Journal
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH
Volume 130, Issue -, Pages 271-282Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.03.020
Keywords
Crisis communication; Emotions; Empathy; Nonverbal communication; Public relations; Reputation
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Funding
- Research FoundationFlanders (FWO) [G070716N]
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In a crisis, both verbal and visual expressions of sadness can increase public empathy towards the CEO, positively affecting organizational reputation. However, expressing sadness may also decrease perceptions of the CEO's competence, which is detrimental to organizational reputation.
In this study, we conducted two experiments to examine how emotions expressed, both verbally and visually, by the CEO of an organization in crisis affect organizational reputation. In the first experiment, we compared the impact of emotional (sadness) message framing to rational framing during the acute crisis stage. Results revealed that verbally communicating sadness increased public empathy toward the CEO, which, in turn, had a positive bearing on the organization's reputation. However, communicating sadness also resulted in reduced perceptions of the CEO's competence, which was harmful to the organization's reputation. In the second experiment, we examined the impact of both verbal and visual (i.e., facial) expressions of sadness during the post-crisis stage. Both verbal and visual expressions of sadness in the crisis response positively affected reputation by evoking empathy toward the CEO. However, visual cues of sadness only appeared to matter when the verbal message lacked an expression of emotions.
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