Journal of Public Relations Research, 20:297327, 2008 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1062-726X print/1532-754X

X online DOI: 10.1080/10627260801962830

Trust and Relational Commitment in Corporate Crises: The Effects of Crisis Communicative Strategy and Form of Crisis Response
Yi-Hui Huang
Department of Advertising National Cheng-Chi University, Taiwan

The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which crisis communicative strategy and form of crisis response affect trust and relational commitment with respect to crisis contexts at the firm level, after controlling the effects of crisis type and organizational association. A survey of communication managers, crisis managers, and public relations and/or public affairs managers from Taiwans top 500 companies was conducted. The results showed that in crisis managers assessment, the form of crisis response (timely response, consistent response, and active response) is more powerful than crisis communicative strategies (denial, diversion, excuse, justification and concession) in predicting trust and relational commitment. Moreover, the result, on one hand, supports the robustness of concession as an effective communicative strategy above and beyond the impacts from crisis type and organization association. On the other hand, however, it challenges this traditional wisdom involving concession by emphasizing the intriguing mediating role of form of crisis response by demonstrating that form of crisis response is necessary for more concession communicative response to generate more favorable relational outcomes.

Empirical research has suggested that public relations and marketing increase organizational effectiveness by building trust and relational commitment with strategic constituencies (Dozer, L. A. Grunig, & J. E. Grunig, 1995; J. E. Grunig, 2000;
I tested my conceptual framework and hypotheses among the examined variables in this study using the data set collected by Shih-Hsin Su (2002) for his masters thesis. I heartedly thank Mr. Su for providing the data set for my independent analyses in this article. Corresondence should be sent to Yi-Hui Huang, Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N. T., Hong Kong . E-mail: yhuang@cuhk.edu.hk

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J. E. Grunig & Huang, 2000; Hon, 1997, 1998; Huang, 2001a, 2001b; Ledingham & Bruning, 2000; Ledingham, Bruning, & Wilson, 1999; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Wilson, 2000). Despite the extensive literature investigating organizationpublic relationships (OPR), little relevant work has been done specifically with respect to crisis contexts. Crisis events, however, have become part of larger, ongoing relationships, and can damage a quality relationship (Coombs & Holladay, 2001, p. 324), as well as cause severe financial and reputation setbacks (Mitroff, Pauchant, & Shrivastava, 1998). Morgan and Hunt (1994) maintained that trust and commitment are key because they encourage marketers and stakeholders to 1) work at preserving relationship investment by cooperating with exchange partners, 2) resist attractive short-term alternatives in favor of the expected long-term benefits of staying with existing partners, and 3) view potentially high-risk actions as being prudent because of the belief that their partners will not act opportunistically (p. 22). Therefore, when both commitment and trust are present, they produce outcomes that promote efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. Although proving the critical role of commitment and trust in OPR, Morgan and Hunt (1994) raised an even more critical question: How can such characteristics be nurtured? (p. 34). This study also intends to help fill the existing research gaps by examining how crisis communication affects trust and relational commitment. This study builds on the existing research gap involving theory of relationship management in general and crisis relationship management in particular in three respects. First, this study builds on Morgan and Hunt (1994) that advocated communication in a general sense by specifying two critical components in crisis communication, i.e., what to saycrisis communicative strategy (CCS) responding to corporate crises, and how to say itform of crisis response addressing how crisis messages are presented. This article first follows Morgan and Hunt (1994) and posits that the effect of communication on relational commitment was mediated by trust. Then, taking it a step further, this article examines the extent to which CCS, form of crisis response, and their coupling effects affect trust and relational commitment at the firm level. Second, this study builds on previous works that investigated OPR reflecting message-receivers (Coombs & Holladay, 1996; Dawar & Pillutla, 2000, Study 1, 2 and 3) and stakeholders perspectives (Jo, 2006; Kim, 2001) by examining the issue from organizational perspectives with respect to crisis events. This study was conducted in the context of Taiwans top 500 companies, in which public relations and public affairs managers are known to play a crucial role in crisis communication. Methodologically departing from previous studies that were conducted in experimental laboratories or that utilized students as survey respondents (e.g., Dawar & Pillutla, 2000, Study 2 and 3), information in this study was collected from surveying public relations practitioners to reflect their actual experiences in handling crises.

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Third, departing from the existing literature that has examined formation of OPR from a single perspective, e.g., strategy level (e.g., Huang, 2001b; Strong, Ringer, & Taylor, 2001), organizational level (e.g., Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003), or structural level (Hill & Jones, 1992; Tsui, Pearce, Porter, & Tripoli, 1997), this study explores the subject from a multifaceted perspective. The main assumption is that multifaceted factors combine in novel ways as a part of a relationshipbuilding process. In this vein, this study extends the current literature on strategy (i.e., CCS and form of response) and organizational level (i.e., organizational association) by exploring the relative and combined effects of organizational and strategy factors on trust and relational commitment in crisis contexts, controlling for the impacts of crisis type.

