International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
www.jitbm.com
A STUDY OF CRISIS RESPONSE STRATEGIES AND MEDIA
SELECTION: A CASE STUDY OF CAMPUS ACTIVITY
INJURY INCIDENTS
HUI-CHUNG YAO1, KHAI-THUAN TRAN2
1, 2
Department of Human Resource and Public Relations, Da-Yeh University, Taiwan (R.O.C)
Email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This study uses an experiment of campus activity injury incident as a case to evaluate the effects of crisis response
strategies (apology, sympathy and information only) and media (Facebook and online newspaper) on responsibility,
reputation, participants’ emotions, and negative word-of-mouth (NWOM). Data was collected from 206 students
and their parents in a Vietnamese university. The findings indicate that the sympathy strategy is a better strategy
that can result in lower fear than the information strategy and apology strategy. Participants’ anger and fear is
higher in the online newspaper condition which means that participants felt more anger regarding news from
traditional media (online newspaper) than the Facebook condition in this experiment. Sympathy via Facebook
condition is a better combination which can make stakeholders less anger and fear than the other combinations.
Additionally, sympathy via online newspaper is a better combination which can make less NWOM than the
combination of apology via Facebook. In the information condition, Facebook leads to less stakeholder anger than
an online newspaper. Similarly, in the sympathy condition the online newspaper led to more fear than Facebook.
The findings are in line with Schultz et al. (2011) who argued that the medium was more important than the
message. This is the first study that focused on the effect of the combination of crisis responses strategies and media
in a Vietnamese university and the outcome of this study calls for more research on various crisis response
strategies via social media in Vietnam.
Keywords: Facebook, Anger, Fear, Crisis Responses Strategies, Crisis Communication
INTRODCUTION
In Vietnam unintentional injury is the leading cause
of death of children and teenagers. More recent data
shows that 7,894 children and adolescents aged 0–19
years died in 2007. This equates to 4,818 per 100,000
children of this age group, or 5 percent of all children
injured enough to seek medical attention or miss at
least one day in school or at the workplace (Oxley,
Pham, Jamaludin, & Stevenson, 2011).
Universities, similar to other types of organizations,
have reputations and stakeholders (Brooks, Oringel,
& Ramaley, 2013). According to Fombrun (2000),
reputation scores, such as rankings, offer a visible
method to quantify reputation. Rankings for school,
colleges, and universities are based on various
aspects of the institutions such as who gets into the
institution, the value of the education, and university
life as experienced by students. University
stakeholders such as present students, future students,
their parents, and employees may use these
informational rankings to establish their interest in
particular universities or colleges. When an injury
occurs, parents of students normally use the media,
such as radio, newspapers and social media, even the
law to protect their rights or tell negative information
about the university to others. At this time the
reputation of the university will be threatened, a
response is necessary because some responsibility for
the crisis occurring is being attributed to the
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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
www.jitbm.com
understudied‖ (p. 20). To fill this gap, many studies
examine the effects of different crisis communication
strategies
via
different
media
on
crisis
communication (Coombs & Holladay, 2009; Schultz
et al., 2011; Utz, Schultz, & Glocka, 2013).
In 2012, there were 30,858,742 internet users of the
91,519,000 people of Vietnam in which 95% of the
internet users visited an online news site and 86% a
social networking site—especially Facebook.
However, a Vietnamese crisis manager paid less
interest in studying the effect of crisis response
strategies for different conditions and had little
literature about crisis response strategies via media
(Nguyen, 2011).
The purpose of this study is to address the gap in the
literature by comparing the effects of different crisis
response strategies (apology, sympathy, and
information) via different media (Facebook and an
online newspaper) in a crisis of activity injury
incidents on campus. This will have both practical
and theoretical implications when crisis response
strategies via media are analyzed in relation to the
perceptions of responsibility and reputation,
participants‘ emotions, and negative word-of-mouth
(NWOM)
university (e.g., Benoit, 1995, 2000; Len-Rios &
Benoit, 2004). If stakeholders are satisfied with the
response from the university during the crisis, the
university will mitigate any reputation damage. And
if not, the crisis will become more hazardous to the
university.
