Is there another side to the "Blame Game"? Investigating the influence of home country image in an organisation crisis situation
Date
2010
Authors
Crouch, R.
Lu, V.
Cichinski, B.
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Conference paper
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Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business "International Business in Tough Times" Rio de Janeiro, Brazil June 25-29, 2010 pp.1-41
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Roberta Carolyn Veale, Vinh Nhat Lu and Braden Cichinski
Conference Name
AIB Annual Meeting (52nd : 2010 : Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Abstract
Organisational crises are increasing more common, often threatening organisational viability. Nevertheless, the influence of Country Image (CI) in a crisis management (CM) public relations context is significantly under researched. This study investigates the ability of home CI of an organisation to influence attribution of blame and trust, both antecedents of consumer future purchase intentions, post an organisational crisis. Using a two (country) x three (crisis type) experimental design, we collected data from 375 consumers. We found the organisation originating from the country with the more favourable CI (England) was held significantly less accountable than that with a significantly less favourable CI (China) for two of the three crisis types tested, enjoying higher levels of trust and purchase intentions. The English company was found equally accountable as the Chinese company for the preventable crisis type; however, attribution was still lower for them with trust and purchase intensions higher. These results reveal the potential benefits for organisations with positive CI, and the increased risks for organisations from countries with negative CI associations. This study contributes to the theoretical development of both CM and country-of-origin (COO) literature, providing international business practitioners with a sound understanding on the nature and orientation of any CI biases and how to develop and implement the most effective CM strategies to exploit or diminish such biases.
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© 2010 Academy of International Business