CONCEPTUALIZATION This section first conceptualizes the notions of OPR, trust, and relational commitment. Then, two critical components that factor into crisis communication, i.e., CCS and form of crisis response, are defined. The research hypothesis and research questions are developed in the course of the conceptualization. OPR Conceptual and operational definitions of OPR have been substantive but inconclusive. On the one hand, OPR could be seen as a subjective reality, objective reality, or a combination of subjective and objective realities. On the other hand, OPR can also be measured as a process, state, characteristics, outcome, or all (see Broom, Casey, & Ritchey, 1997; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998; Ledingham, Bruning, Lesko, & 1997; Huang, 2004a, 2004b; for more detailed discussion).1 For example, Ledingham and Bruning (1998) and Bruning and Gallowway (2003) identified several relationship dimensions upon which good OPRs are initiated, developed, and maintained. Grounded in prior research, this study conceptualized
1Relationships have been classified as objective realities by a number of researchers such as Katz and Kahn (1967); Miller (1978); Laumann, Galashiewicz, and Marsden (1978); Van de Ven (1976); Van de Ven and Walker (1984); Oliver (1990); and Klir (1991). Other scholars, however, have considered relationships subjective realities, most notably, Duck (1973, 1986). Still others view relationships as part objective, part subjective realities, such as Huston and Robin (1982), Gelso and Carter (1985, 1994), Millar and Roger (1987), Hinde (1988), Surra and Ridley (1991), Cappella (1991), Ballinger (1991), P. A. Anderson (1993), Sexton and Whiston (1994), and Kerns (1994). In addition, some scholarssuch as Duck (1973, 1986), Klir (1991), and Kerns (1994)view relationships as a state; otherssuch as Laumann et al. (1978) and Hinde (1988)consider them a process. A handful of other scholars view relationships as both a state and a process, such as Oliver (1990) and P. A. Anderson (1993).

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OPR as relational characteristics, subjectively experienced by, or objectively represented between, an organization and its stakeholders. Two basic assumptions underlie this definition. First, relationships consist of more than one fundamental feature. Huang (2001a) has demonstrated that trust, relational commitment, and three other features were indeed viable constructs representing OPRs. Second, this study views OPR as subjectively-experienced relational characteristics (by public relations managers in this study); such relational characteristics can further serve as important variables mediating the effects of public relations strategy on many outcome variables, such as conflict resolution (Huang, 2001b), economic value, and organization reputation (Kim, 2001). Dependent Variables: Trust and Relational Commitment

Trust. Researchers have examined the roles of trust and lack of trust in relationships (e.g., Grunig & Huang, 2000; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998). For example, research has demonstrated trust as a critical notion in interpersonal relationships (Canary & Cupach, 1988) and organizational conflicts in which risk is involved (Fitchen, Hearth, & Ressenden-Raden, 1987; Krimsky & Plough, 1988). Moreover, Huang (2001a) revealed that trust is a critical element in an OPR: Trust between an organization and its publics can mediate the effect of public relations strategies on conflict resolution. Canary and Cupach (1988) conceptualized trust as a willingness to risk oneself because the relational partner is perceived as benevolent and honest (p. 308). Quoting Moorman, Deshpande, and Zaltman (1993), who defined trust as a willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence (p. 82), Morgan and Hunt (1994) defined trust in relationship marketing as existing when one party has confidence in an exchange partners reliability and integrity (p. 23). Summing up the commonality in the literature that defined trust as related to risk, willingness, and confidence, trust in a crisis situation should highlight ones confidence in and willingness to open oneself up to fair and aboveboard dealings with the other party. Thus, this study defined trust as one partys level of confidence in and willingness to open oneself to the other party (cited in Hon & J. E. Grunig, 1999, p. 14; Huang, 2001a, p. 67) Relational Commitment. Relational commitment has been examined as an effective indicator of service relationships (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) and public relations (Huang, 2001a). In relationship marketing literature, Morgan and Hunt conceived of brand loyalty as a form of commitment. In public relations literature, Huang (2001a) held that OPRs are built on the foundation of mutual commitment. Two lines of relational commitment exist in the current literature: affective commitment and continuance commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1984). The traditional instrument in organizational commitment focuses on affective commitment, which

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is defined as an affective or emotional orientation to an entity (Meyer & Allen, 1984). In this vein, Steers and Porter (1991) conceptualized organizational commitment (characterized by Meyer and Allen, 1984, as affective commitment) as having the following characteristics: 1) a strong belief in and acceptance of the organizations goals and values, 2) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and 3) a strong desire to maintain membership in the organization (p. 226). Adopting a different approach, Meyer and Allen (1984) defined continuance commitment in an organizational setting, as the extent to which employees feel committed to their organizations by virtue of the costs that they feel are associated with leaving (p. 375). This line of literature reveals that commitment has long been a central notion in the social exchange approach (Stafford & Canary, 1991). Given two distinct lines of conceptualization, the current researcher tends to adopt a more general approach, without making specific distinction between the two. For example, Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande (1992) emphasized that commitment to a relationship is an enduring desire to maintain a valued relationship (p. 23) and concluded that commitment is central to the relationship of the organization and its various partners. Likewise, Morgan and Hunt (1994) defined relationship commitment as a partner believing that an ongoing relationship with another is so important as to warrant maximum efforts at maintaining it; that is, the committed party believes the relationship is worth promoting and savoring to ensure that it endures indefinitely (p. 23). Following the general approach, I defined relational commitment as the extent to which one party believes and feels that the relationship is worth spending energy to maintain and promote (Hon & J. E. Grunig, 1999, p.14; Huang, 2001a, p. 67), inasmuch as in a crisis situation, relational commitment should contain both continuance and affective components. Communication has been identified as a major forerunner of trust (Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Huang, 2001a). J. C. Anderson and Narus (1990) broadly defined communication as the formal and informal sharing of meaningful and timely information between firms (p. 44). For speculating the components of crisis communication, this study adopts Coombs (1999b) and Sillinces (2002) conceptualization and examines two aspects, i.e., content of crisis response, which is conceptualized as CCS, and form of crisis response, which is defined as how crisis messages are presented. CCS Content is defined as attributes of the argument in rhetorical literature (Sillince, 2002). In the literature of crisis management, content of crisis communication has been extensively examined with respect to crisis communicative strategy. Crisis communicative strategies are the actual verbal and nonverbal responses an organization uses to address a crisis. Synthesized, the works of the scholars (Allen &

