presented by a crisis. Threat is described as “the amount of damage a crisis could inflict on the organization’s reputation if no action is taken” (Coombs, 2007, p. 165). According to SCCT, the level of threat to reputation is determined by whether or not stakeholders believe the organization caused the crisis, the organization’s crisis history, and the organization’s prior relational reputation, or how well stakeholders believe the organization has treated them in the past (Coombs, 2007). SCCT research has shown that the threat to an organization’s increases as stakeholders’ belief that the organization was responsible for the crisis intensifies (Coombs, 1998; Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2002, 2004). The relevance of crisis and post-crisis communication research to public relations practitioners, then, lies in its utility in identifying factors that influence stakeholders’ perceptions before, during, and after organizational crises, and in identifying processes and strategies that are effective in maintaining or restoring the organizational reputation and image, and which rely on effective use of language, persuasive message strategies, and symbolic actions. Image Repair Strategies Research of message strategies has helped develop the response strategy approach “from a prescriptive set of procedures to the recognition that crisis communication can be initiated from a variety of rhetorical perspectives” (Olaniran & Williams, 2001, p. 488; see also Benoit, 1997; 37
Page 1 and 2: 2008 PROCEEDINGS DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Page 3 and 4: Page Pedagogy Posters _____________
Page 5 and 6: RESEARCH PAPERS 5
Page 7 and 8: many researchers and professionals
Page 9 and 10: evenue, or activists provide suppor
Page 11 and 12: Results PR Effectiveness In respond
Page 13 and 14: Applied Context In answering RQ 5,
Page 15 and 16: Figure 8. Distribution of PR effect
Page 17 and 18: fifteen years, and it is now a grow
Page 19 and 20: Ni, L. (2006). Relationships as org
Page 21 and 22: Based on a review of public relatio
Page 23 and 24: Barriers to Online Course Delivery
Page 25 and 26: and “Learners are able to track a
Page 27 and 28: an excellent tool for collaboration
Page 29 and 30: audiences. Further, it is critical
Page 31 and 32: course site. Develop projects so th
Page 33 and 34: Examples of student blogs can be fo
Page 35: Technorati. Retrieved on May 15, 20
Page 39 and 40: Table 1. Summary Definitions of Cri
Page 41 and 42: Table 3. Organizational Image Resto
Page 43 and 44: Table 5. Hierarchical Rankings of E
Page 45 and 46: strategies public relations profess
Page 47 and 48: Stephens, K. K., Malone, P. C., & B
Page 49 and 50: Testing Crisis Response Strategies:
Page 51 and 52: example Coombs & Schmidt (2000) emp
Page 53 and 54: Table 1.0 Tactics And Examples As O
Page 55 and 56: Discussion The purpose of this rese
Page 57 and 58: Benoit, W.L. (1995b). Sears repair
Page 59 and 60: IMC and its Integration into Progra
Page 61 and 62: umbrella. This arrangement more clo
Page 63 and 64: 3B: How do institutional factors pr
Page 65 and 66: academic units. Responses were code
Page 67 and 68: RQ3A: How do institutional factors
Page 69 and 70: The lowest mean scores, ranging fro
Page 71 and 72: In this study, respondents’ perce
Page 73 and 74: At this juncture, the challenge for
Page 75 and 76: education. Journalism & Mass Commun
Page 77 and 78: However, many inside the public rel
Page 79 and 80: Core Determinants UTAUT contains fo
Page 81 and 82: H5a: Computer self-efficacy will NO
Page 83 and 84: Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for
Page 85 and 86: Although hierarchical multiple regr
Page 87 and 88:
Table 8 HMR Results for Facilitatin
Page 89 and 90:
use blogs. In fact, nearly 86% of r
Page 91 and 92:
Venkatesh, V. (1999). Creation of f
Page 93 and 94:
What’s Guiding the Profession? An
Page 95 and 96:
process. Arnett, Arneson, and Bell
Page 97 and 98:
The interview process was guided by
Page 99 and 100:
chef’s feelings or the server’s
Page 101 and 102:
If you’re going to work with [com
Page 103 and 104:
Professionals, however, offered sev
Page 105 and 106:
Hemingway, C. A. (2005). Personal v
Page 107 and 108:
Causing Our Own Problems? Women as
Page 109 and 110:
What’s Critical About PR and New
Page 111 and 112:
• PR strategy is still developed
Page 113 and 114:
Discussion in Terms of Strategy, Et
Page 115 and 116:
How the PRSA’s Certification in E
Page 117 and 118:
1) How did the PRSA certification e
Page 119 and 120:
Frances Lilly in a similar white pa
Page 121 and 122:
Concerned that its sexual harassmen
Page 123 and 124:
All respondents agreed that e-learn
Page 125 and 126:
DL 3.0 were simple text and graphic
Page 127 and 128:
technology that we lose sight of th
Page 129 and 130:
Lowery, S. A., & DeFleur, M. L. (19
Page 131 and 132:
and student groups in research clas
Page 133 and 134:
Adoption of Participatory Adult Lea
Page 135 and 136:
all had the same instructor, the sa
Page 137 and 138:
Table 1: Thematic Analysis Results
Page 139 and 140:
Improving Feedback, Interaction and
Page 141 and 142:
will realize they all are expected
Page 143 and 144:
How to Win Friends and Impact Stude
Page 145 and 146:
6. After reviewing assignments to m
Page 147 and 148:
The pre-assessment survey results s
Page 149 and 150:
messages and she never even called
Page 151 and 152:
Who Should Teach Investor Relations
Page 153 and 154:
Relations Society of America (PRSA)
Page 155 and 156:
From Britney Spears to Burger King:
Page 157 and 158:
governmental entities. The professo
Page 159 and 160:
Show Me! Portfolios as Instruments
Page 161 and 162:
The Student. In a real sense, what
Page 163 and 164:
Gill, K. (ed.). (1993). Process and
Page 165 and 166:
Courses of Study The courses in the
Page 167 and 168:
Table 1. Cluster Comparison of Grad
Page 169 and 170:
Appendix Name________________ Semes
Page 171 and 172:
Outcome Clusters (italicized are ne
Page 173 and 174:
innovation; (2) Successful collabor
Page 175 and 176:
Breaking Ground In A Public Communi
Page 177 and 178:
O A Video Documentary O A mini-vide
Page 179 and 180:
Reflection as an Assessment Tool in
Page 181 and 182:
Creating a Multi-Layered Case Study
Page 183 and 184:
Finally in phase three of the case
Page 185 and 186:
Example 2 Online Assignment: Studen
Page 187 and 188:
New Methods of Student-to-Student a
show all

2008 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?