Research suggests that organizations should choose
crisis response strategies consistent with the crisis
type (Benoit, 1997; Coombs & Holladay, 2007, 2008,
2009; McDonald, Sparks, & Glendon, 2010; Schultz,
Utz, & Göritz, 2011). In addition, in crisis
communication social media played an important role
in how organizations communicate crisis situations to
audiences and how stakeholders were informed about
a crisis (Prentice & Huffman, 2008). Through social
media stakeholders can easily empower themselves
by reacting to the actions of an organization or group;
therefore social media makes stakeholders more
powerful in crisis communication.
Coombs and Holladay (2009) argued that the impact
of different media types on the effects of different
crisis response strategies is still understudied.
Additionally, Schultz et al. (2011) argued that ―the
effects of different media and especially social media
on recipients in crisis situations are still
LITERATURE REVIEW
Crisis responsibility is a function of stakeholder
attributions of personal control of the crisis by the
organization—in other words how much stakeholders
believe organizational actions caused the crisis
(Coombs, 1995). A crisis situation can make people
engage in attribution processing of organizational
responsibility. Responsibility requires accountability
and the organization must answer for its actions
(Weiner, 2006). Coombs (2007) argued that each
crisis type generates specific and predictable levels of
crisis responsibility attributions of organizational
responsibility for the crisis and Coombs and Holladay
(1996) suggest that crisis responsibility is negatively
related to organizational reputation.
Reputation
Corporate reputations are formed by what the
organization does and how it treats its stakeholders
over-time, and an organization‘s long-term success is
dependent on a favorable reputation (Fombrun,
2000). Fombrun and Van Riel (1997) derived the
definition of reputation as: ―a collective
representation of a firm‘s past actions and results that
describes the firm‘s ability to deliver valued
Crisis communication
Crisis communication is used by crisis managers and
public relations representatives to protect an
organization‘s reputation in a crisis, and
organizational responses are often delivered through
public relations personnel (Fombrun, 2000). Coombs
(2007) argued that Situational Crisis Communication
Theory (SCCT) can be used to test the effects of
crisis communication from the organization and it
can restrict reputational harm to the organization.
After victims are safe, this theory can be used to
predict the threat to reputation and select the
appropriate crisis response strategy. When a crisis
occurs people will make attributions of the cause of
the crisis and the extent to which the organization
should be blamed for the crisis. Coombs (2007)
argued that it is called crisis responsibility and if the
organization is deemed responsible, their reputation
suffers and negative outcomes are generated. In turn,
stakeholders may sever connections to the
organization and/or create negative word-of-mouth.
Crisis responsibility
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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
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outcomes to multiple stakeholders‖ (p.10).
Reputation is recognized as a valuable but intangible
asset for an organization (Coombs, 2007; Fombrun,
2000) and it affects the perceptions stakeholders hold
of the organization on an affective and behavioral
level (Argenti & Barnes, 2009; Coombs & Holladay,
2004; Balmer & Greyser, 2006), which leads to
positive attitudes towards the organization, which in
turn leads to positive word-of-mouth (WOM),
purchase or investment intention, and intention to
work for the organization (Argenti & Barnes, 2009).
Reputation is damaged when an attack is executed
towards the organization. An attack is defined as a
conflict between an organization and one (or more)
of its stakeholders for which the organization is held
responsible (Benoit, 1997).
suggest other important outcomes stem from a crisis
including anger and negative word-of-mouth. Anger
could cause stakeholders to say bad things about the
organization to others they know—it called negative
word-of-mouth. Jorgensen (1996) argued that
negative word-of-mouth communication is a
predictor of purchase intention; negative word-ofmouth communication could be a threat to an
organization in a crisis. Coombs and Holladay (2007)
show that negative word-of-mouth spreads
unfavorable information from person to person and
may affect present and future purchase intention.