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Caillouet, 1994; Benoit, 1995, 1997; Coombs, 1998; Dionisopoulos & Vibbert, 1988; Huang, Lin, & Su, 2005) who articulated crisis responses revealed five individual strategies, accompanied by substrategies defined with respect to each main strategy: (a) denial; (b) excuse: provocation, good intention, and defeasibility; (c) justification: bolstering, minimization, suffering, attacking the accuser or the accusation, and reframing; (d) corrective action: admission of fault, apology, compensation, corrective or proactive works, changing corporate public policy, and providing instructional and/or adaptive information; (e) diversion: differentiation, showing regards/sympathy (without apology), and building a new agenda (issue).

CCS and Trust. The fundamental attribution error is the inclination to categorize a persons missteps as a product of their perceived personality flaws such as irresponsibility, greediness, and dishonesty (Jones & Nisbett, 1971). This study relies on the fundamental attribution error theory (Bradford & Garrett, 1995) to explore the relationship between trust and CCS. Although the event itself is often the focal point of a crisis, Bradford and Garrett (1995) underscored how the context surrounding the event is often overlooked or forgotten. As a result, the observer might blame the actor if the actor does not provide an explanation as to mitigating circumstances or some other consideration, which could lead the observer to believe that the actors flaws are to blame for the crisis. The public might view the companys reputation in a negative light in terms of concern, responsiveness, truthfulness, and integrity if the company offers no explanation. Empirically, in a similar vein, Benoit and Brinson (1999) also demonstrated clearly the positive effects of using multiple CCSs in the case of Queen Elizabeths image repair discourse: Insensitive royal or compassionate queen. This discussion leads to research hypothesis 1-1.
Research hypothesis 1-1: There is a positive relationship between CCS and trust.

Concession as an effective individual response strategy predicting trust. In addition to combined effects of CCSs (Huang, 2006), the literature also has demonstrated the robustness of concession as an effective response strategy across different crisis situations (Bradford & Garrett, 1995). Specifically, the provision of instructing information, which generally shows that organizations know what happened, what stakeholders should do, and how to correct the problems, cultivates a perception of organizational control over crisis (Birch, 1994). Thus, a concession strategy that contains instructing information could help to generate a sense of trust between an organization and its publics. Coombs (1999b) also found a significantly positive effect of compassion or concession response on organizational association, honoring accounts, and intended potential supportive behaviors, which are related to relational commitment in OPR. This discussions lead to hypothesis 1-2.

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Research hypothesis 1-2: There is a positive relationship between concession strategy and trust.

Form of Crisis Response Form of crisis response refers to how crisis messages are presented. Three main themes emerge in the literature: timely response, consistent response and active response. Timely response can fill the information gaps that result from threat, surprise, or the urgency surrounding crisis situations. Stakeholders await the information explaining what happened, and will listen to anyone ready to answer their questions (Augustine, 1995; Darling, 1994; Fearn-Banks, 1996; Hearit, 1994). Sillince (2002) maintained that the more fluid or unpredictable the state of an event or the external environment, the more critical a timely response becomes. Unavailability, however, creates poor rapport with stakeholders and precludes an organization from getting out its side of the story. Strong, Ringer, and Taylors (2001) study found that timeliness of communication is one of the factors critical to satisfaction across stakeholder groups. In a similar vein, timely communication fosters trust (Moorman, Deshpande, & Zaltman, 1993) by assisting in resolving disputes and aligning perceptions and expectations (Etgar, 1979). Consistent response suggests information being presented in a contradictionfree manner. Seeger (1986) equates crisis with a threat to an organizations social legitimacy and maintains that social legitimacy is often built if an organization can establish the congruence between the values implied by its actions and the accepted norms within its environments. Such congruence, however, is threatened in crisis situations when the organizations intentions, evidence, and locus are called into question or are inconsistent (Garvin & Berkman, 1996). Information consistency concerns business ethics. Ulmer and Sellnow (2000) maintained that crisis communication could be ethical if it emphasizes competing interpretations of questions involving evidence, intent, and locus in a reasonably complete and unbiased manner. On the contrary, inconsistency (with other related arguments or contradictory evidence) has been found to reduce the credibility of an arguer and further reduce the strength of the argument (Sillince, 2002). In the literature on persuasion research, studies also support the value of consistent message delivery, because it can enhance credibility and accountability (Barton, 1993; Garvin & Berkman, 1996), which are essential components of trust. Active response means that organizational members actively make responses during the course of a crisis. Inactiveness or passiveness creates the appearance of indifference, uncontrollability, or hiding information (J. E. Grunig, 1992). Research indicated that being active is an effective element in building positive communication relationships (Canary & Stafford, 1994; Dansereau & Markham, 1987). On the other hand, inactive or passive responses could damage public

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trust, and in turn damage relationships between an organization and its publics (Coombs, 1999a; Fink, 1986; Mitroff & Pearson, 1993; Pearson, 2002; Ulmer, 2001). In summary, communication research constantly argues that a sufficient, timely, consistent, and active public response to a crisis by the accused organization can minimize the potential damage to the organizations credibility (Marconi, 1992; Seeger, 1986; Sellnow & Seeger, 1989; Williams & Treadaway, 1992). Morgan and Hunt (1994) and J. C. Anderson and Narus (1990) also revealed that timely and reliable communication would result in greater trust. Taking into account the previous discussions, research hypothesis 2 is thus posited.
Research hypothesis 2: Form of crisis response, which includes timely response, consistent response, and active response can predict trust in organization-public relationships, above and beyond the effects of CCSs.

