Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor
College of Business, University of Cincinnati, 428 Carl H. Lindner Hall, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0145, USA
Department of Communications, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Ave., Charleston,
IL 61920-3099, USA
KEYWORDS
Product harm crises;
Attributions of blame;
Corporate reputation;
Consumer segments
Abstract Product harm crises such as Vioxx and Firestone can be devastating
events for companies. Although lawsuits by victims tend to draw most of the
attention, observers, who typically learn of product harm crises through media
outlets, can also cause extensive damage to the companies involved, as they
represent current and potential customers of the product.
This article provides guidance to practitioners in choosing the appropriate strategy
to effectively deal with a product harm crisis. The authors recommend that
corporate reputation and consumer-based cues, such as gender and nationality, be
incorporated in the decision-making process regarding the choice of a corporate
response.
D 2006 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.
0007-6813/$ - see front matter D 2006 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2006.01.002
380
manufacturer to have one or more products recalled.Q While product recalls can result from both
product harm and product tampering incidents, the
former is more common than the latter.
Companies should not underestimate the importance of properly handling product harm crises, as
they have been documented to have negative
effects on market share, sales of recalled products,
stock prices, purchase intentions, and sales of
other company products (Pruitt & Peterson, 1986;
Siomkos & Kurzbard, 1994). Moreover, product
harm crises and product recalls are threatening to
a companys reputation (Berman, 1999; Davies,
Chun, da Silva, & Roper, 2003; Mowen, 1980). While
an intangible asset, corporate reputation does
have financial implications for an organization;
for example, Davies et al. (2003) reported that
reputation can influence attracting consumers,
generating investment interest, attracting top
employee talent, motivating workers, increasing
job satisfaction, generating more positive media
coverage, and garnering positive comments from
financial analysts.
With so much at stake, managers should be
concerned with trying to minimize the negative
effects of a product harm crisis. An evolving
literature details how managers can use a crisis
response to minimize the harm inflicted by crises
(including product harm), with recommendations
centering on understanding how the consumer is
likely to perceive the product harm crisis and the
companys response to it (Coombs & Holladay,
2004; Siomkos & Kurzbard, 1994). This article
organizes and extends our understanding of how
to evaluate a product harm crisis and select crisis
responses designed to minimize the harm generated by the crisis.
381
382
tolerable: The fear that the same thing might involve
the self becomes a realistic possibility. Seeing the
actions as avoidable and blaming a person for their
occurrence makes the actions more predictable and
hence avoidable by the self.Q
Based on Fiske and Taylors explanation, one
could conclude that blaming another party, other
than the company, could also serve to make bthe
actions more predictable and hence avoidable by
the self.Q Why would an observer blame the
company for a product harm crisis, as opposed to
blaming the consumer, who could be using the
product improperly? Tires, for example, can fail as
a result of a manufacturing defect or due to
improper treatment by consumers (e.g., not checking the tire pressure as recommended by the
manufacturer). Fortunately, the defensive attribution hypothesis also addresses the question of who
to blame, the perpetrator or the victim. Shaw and
McMartin (1977) identify two different possible
attribution tendencies: harm avoidance and blame
avoidance. Chaiken and Darley (1973) stated that
an observer who is similar to the perpetrator will be
more likely to blame the victim, in order to avoid
blame (bblame avoidanceQ). Conversely, an observer who is more similar to the victim will be more
likely to blame the perpetrator, in order to avoid
harm (bharm avoidanceQ). Observers to a product
harm crisis are more likely to view themselves as
more similar to the victims (other consumers) than
the perpetrator (a company), especially if they also
use the product involved in the crisis. As such,
observers to a product harm crisis are more
motivated to avoid harm than to avoid blame; as
a result, they will blame the company. Two
promising individual traits for identifying differences in the perceptions of the severity of product
harm crises are gender and tolerance for ambiguity. Since tolerance for ambiguity is closely related
to uncertainty avoidance, this has important
implications for possible differences in how consumers will react to a product harm crisis across
countries.
383
384
Table 1 Cues for predicting attributions of blame to the company (and appropriate corporate responses) for
ambiguous product harm crises
Attributions of blame to the company
Prior reputation
Gender of consumers
Uncertainty avoidancea
Unknown/weak or negative
Predominately female
High
a
Hofstede (1997, p. 263) defines uncertainty avoidance as bthe extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by
uncertain or unknown situations.Q In addition to Hofstede (1997), a number of sources make available country rankings on this
dimension.
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