After word-of-mouth spreads, the damage from a
crisis consequently cannot be controlled. Based on
the effect of negative word-of-mouth, this study uses
it as the last dependent variable.
Emotion
Crisis responses strategies
Emotion is a variable that has just started to be
explored in crisis communication (Choi & Lin, 2009;
Coombs, 2007; Coombs & Holladay, 2008). Much of
the literature about emotion claims that emotion can
act as information, guiding judgment and decisionmaking (Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee, & Welch, 2001).
If the organization had a crisis and the response of
the organization cannot satisfy the stakeholder, it will
produce negative emotions, thus affecting the
assessments of the stakeholders on the organization.
McDonald and Härtel (2000) argued that anger is one
of the most frequently experienced emotions and is
the affective response most commonly associated
with crisis. Concerning fear, Kim and Kim (2010)
argued that fear has long been perceived as one of the
effective factors that influence people‘s attitude and
behavior.
McDonald et al. (2010) tested the effects of anger,
joy, surprise, sympathy, and fear on crisis
communication. The study provided evidence that
―different emotion categories drive different
behavioral intentions, such as fearful and angry
stakeholders indulge in NWOM, angry stakeholders
are driven to complain, and those reporting joy are
more loyal‖ (p.269).
When a crisis happens the audience is eager to assign
responsibility to the causes of the crisis (Coombs &
Holladay, 1996). ―Crisis response strategies are used
to repair the reputation, to reduce negative affect and
to prevent negative behavioral intention‖ (Coombs,
2007, p.170). Thus, organizations should craft crisis
response strategies to control reputational damage
and diffuse stakeholder negative feelings.
An organization‘s crisis response strategy is
represented by what the organization says and does
when a crisis has occurred (Coombs, 2007). Crisis
response strategies have three objectives relative to
protecting reputation: shape attribution of the crisis,
change perception of the organization in crisis and
reduce the negative effect generated by the crisis
(Coombs, 1995). According to SCCT, these
objectives support the larger goal of reputation
protection and are represented by crisis
responsibility, organization reputation, and emotion
(Coombs, 2007). Apology happens when an
organization recognizes, accepts responsibility, and
asks forgiveness for the crisis (Benoit & Drew,
1997), and promises to avoid repeating the same
wrongful act (Kellerman, 2006). According to
Coombs and Holladay (2008, 2009), sympathy can be
viewed as the organization‘s attentiveness to crisisaffected stakeholders and sympathy response is
considered more personal and warmer. When a crisis
happens, the most important step is to transmit
information to stakeholders (Mitroff, 2004). The
response strategy of information occurs when crisis
managers only report what happened.
Negative word-of-mouth
In recent studies, many researchers have paid more
attention to negative word-of-mouth intentions
(Coombs & Holladay, 2007, 2008, 2009; McDonald
et al., 2010). Coombs and Holladay (2007, 2008)
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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
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model of interaction to cooperate (Argenti & Barnes,
2009). Social media are playing an increasingly
important role in how organizations communicate
crisis situations to audiences and how stakeholders
are informed about a crisis (Prentice & Huffman,
2008).
Coombs and Holladay (2008) use a student
population and the Marcus Oil crisis. They compared
four strategies, namely apology, sympathy,
information, and compensation to evaluate their
overall effectiveness in crisis communication. The
results showed that apology, sympathy, and
compensation strategies had the same score on postcrisis reputation evaluations, anger, and negative
word-of-mouth intention. In addition, Coombs and
Holladay (2008) found that information resulted in
lower levels of account acceptance than those elicited
by sympathy and apology.
For instance, Schultz et al. (2011) compared a
traditional newspaper to Twitter and a blog to
evaluate their overall effectiveness in the Marcus Oil
crisis communication. They found that that the blog
and Twitter were given a high score on post-crisis
reputation. Also, people talk more about newspaper
articles than the blog and Twitter and secondary
crisis communication was highest in the newspaper
condition.