Last, adopting Sillinces (2002) proposition that form and content of crisis communication affect argument strength in a mutually reinforcing manner, this study assumes that the previously-mentioned factors would combine in some process of relationship building to form overall trust and relational commitment. Moreover, some of these factors may be more important than others in determining the overall image of the company, whereas others may play only a minimal role. The previous discussions lead to research hypothesis 3 and research question 1.
Research hypothesis 3: CCS and form of crisis response combine to predict trust. Research question 1: What are the relative effects of the examined factors, i.e., crisis communicative strategies and form of crisis response, as they affect trust?

Trust Influences Relational Commitment With respect to the relationship between trust and relational commitment, Moorman, Zalman, and Deshpande (1992) and Morgan and Hunt (1994) demonstrated a direct effect of trust to relational commitment. Spekman (1988) postulated trust as the cornerstone of the strategic partnership (p. 79) because of its critical role on partner relationship. In a similar vein, McDonald (1981) held, mistrust breeds mistrust and as such would also serve to decrease commitment in the relationship and shift the transaction to one of more direct short-term exchanges (p. 834). Morgan and Hunt (1994) then emphasized that, because relationships characterized by trust are highly valued, parties will want to commit themselves to such relationships. Empirically, Siomkos and Shrivastava (1993) also revealed that customers trust can increase the possibility of customers repurchase intentions after the resolution of a crisis. The literature clearly leads to research hypothesis 4. In conclusion, this study aims to explore the relationships hypothesized in this study, i.e., causal relationships between and among CCS, form of crisis

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response, trust, and relational commitment when controlling the effects of crisis type and organizational associations.

METHOD Data Collection A subjective measure, i.e., examining the relationships among the examined variables from the perspective of an organizations strategic management, was adopted in this study. An examination of communication mangers self-reported, actual experiences of handling crises associated with their self-assessed degree of trust and relational commitment with their most important stakeholder should shed light on the research questions investigated in this study. A survey was undertaken to query communication managers, crisis managers, public relations, and/or public affairs managers from Taiwans top 500 companies. The sampling frame is based upon the report published in Common Wealth in 2001 (Su, 2002). All 500 companies were first contacted by phone. After the first contact, 33 companies were removed from the sample list because (a) two, at the time of the survey, had merged with the other companies; and (b) 31 subsidiaries did not have public relations departments or the like, because the relevant practices were executed by their parent companies. Of the 467 left in the sample list, 160 returned valid questionnaires, which yielded a 34% response rate. This response rate was quite satisfactory, compared with the existing studies employing surveys reviewed by Becker and Huselid (1998) that yielded an average response rate of 17.4% (with a range of 6 to 28%). Of the 160 respondents, 47% were women. The average age of the respondents fell within the 31- to 50-year range (77.6%). The average tenure of respondents fell within the 0- to 10-year range (81.7%). Furthermore, 46% of the respondents had degrees in business or management, 18% in communication, and 14% in law. Independent Variables: Crisis Communicative Strategies and Form of Crisis Response The respondents were instructed to think about a corporate crisis that they had experienced and handled, and which impressed them the most. The respondents were then asked to indicate the statement that best described the ways in which they responded to the crisis event.2 The instrument consisted of 19 items that make up five CCSs measuring crisis responses, and used a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, and 5 = always. With respect to CCS,
2It is worth noting that judgmental measures have been widely viewed as valid in many fields (Jaworski & Kohli, 1993) because significant evidence exists to indicate a close association between objective and perceptual measures of business performance (e.g., Jaworski & Kohli, 1993; Pearce, Robbins, & Robinson, 1987; Venkatraman & Ramanujam, 1987).

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the Cronbachs alpha values in concession, justification, excuse, and diversion are .88, .77, .67, and .52, respectively (Table 1).3 The construct reliabilities that result from dividing the amount of total standardized variance/covariance explained by a factor by the total amount of standardized variance/covariance are .88, .77, .68, and .57, respectively. The total scale reliability is .85. Three items were used to measure form of crisis response, for which the Cronbach alpha is .86. Dependent Variables Two performance variables were investigatedtrust and relational commitment (see Table 1). The questionnaire first asked the public relations practitioners to identify their most important stakeholder, and then to evaluate the degree to which the most important stakeholders assess their relationship with (the) organization at the time that the respondents were surveyed. Because the time of the corporate crisis that the respondents had experienced and handled came before the time that they answered the questions assessing the relationships between the organization and their publics, it is logical to investigate the causal link between crisis handling and the two relational variables, i.e., trust and relational commitment in OPRs. Huangs instrument scale (2001b) that included eight items was used. The scale is a 5-point Likert scale, and responses range from 1, strongly disagree, to 5, strongly agree. The Cronbach alpha values of trust and relational commitment were .84 and .83, respectively, and the values of construct reliability were .84, and .83, respectively. Control Variables Different crisis types facilitate certain attributions of an organizations responsibility for a crisis, and these attributions can lead people to generate certain feelings and behaviors toward the crises (Coombs & Schmidt, 2000; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993). Taking into account the potential confounding due to the possible influence of crisis type (Bradford & Garrett, 1995; Coombs & Holladay, 1996; 2001), this study thus controlled for the impact from crisis type in the analysis. Moreover, organizational association (Brown & Dacin, 1997) also has been identified as a crucial factor affecting the success or failure of argument or crisis management, inasmuch as it can determine the perceived credibility and trustworthiness of the accused organization or person (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Sillince, 2002). Conceptually, organizational association is defined as an aggregate representation of an organization (Marken, 1990), and could comprise multiple attributes (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990). Operationally, because this study adopts an organizations perspective, objective measures (in contrast to subjective measures)
3There

is only one item measuring denial, so no reliability is reported.

