University of Twente Student Theses
Linking leadership and crisis management : the role of leadership in organisational crises in relation to communication technology and crisis type, and its effects on consumer’s trust, attitude, emotions, and intention to boycott an organisation
Rosenstiel, Lara von (2019) Linking leadership and crisis management : the role of leadership in organisational crises in relation to communication technology and crisis type, and its effects on consumer’s trust, attitude, emotions, and intention to boycott an organisation.
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| Abstract: | This study focusses on the appropriate adjustment of crisis communication tools and the importance of leadership in times of crisis. As prior research shows that the use of different communication technologies in product- or value-harm crisis may have an effect on consumers’ reactions, this study sheds additional light on the message source in an organisational crisis. The primary goal of this study was therefore to experimentally investigate to what extent the role and presence of a leader in relation to communication technology and crisis type have effects on consumer’s trust in an organisation, attitude, emotions and behavioural intentions. A scenario- based 2 (message source: CEO vs. general spokesperson) x 2 (crisis type: product- harm vs. value-harm) x 2 (communication technology: video vs. text) between-subject experiment incorporating two additional mediating roles, namely emotion and trust was implemented with 207 German participants. Statistical analyses reveal that a video message makes customers more likely to trust a company and engage in future purchases compared to a text message. In addition, a CEO as spokesperson is a useful tactic to increase levels of trustworthiness and purchase intention. A combination of both, a CEO using a video message, influence attitude positively. Furthermore, this study shows that trust is significantly lower in a product-harm crisis and that using only text messages may result in higher levels of anger than adjusting a video. Based on these insights, practical and theoretical implications are presented. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 05 communication studies |
| Programme: | Communication Studies MSc (60713) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/79417 |
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