In a study of social media use in crisis
communication, Schultz et al. (2011) used online
panel members and a Mercedes Benz crisis to
investigate the different effects of three strategies,
namely apology, sympathy, and information on crisis
communication. Their study found that information
strategy turned out to be the most successful in
secondary crisis reactions. But in a study by Coombs
and Holladay (2008), they argued that apology and
sympathy strategies are more successful than
information.
Utz et al. (2013) compared an online newspaper to
Twitter and Facebook to test their overall
effectiveness in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster crisis communication. The study shows that
the result of crisis communication via Facebook is
higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions
than via an online newspaper. ―News from (online)
newspapers is perceived as more credible and
consequently shared more often on social
media‖(p.45). On the other hand, people mainly talk
about news from traditional media because they
interpret traditional media as more credible than
social media. Thus, traditional media is still an
important role in crisis communication strategies.
There are pertinent disagreements that exist about the
effectiveness of these strategies. Thus, the different
effects of apology, sympathy, and information in
crisis communication should continue to be studied in
different kinds of organizations. To address the gap,
this study proposes five hypotheses (1a–1e):
Hypothesis 1a: Information strategy leads to more
responsibility than apology and sympathy strategies.
Hypothesis 1b: Information strategy leads to less
reputation than apology and sympathy strategies.
Hypothesis 1c: Information strategy leads to more
participants‘ anger than apology and sympathy
strategies.
Hypothesis 1d: Information strategy leads to more
participants‘ fear than apology and sympathy
strategies.
Hypothesis 1e: Information strategy leads to more
NWOM than apology and sympathy strategies.
Medium
Coombs (2007) argued that ―most of the information
stakeholders collect about organizations is derived
from the news media‖ (p.164). In the past,
organizations merely used media for informational or
persuasive purposes; nowadays (social) media are
used to communicate with stakeholders in a dialogic
Based on the study results of Schultz et al. (2011) and
Utz et al. (2013), this study only focuses on the effect
of Facebook and an online newspaper to find out
which is the better medium; therefore hypotheses
(2a–2e) are:
Hypothesis 2a: Crisis communication via Facebook
leads to less responsibility than crisis communication
via an online newspaper.
Hypothesis 2b: Crisis communication via Facebook
leads to higher reputation than crisis communication
via an online newspaper.
Hypothesis 2c: Crisis communication via Facebook
leads to less participants‘ anger than crisis
communication via an online newspaper.
Hypothesis 2d: Crisis communication via Facebook
leads to less participants‘ fear than crisis
communication via an online newspaper.
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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
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Hypothesis 2e: Crisis communication via Facebook
leads to less NWOM than crisis communication via
an online newspaper.
found a marginally significant interaction between
medium and reaction that ―the effect of reaction was
strongest in the ‗twitter only‘ condition and smallest
in the ‗twitter + blog‘ condition, the short messages
in the ‗twitter only‘ condition have a strong impact
on behavioral intentions‖ (p.25). Thus, to explore
interaction effects between media and crisis response
strategies is truly needed.
The combination of crisis response strategies and
medium
Nowadays, there are many scholars that explore the
interaction between crisis strategies and medium
(Coombs & Holladay, 2009; Schultz et al., 2011; Liu,
Austin, & Jin, 2011). A study by Schultz et al. (2011)
found that the medium has a larger influence on
stakeholders than the content of the message and Liu
et al. (2011) argued that the chosen crisis information
channel influences the audiences‘ acceptance of the
crisis message.
In addition, Coombs and Holladay (2009) did not
find any significant interaction effect between media
type and response condition on four variables:
organizational reputation, anger, account acceptance,
and NWOM. On the other hand, Schultz et al. (2011)
This study focuses on the combination between crisis
response strategies and media to find the best
combination that has the best effectiveness on
participants‘ perception of responsibility, reputation,
anger, fear, and NWOM in a case study of
unintentional injury incidents on campus. For this
purpose we propose which, if any, combination of
crisis response strategies and media is markedly best
on perceptions of responsibility and reputation,
participants‘ emotions, and NWOM in a case study of
activity
injury
incidents
on
campus?