TABLE 1 Summary of Results of Crisis Communicative Strategy, Form of Crisis Response, Trust, Relational Commitment Reliability Coefficients (Alphas) .88

Variables Independent cariables: Crisis communicative strategy

Label Concession

Number of Items 7

Construct Reliability y .88 #16

Items

M 2.23

SD 1.03

Admit the accused act Promise to change the corporate public policy Promise to compensate the victims Provide the public with instructive information, e.g., how to react to a crisis in terms of actual behaviors
Provide the public with adaptive information, e.g., informing people how to react to a crisis in terms of psychological reactions

#18

2.35

1.20

#17 #19

2.26 2.66

1.11 1.35

#20

2.64

1.38

#11 #14

Apologize and/or ask for forgiveness Promise to right the wrong and/or make proactive actions for the future

2.12 3.58

1.31 1.29

307

(continued)

TABLE 1 (Continued)

308
Variables Label Justification Excuse

Number of Items 5

Reliability Coefficients (Alphas) .77

Construct Reliability y .77 #9

Items

M 3.21

SD 1.30

#10

#8

#15 #13

.67

.68

#4

#6

State that the event is not as serious as outsiders view it State that the corporation is one of the victims Reduce the outside attack by emphasizing former positive records or favorable actions Attack the accuser or the accusation Reframe the facets or the causes of the event in a more advantageous light State that the corporation lacked the resources or had no ability to prevent the event from happening State that the event stemmed from the corporations good intentions

2.96

1.31

3.83

1.13

2.21 3.15

1.21 1.29

1.88

1.12

1.96

1.09

(continued)

#3

#22

#7

#12

Denial

1 3

.81

.87

#1

Independent variables: Crisis response form

State that this event is a reasonable response to someone elses act or to public policy change Build a new issue to disperse the attack focus Show regards and/or distress to express the feelings Compare this event with other similar or more offensive crisis events Issue a denial of the accused Issues consistent responses or actions Actively or initially respond to the crisis verbally or behaviorally Always update with the newest information or the most current situation

2.17

1.31

1.70

.96

2.71

1.30

1.77

.83

1.80 4.20 4.05

1.16 .79 .91

3.88

.91

(continued)

309

TABLE 1 Reliability Coefficients (Alphas) .84

310
Variables Label Number of Items 4

Construct Reliability y .84

Items

M 4.22 4.07

SD .67 .69

Dependent ariables: Trust:

Dependent variables: Relationship commitment

.83

.83

They would think we are truthful with them They would think we treat them fairly and justly, compared to other organizations They would think we are trustworthy. They would think we keep our promises They would not wish to discontinue a relationship with the organization They would believe that it is worthwhile to try to maintain the relationship with the organization They would wish to keep a long-lasting relationship with us They would not wish that they had never entered into the relationship with us

4.08 4.03 4.13

.63 .68 .61

4.29

.65

4.22

.66

4.09

.59

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should be more appropriate for measurement. Moreover, choosing pertinent variables should take into account the research finding that suggested that different cultures or countries might have different attributes to organizational association (Hsieh, Pan, & Setiono, 2004). Objective measures that have been demonstrated to contribute to organizational associations with respect to Taiwans corporations, were first tested for their relationships with OPRs to determine which would be included for further hierarchical regression tests. The following objective measures were included in the test: corporate ranking, size, ownership type (foreign-owned or domestic-owned), industry type, and operation type (public-operated or private-operated; Bromley, 1993; Fombrun, 1996). The results revealed that foreign- versus domestic-owned and publicly-versus privately-operated corporations were significantly correlated with trust and relational commitment; thus, they were run as control variables for further regression tests.

RESULTS Table 1 provides an overview of construct means and standard deviations of five CCSs, three items involving crisis response form, and two relational outcome variables. Research hypotheses 1 to 4 were then answered to explore the extent to which individual sources of influence uniquely contribute to variance in trust. A 4-step hierarchical regression analysis was run with trust as the dependent variable (Table 2), and a 5-step hierarchical regression analysis was run with relational commitment as a dependent variable (Table 3). At step 1 and step 2, the measures involving crisis types and organizational association, respectively, were entered as control variables. In theory, the aspect of crisis type and organizational association would exist before any of the other factors. Then, two strategy-level factors were entered because these might be experienced subsequent to the first and second block. Last, trust was entered at step 5 to explore its unique and additional contribution to the variance in relational commitment. The standardized beta coefficient is reported, and the total variance explained by each step of the equation is provided (adjusted R square).

Results With Respect to Trust After steps 1 and 2, in which crisis type and organizational association were entered as control variables, five CCSs were entered into the equations at step 3. The added variances explained by the third block of variables while controlling for the previous two blocks are given as R2 square changes. The R2 increment resulting

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TABLE 2 Hierarchical Regression Analysis On Trust Step 1 Predictor Variable Crisis type Foreign-owned company Private company Denial Excuse Justification Concession Diversion Consistent response Active response Timely response R2 .032 R2change .032 Fchange 3.449 R2 .092* .245* .070 .122 .118 .135 .140 .049 .460*** .289** .354*** R2change .060* Step 2 Fchange 3.334* B .108 b .180 sr B .105 .390* .096 b .176 .236* .046 .101 .118 .131 .159 .083 .453*** .317** .400*** sr

(continue)

Crisis type Foreign-owned company Private company Denial Excuse Justification Concession Diversion Consistent response Active response Timely response

.165

.072

1.661

.095 .381* .246 .006 .062 .072 .146 .062

.159 .231* .117 .013 .108 .120 .254* .088 .436*** .289** .371***

.350***

.186***

8.867***

.052 .361* .211 .000 .034 .073 .084 .053 .240** .115 .176

.086 .219* .100 .001 .060 .121 .146 .076 .366** .198 .176

Note: B = unstandardized regression coefficient, b = standardized regression coefficient, sr = semipartial correlation. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

313

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TABLE 3 Hierarchical Regression Analysis On Relational Commitment Step 1 Predictor Variable
Crisis type Foreign-owned company Private compay Denial Excuse Justification Concession Diversion Consistent response Active response Timely response Trust .295** .273** .721** .335** .327** .701** .298** .299** .682** .028 .059 .142 .074 .059 .144 .404** .077 .004 .024 .139 .063 .104 .157 .398** .138 .026 .088 .019 .148* .083 .069 .061 .162 .034 .271* .124 .366**

Step 2 R2
.118* .328**

Step 3 Fchang R2
.191

R2
.012

R2change
.012

Fchange
1.244

B
.062

b
.109

sr

R2change
.106*

Fchange
6.086*

B
.057 .511**

b
.099 .326**

sr

Rchange
.072

e
1.715

B
.057 .525**

b
.100 .335**

sr

(continued)

Step 4 Predictor Variable Crisis type Foreign-owned company Private compay Denial Excuse Justification Concession Diversion Consistent response Active response Timely response Trust R2 .307* R2change .117* Fchange 5.233* B .024 .506** .103 .023 .063 .026 .098 .070 .165* .016 .056 b .042 .323** .052 .053 .115 .045 .179 .106 .265* .029 .101 .626** sr R2 .579 R2change .271

Step 5 Fchange 59.272 B .076 .284* .026 .023 .042 .019 .046 .037 .018 .087 .052 .614** b .013 .181* .013 .052 .077 .034 .085 .056 .028 .158 .095 .646** sr

Note: B = unstandardized regression coefficient, b= standardized regression coefficient, sr = semipartial correlation. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

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from adding CCSs was not significant for trust, Fchange (5, 96) = 1.661, p = .152. The CCSs variables together explained a further 10% in unique variance, and total variance explained by crisis type, organization association, and CCSs was 17%, Fchange (8, 96) = 2.364, p = .023. However, given the nonsignificant statistic concerning the effects of CCSs on trust, concession as an individual response strategy indeed showed positive beta weights significantly different from zero (b = .254, p = .024). Then, in step 4, the score of the criterion variable, i.e., trust, on the three items measuring form of crisis response was added. The results show that the addition of three items representing form of crisis response account for an additional and significant portion of variance in trust, with an additional 27% of variance explained. The R2 increment was significant, Fchange (3, 93) = 8.867, p = .000. Moreover, the hierarchical regressions also demonstrated that the overall model at the final stage was significant, R2 = .350, F (11, 93) = 4.56, p = .000. In the final model, consistent response appeared as the strongest predictor of trust (b = .366, p = .002), followed by timely response (b = .303, p = .053) and active response, which, however, was statistically nonsignificant. Summing up the results involving trust, research hypothesis 1 is partially supported. The addition of five CCSs did not account for additional and significant portions of variance in trust, apart from that accounted for by crisis type and organizational association (three control variables). However, as expected, concession indeed showed its explanatory power to predict trust in relationships. Research hypothesis 2, positing that form of crisis response, which includes timely response, consistent response, and active response, contributes unique variance to trust above and beyond the contribution of CCS, is fully supported. Research hypothesis 3, which concerns the effect of the overall components of crisis communication, is also supportedthe overall model is statistically significant and a total variance of 35% in trust was explained. Research question 1 inquires about the relative effects of individual factors. The results revealed that the variances explained by the combination of crisis type and organizational association is 10% (block 1 & 2), CCS 7%, and form of response 19%. Apparently, a significant increase in the variance is noted as a result of the inclusion of the response form (block 4). It therefore suggests that form of crisis response has the largest explanatory power, followed by overall organizational associations and crisis type, and then CCS. Results with Respect to Relational Commitment Similar steps were conducted with respect to relational commitment. The R2 increment at step 3 that included five CCSs was not significant, Fchange (5, 97) = 1.740, p = .133, indicating that the use of CCSs did not account for a significant and unique portion of the variance in relational commitment. Then, the R2 increment at the

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fourth stage involving three forms of crisis response was significant, Fchange (3, 94) = 5.263, p = .002. This fourth stage explained an additional 23% of variance, and the overall model 31%. Last, the R2 increment that results from the addition of trust at the fifth step accounts for additional variance in relational commitment, Fchange (1, 92) = 59.27, p = .000, demonstrating that trust significantly and uniquely accounted for additional variance in relational commitment beyond that accounted for in the first four stages of analysis. Research hypothesis 4 is thus supported. Moreover, the results show that form of crisis response has both a direct and indirect effect on relational commitment; the latter is via the influence of trust.

DISCUSSION, IMPLICATION AND CONCLUSION This study has theoretical and practical implications to corporate crisis communication and relationship management in general, and the effective uses in communicative strategies and crisis response form in particular. Theoretical Implications Looking for convergent patterns across trust and relational commitment, which has the characteristics of cross-validation and internal replication within a study, can shed light on the findings. The results can be discussed in two main respects: the effect of individual sources and the interaction between and among multifaceted factors.