METHODOLOGY
news story describing an injury crisis and its
organizational response which was displayed on the
screen of a tablet PC.
Convenient participants were randomly exposed to
one of six conditions (apology condition via
Participants
This study focused on the effect of crisis response
strategies and media selection in a case study of
incidents of activity injuries on campus. Thus, the
participants were 255 students and their parents from
a university in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) and they
are in different ages as well as living location to
research be diversified. The questionnaire was
distributed in four weeks from January 30, 2015 and
ended at February 28, 2015.
Design
Hong Lac University—a fictitious university—was
created to control for potentially biased responses
based on personal past experiences and to reduce
negative effects on an existing university‘s reputation
caused by the study. Survey instructions explained
that the university, crisis, and messages were
fictitious. The sample data were collected using
paper-based questionnaires. In addition, all data was
stored according to a numbered anonymous list to
ensure the protection of the participants.
A group of six members was set up to distribute
questionnaires. Each member is focus on one of six
versions. The sample data were collected using
paper-based questionnaires. In addition, all data was
stored according to a numbered anonymous list to
ensure the protection of the participants. At first, the
participants were told that they would be reading a
Facebook, sympathy condition via Facebook,
information condition via Facebook, apology
condition via an online newspaper, sympathy
condition via an online newspaper or information
condition via an online newspaper).
The apology read as: ―We at the university accept
responsibility for the incident. We deeply apologize
to the victims and their families. We hope those who
were affected by the incident can forgive us.‖ The
sympathy text was ―We at the university were deeply
saddened by this incident. The safety of our students
and especially the students who were hurt in this
incident is the utmost importance to us. Our thoughts
and prayers go out to those affected by this incident.‖
The information text was ―An incident happened in
the Volunteer Program. Five of our students suffered
minor injuries and only one student was permanently
disabled. The program will close until we have
repaired all mistakes and ensured the safety of the
students.‖
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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
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Scale developed by Coombs and Holladay (1996),
which was adapted from McCroskey (1966). Three
questions measured anger based on Coombs and
Holladay (2005, 2007). Fear was measured using
three items from Yao‘s (2014) modified fear message
paradigm of Choi and Lin (2009) and Coombs and
Holladay‘s (2005, 2007) items on anger. Negative
word-of-mouth intention was measured using three
items from Coombs and Holladay (2008). Three
demographic questions addressed the respondent‘s
age, gender, and living location. As a control, the
name of the university, activity experience, and
incident were assessed with three questions.
Measures
Participants were asked for manipulation checks with
multiple choice questions and another 19 questions
using a 5-point Likert-type scale with the anchors of
strongly disagree and strongly agree regarding
responsibility, reputation, participants‘ emotions, and
NWOM.
The university‘s crisis responsibility was measured
using five items based on a scale developed by
Coombs (1998) that was adapted from Griffin, Babin,
and Darden (1992). Five questions measured
reputation based on the Organizational Reputation
ANALYSIS RESULTS
crisis response strategies (apology, sympathy, and
information only) on university responsibility,
reputation, participants‘ emotions, and NWOM. The
results showed that there were statistically significant
differences in means among three response strategies
on reputation (F(2, 203) = 3.33, p = .038 < .05), and
fear (F(2, 203) = 9.25, p = .000 < .001). Crisis
response strategies were not significant differences
on responsibility (F(2, 203) = .32, p = .73 > .05),
anger (F(2, 203) = 1.60, p=.204>.05), and NWOM
Response data
Three hundred students and their parents in a
university were selected to participate, and 255
responses were returned (response rate: 85%); 206
participants completed the experiment. This
represented an effective response rate of 81%. The
demographic information of participants was 108
males (52.4%) and 98 females (47.6%) completed the
experiment. The distribution by age is as follows: 54
participants were less than 30 (26.2%); 50 were 30–
39 (24.3%); 51 were 40–49 (24.8%); 37 were 50–59
(18.8%), 14 were more than 60 (6.8%). Of the
participants 67 (32.5%) were from Northern
Vietnam, 42 (20.4%) participants were from Central
Vietnam, and 97 (47.1%) participants were from
Southern Vietnam.