The effects of individual sources on trust and relational commitment. Five aspects with regard to individual source of influence merit discussion. First, in public relations managers assessment, above and beyond the influences from crisis type and organizational association, communicative crisis strategy did not show predictive power for either trust or relational commitment. Similarly, individual CCS strategy (concession being exceptional), such as excuse, justification, and denial did not show significant relationships with trust or relational commitment. Namely, the results suggest that crisis managers do not consider CCS in general and several specific crisis communicative strategies in particular as powerful predictors of favorable OPRs as expected. These results differ from the dominant theme in the crisis literature, which has advocated the effectiveness of crisis communicative strategies. On the contrary, this study suggests that the effects of CCSthe theme of what to sayshould be reserved and reassessed. Several possible factors might explain the discrepancies. First, this study controls the impact of crisis types in a statistical sense; however, the effectiveness of CCSs, combined or individual, could be, in fact, context- and situation-specific. For example, Huang (2006) demonstrated that the use of denial

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in a commission situation, excuse in a control situation, justification in a standards situation, and concession in an agreement situation increased positive media coverage.4 Huang (2006) also revealed that, for all but the agreement situation, employing a combination of CCSs was the most effective strategy. If this explanation is acceptable, then that the important (moderator) role of crisis situation on the effects of crisis communication is further warranted in this study (Coombs, 1998; Bradford & Garrett, 1995). The second possible explanation with respect to the individual strategies is that excuse, justification, or simply denial sometimes involve the association of opportunistic behavior, which might be regarded as deceit-oriented violations of implicit or explicit promises about ones appropriate or required role behavior (John, 1984, p. 279). Thus, crisis managers could perceive such responses as being associated with manipulation and control and unable to cultivate trust and relational commitment. Morgan and Hunt (1994) provide a possible explanation that when a party believes that a partner engages in opportunistic behavior, which is defined in the transaction cost analysis literature as self-interest seeking with guile (Williamson, 1975, p. 6), such perceptions will lead to decreased trust (p. 25). Second, given the statistically nonsignificant relationships between CCSs as a whole and two relational features, it is worth noting the robustness of concession as an effective crisis communicative response strategy: Concession can positively predict trust and relational commitment (beta being .254 and .272, respectively, all significant at .05 level), above and beyond the impacts from crisis type and organization association. In essence, this study expands previous literature in that concession is a viable predictor of OPRs not only from perspectives of publics or stakeholders (Bradford & Garrett, 1995; Coombs & Hollady, 1996; Huang, 2001b, Study 1) or media (Huang, 2006) but also from organizations. Third, methodologically, this study extends the previous studies that had students as participants (Dawar & Pillutla, 2000, Study 2 and 3), that conducted laboratory experiments (Coombs, 1998), or that analyzed media content (Huang, 2006), in that this study collected data from communication, crisis, and public relations/public affairs managers in a real business context, based upon their actual experiences in handling crises. Fourth, the results involving relative effects showed that form of response is a stronger predictor than CCS for predicting both trust and relational commitment. Form of crisis response showed both direct and indirect predictive power of

4Bradford and Garrett (1995) identified four crisis situations, on the grounds that analyzing crisis situations is an important step toward understanding the effective use of crisis responses: (a) commission situation: no evidence of corporate commission; (b) control situation: evidence of corporate commission, but no evidence of corporate control; (c) standards situation: evidence of corporate commission and control, but questionable standards of assessment; (e) agreement situation: Evidence of corporate commission and control, and appropriate standards of assessment (p. 877).

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relational commitment; the latter is mediated through sense of trust. Moreover, different relational features are attributed to different response forms. Among the three forms, consistence is an effective predictor for both trust (b = .366, p = .002) and relational commitment (b = .267, p = .025).5 The results support Huang, Lin, and Su (2005), who encouraged consistency in using various CCSs, and Ulmer and Sellnow (2000), who emphasized business ethics. Second, timely response can contribute to the sense of trust (b = .303, p = .05) in relations. Essentially, the results support the extant literatures recommendations regarding effective crisis communication on prompt response (e.g., Martin & Boynton, 2005). Last, comparatively, active response has less predictive power as shown in this study. A possible explanation that factors in could be that active response should be further explicated in terms of attentiveness and responsiveness (Maier, 2005) because they embrace the breadth and complexity of vernacular discourse that publics engage in. Last, this study replicated Moorman, Zalman, and Deshpande (1992) and Morgan and Hunt (1994), demonstrating that crisis managers indeed believed that trust can increase the possibility that the publics will continue their relationships with the organizations after a critical crisis event. Identifying trust as a key mediating variable is critical to the researcher and corporate managers investigating precursor variables of relational commitment. To the researcher, if trust were merely one more independent antecedent of relational commitment, failing to include its effect in studies of relationship management processes simply would result in less variance explained in relational commitment. However, as a key mediating variable, failing to include its effect in such studies would result in a flawed conclusion regarding not only the direct impact of trust on relational commitment, but the impact of other antecedents as well. To the managers, understanding the process of making crisis communication work is superior to simply developing a laundry list of antecedents of important outcomesand this study suggests that trust is key to understanding the relationship development process in crisis communication.

The mediating role of crisis response form on the relationships between concession and two relational outcomes. Given the strong predictive power of concession response on both trust (b = .254, p = .024) and relational commitment (b = .272, p = .013), it should be noted that when the effects of both CCSs and form of crisis response on trust and relational outcome are taken into account, concession response appears to have no statistically significant effect on two relational outcomes (b = .145, p = .158 for trust and b = .187, p = .075 for relational commitment). The results actually contradict the abovementioned conventional wisdom involving the robustness of concession as an effective communicative strategy
5The contrasting or contradicting themes underlying crisis communication could exist in the form of specification and ambiguity, as well as defense and accommodation.