(F(2, 203) = .28, p = .76 > .05). Thus, hypotheses 1a,
1c, and 1e were rejected.
A post hoc analysis using the Scheffe test was
conducted to reveal the different means among three
strategies. For reputation, the results found that the
significant difference between three strategies
condition was slight and unclear. Hence, hypothesis
1b was rejected. Regarding participants‘ fear, the
Scheffe test revealed that the information only and
sympathy condition showed statistically significant
difference (p=.017<.05), the apology and sympathy
condition showed significant reach level of
differences (p=.000<.001) and did not find any
significant differences between the apology and
information only condition (p>.05). The sympathy
strategy leads to less participants‘ fear (M= 3.33)
than information only strategy (M= 3.65) and
apology strategy (M= 3.79). Therefore, hypothesis 1d
was partially supported.
Reliability test
The internal consistency of scores within each scale
was measured using Cronbach‘s alpha. The scores of
each scale indicated an acceptable reliability
coefficient. According to the rule of George and
Mallery (2003), if the alpha score is more than .7, the
scale is acceptable. In this study, the reliability
coefficients (Cronbach‘s alpha) were .776, .874, .854,
.804, and .770 for the responsibility, reputation,
anger, fear, and the NWOM scale respectively. All of
the coefficients represent acceptable reliability
scores.
The effect of crisis response strategies
The effect of medium
A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
conducted to check the differences in means of three
To examine what effect of Facebook and the online
newspaper had on university responsibility,
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29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
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reputation, participants‘ emotions, and NWOM, the
independent samples T-test was conducted. The main
effect of medium on university reputation (t=-5.33,
p=.000<.001), anger (t=-5.09, p=.000<.001), fear (t=3.45,
p=.001<.01),
and
NWOM
(t=3.67,
p=.000<.001) were significant reach level difference.
No significant differences were found for
responsibility (t=.60, p=.55>.05), which means that
was no difference of effect between the Facebook
condition and online newspaper condition on
responsibility. Thus, hypotheses 2a was rejected.
For reputation, the result showed that online
newspaper (M=3.63) leads to higher reputation than
Facebook (M=3.15). This outcome was in contrast
with the expectation that crisis communication via
Facebook leads to higher reputation than via an
online newspaper. Therefore, hypothesis 2b was
rejected.
In the Facebook condition, the participants felt less
anger (M=3.05) than the online newspaper condition
(M=3.57) and it led to less the participants‘ fear
(M=3.43) than the online newspaper condition
(M=3.75). Therefore, hypothesis 2c and 2d were
supported.
The participants in the Facebook condition showed
more negative word-of-mouth (M=4.04) than the
participants who read the online newspaper
(M=3.72). The result means that Facebook leads to
more negative word-of-mouth than the online
newspaper. This outcome is in contrast to hypothesis
2e, which was rejected.
(F(5, 200)=3.64, p=.004<.01). But there was no
significant difference for university responsibility
(F(5, 200)=.67, p=.644>.05). These results show that
the effect of the combination of crisis response
strategies and medium on responsibility was not
significant which must be rejected.
A post hoc analysis with the Scheffe test was
conducted to reveal the different means among six
combinations of strategies and medium. For
reputation, the results show that information via
online newspaper was significant different for
sympathy via Facebook (p=.000<.001) and
information
via
the
Facebook
condition
(p=.023<.05); sympathy via online newspaper was
significant different for sympathy via Facebook
(p=.009<.05); apology via online newspaper was
significant different for sympathy via Facebook
(p=.002<.05). We did not find any significant
differences for the other conditions (p>.05).
Information via the online newspaper condition
(M=3.76) leads to higher reputation than information
via the Facebook condition (M=3.20) and sympathy
via the Facebook condition (M=2.90). Apology via
the online newspaper condition (M=3.59) leads to
higher reputation than sympathy via the Facebook
condition (M=2.90). Sympathy via the online
newspaper condition (M=3.52) leads to higher
reputation than sympathy via the Facebook condition
(M=2.91)
.
Regarding participants‘ anger, the Scheffe test
showed that information via an online newspaper was
significant different for apology via Facebook
(p=.038<.05), sympathy via Facebook (p=.000<.001),
information via Facebook (p=.013<.05). The other
conditions were not significant (p>.05). Information
via an online newspaper was lead to more
participants‘ anger (M=3.77) than apology via
Facebook (M=3.16); information via Facebook
(M=3.09); and sympathy via Facebook (M=2.90).
The effect of the combination of crisis response
strategies and medium
To answer the last aim of the study, a one-way
analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to
examine the best combination of crisis response
strategies and media on university responsibility,
reputation, participants‘ emotions, and NWOM in the
case of incidents of activity injuries on campus. The
combination of crisis response strategies and medium
in this study include apology via Facebook, sympathy
via Facebook, information via Facebook, apology via
an online newspaper, sympathy via an online
newspaper, and information via an online newspaper.
The results of the ANOVA show that the
combination of crisis response strategies and medium
were significant for reputation (F(5, 200)=7.97,
p=.000<.001), anger (F(5, 200)=6.48, p=.000<.001),
fear (F(5, 200)=7.23, p=.000<.001), and NWOM
Concerning participants‘ fear, the Scheffe test
showed that sympathy via Facebook was significant
different for apology via Facebook (p=.003<.05);
apology via the online newspaper (p=.000<.001);
information via an online newspaper (p=.001<.05);
and sympathy via an online newspaper (p=.030<.05).
Sympathy via Facebook was lead to less participants‘
fear (M=3.06) than sympathy via an online
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29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
newspaper (M=3.59); apology via
(M=3.71); information via an online
(M=3.77); and apology via the online
(M=3.88).
For NWOM, the Scheffe test showed
sympathy via an online newspaper was
www.jitbm.com
Facebook
newspaper
newspaper
different for apology via Facebook (p=.037<.05) and
apology via Facebook was lead to more NWOM
(M=4.15) than sympathy via online newspaper
(M=3.63).
that only
significant
DISCUSSION
communication via social media can be shared or
forwarded with others by one mouse click because of
the character of social media. Thus, an online
newspaper is a better choice to reduce negative wordof-mouth than social media. Accordingly, the
university should choose a medium type depending
on the goal of crisis communication.
The final results show that the effect of the
combination of strategies and medium found for
university reputation, participants‘ anger, fear and
NWOM was the same reason mentioned above on
why the result of reputation in this study cannot be
used. Thus, this study focused on participants‘ anger,
fear and NWOM.
Key findings
This study examined participants‘ reactions after
receiving crisis response messages (apology,
sympathy, and information) via media (Facebook and
an online newspaper) from a university in crisis. The
results indicated that the online newspaper condition
led to higher university reputation but it led to more
participants‘ anger and fear than Facebook condition.
A possible explanation for this is that our experiment
was conducted using a crisis in Hong Lac University,
which is a fictitious organization. Corporate
reputation is formed by participants‘ perceptions of
what the organization does and how it treats its
stakeholders over time (Fombrun, 2000). In this
study, this was the first time that the university used a
strategy to respond to a crisis and therefore this is the
first time that the participants received the message
from this fictitious university. It could be that
university reputation is not shaped instantaneously
and the public cannot make an accurate evaluation of
the organization's reputation. Thus, this study‘s
results of the effect on reputation are not valid and
are not generalizable. According to the results, crisis
response strategies were only significant reach level
difference for participants‘ fear. Data indicated that
the sympathy strategy resulted in lower evaluations
of fear than the information and apology strategy.