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across different crisis situations (Bradford & Garrett, 1995; Coombs & Holladay, 1996). The challenge, however, does not suggest that concession is not an effective strategy, but rather it revealed that the effects of concession are, indeed, mediated by form of crisis responses, i.e., whether the theme of the message is being presented consistently, promptly, and actively. In a statistical sense, form of crisis response therefore acts as a perfect mediator (Baron & Kenny, 1986, p. 1177), or as a key prime intervening variable in the relationship between concession and the two relational outcomes. Interpretation of this mediating role is appealing on both practical and theoretical grounds: The presence of a strong delivery form is necessary for more concession-oriented communicative responses to generate more trust and relational commitment. Further analysis involving correlations among these variables sheds light on the possible interaction between concession communicative strategy and crisis response form. The results showed that concession is mildly correlated with active response (r = .211, p < .05) as well as with timely response (r = .247, p < .01), but rarely correlated with consistent response (r = .144, p = .127). In other words, concession response could coexist with timely response and active response, but barely with consistent response. Specifically, the analysis suggests that, in reality, concession response may sometimes be presented in a timely and active manner, but it is seldom presented consistently with other related evidence or arguments. Thus, the effectiveness of concession could be diminished or completely vanish. The results indicate that for a concession communicative response to successfully build favorable trust and relational commitment, it is critical that messages be presented in a timely, consistent, and active manner. In summary, the results help to move the concept of form of crisis response to a higher theoretical and operational realm. The theoretical implication of the findings is that this study extends previous research on crisis communication (Siomkos, 1999) by demonstrating that multifaceted factors, which include CCS and crisis response form, indeed interact with one another to affect trust and relational commitment in OPRs. Moreover, departing from previous literature that advocates the value of form of crisis response mainly based upon common sense, accepted wisdom for crisis mangers (Coombs, 1999b), or anecdotal evidence (e.g., Kempner, 1995), this study provides empirical evidence to demonstrate the effects of response form on favorable trust and relational commitment. This study also reveals the critical role of response form by demonstrating that, compared with other influence sources of crisis management such as crisis type, organizational association, and CCSs, it explained the most variances in trust and relational outcome. Furthermore, positive forms of crisis response, i.e., being timely, consistent, and active, from crisis managers viewpoints, not only indirectly predicted relational commitment through a sense of trust but also directly increased the likelihood of the publics commitment to relationship continuance.

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Practical Implication Pragmatically, this study suggests several clear implications for crisis communications. First, a key contribution of this study is that it offers communication managers a holistic framework that consists of two factors contributing to crisis management: CCS and form of crisis response after controlling the influences from crisis type and organizational association. If the OPR is key to successful public relations (J. E. Grunig & Huang, 2000; Huang, 2001b), this study demonstrated that from crisis managers perspective, trust and relational commitment can be nurtured (responding to Morgan & Hunt, 1994) and developed when firms attend to crisis communication by (a) using the concession CCS and (b) for concession strategy to be effective, responding to crises timely, consistently and actively. Moreover, this study discerns the relative predictive powers of these two components of crisis communication for trust and relational commitment, and thus, further calls for crisis managers strategic crisis management. Crisis managers may refer to the results of this study, which provide specific guidelines regarding ways in which various crisis communicative strategies and response forms contribute to certain relational outcomes.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research It should be noted that, although the actual evidence derived from this study could build on the results from other research methods, the limitation of this study also is inherent in the nature of study design. The results of this study should be viewed as suggestive due to three aspects of data collection. First, for each respondent, only a single crisis event for each crisis type was investigated. Second, some factors, such as the real-time context climate and social context, were beyond the control of the survey design and could have had their unique effects, Third, a public relations manager can create his or her own bias, and thus affect the relevant results. Despite the limitations, this study should provide a richer and broader perspective on the evaluation of multifaceted factors affecting crisis management, and could also serve as an adequate starting point for further research toward investigating the relevant variables. The possible directions for future research are threefold. The first direction is to discern if different perspectives of participants or the nature of research method/data collections matters and if so, the extent to which crisis communication affects OPR. As stated, a possible explanation for the unexpected outcomes, i.e., the insignificant effects of justification and denial and the negative effect of excuse, could be a result of the differences in the nature of data collection between this study and previous studies. If different perspectives of study participants and the nature of data collection, indeed, are causes of the differences, then

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the following questions are worth further exploration: Is CCS more valued by the constituencies than by the organizations themselves? Is CCS undervalued from the organizations perspective or overvalued from the recipients perspective? And, what are the reasons contributing to the gaps? The second suggestion is to investigate how crisis type, which is treated as a controlled variable in this study, moderates the examined causal relationships. Sillince (2002) maintained that the effectiveness of argumentation depends upon the context. Coombs and Holladay (1996) and Bradford and Garrett (1995) also speculated that different CCSs should be used in different types of crises, which in turn, will exert respectively favorable consequences. Further examination of the impact of crisis type could shed light on the inconsistent findings in this study in terms of the insignificant effects of justification and denial and the negative effect of excuse communicative responses on respective relational outcomes. Third, in any model in which causality is suggested, longitudinal studies provide for stronger inferences. Thus, the model developed and tested here could benefit from being tested in a longitudinal design. Fourth, a logical next step for future research would be to conduct a coorientation study to investigate perceptions of OPR from both entities in the relation, i.e., organization and stakeholder, to compare the difference, consensus, congruence and agreement so as to further examine their relationship with CCS and form of communication.

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