In testing the effect of media, the results showed that
participants‘ anger and fear is higher in the online
newspaper condition which means that participants
felt more angry regarding news from traditional
media (online newspaper) than the Facebook
condition because they interpret traditional media as
more credible than social media (Schultz et al., 2011;
Utz et al., 2013). Thus, using Facebook is better than
an online newspaper leading to less participants‘
anger and fear. On the other hand, negative word-ofmouth is higher in the Facebook condition, which is
in contrast with Schultz et al. (2011) who argued that
secondary crisis communication was highest in the
newspaper condition. To explain this study result,
Coombs and Holladay (2007) argued that
The results showed that the sympathy via Facebook
condition is a better combination which can make
participants less anger and fear than the other
combinations. Participants feel more anger about the
university when using the information strategy via an
online newspaper a5nd they fell more fear when
university uses the apology via online newspaper. A
possible explanation is that the sympathy strategy is
considered more personal and warmer (Coombs &
Holladay, 2008, 2009) while the information strategy
only reported what happened and participant might
think that an unintentional injury was not serious
enough for an apology. Addition, participant might
think that news from traditional media is more
credible and seems serious than Facebook.
For NWOM, sympathy via online newspaper is a
better combination which can make less NWOM than
the combination of apology via Facebook. In the
information condition, Facebook leads to less
participants‘ anger (M=2.90) than an online
newspaper (M=3.75). Similarly, in the sympathy
condition the online newspaper led to more fear
(M=3.5980) than Facebook (M=3.01). The findings
are in line with Schultz et al. (2011) who argued that
the medium was more important than the message.
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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th June 2015. Vol.38 No.1
© 2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved
ISSN 2304-0777
www.jitbm.com
(Coombs, 2007). Thus, the study cannot determine a
significant difference for strategies and medium on
university responsibility, which likely in the same
condition.
Future research directions and limitations
The strengths of this study are that it was a true
experiment and that it was conducted face-to-face
and not in a restricted laboratory setting. This
contributes to the external validity of this experiment.
People usually do not read online newspapers or
Facebook in a laboratory; consequently, this setting
can be regarded as more natural and the findings as
more valid.
Regarding
future
study,
although
crisis
communication via social media is better for a
university to reduce participants‘ anger and fear,
crisis communication via traditional media still plays
an important role because of its credibility.
Additionally, although the medium is more important
than the message, the message is still used to repair
reputation, reduce negative affect and to prevent
negative behavioral intention (Coombs, 2007). The
results mean that it is important to include messages
in the underlying research process.
The use of a fictitious university and crisis may also
be seen as a limitation of this study. The participants
were not familiar with the university, thus their
judgments may not truly represent their responses in
a real scenario. Also, the university has no prior
relational reputation; the participants may have
perceived quite some distance between the presented
situation and their attitude towards the organization,
which could point to the reason why the value of
corporate reputation contradicts other dependent
variables in this study. Future research should think
about using a real organization and crisis to improve
the results of the study.
This is the first study that focused on the effect of the
combination of crisis response strategies and medium
in a Vietnamese university. This study has shown that
the choice of crisis response strategy and medium
type is closely related. Although Facebook may lead
to the negative word-of-mouth damage but it is better
when combine with sympathy strategy which can
lead to less participants‘ anger and fear. In the same
strategy (message) condition, the using different
media will have different results; this finding is in
line with Schultz et al., (2011) who argued that the
medium is more important than the message. The
sympathy strategy is a better strategy that can result
in lower fear than the information strategy and
apology in an accidental crisis resulting in injury.
Finally, the use of the right combinations of crisis
response strategy and medium type can protect an
organization during a crisis, which calls for more
research on various crisis response strategies via
social media as well.
Another limitation is that the present study focused
on only three crisis response strategies and two
media. Future studies should attempt to broaden the
spectrum of the crisis response conditions (e.g.,
denial, compensation) and compare them with
different media (e.g., videos, YouTube, blogs).
On the other hand, the participants only watched one
of the six randomly assigned versions of the
screenshot, which was not real media, and cannot
determine the participants who was a real Facebook
user or an online newspaper follower. Also, the crisis
was an accidental cluster that was unintentional
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