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In 2015, Malaysia’s investment vehicle, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), came under international scrutiny after it amassed a debt of US$11 billion (10.3 billion) (Wright & Clark, 2015), which it had difficulty repaying. More disturbingly, investigators found that US$700 million (658 million) was transferred into the personal bank account of Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, founder and chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board (Wright & Clark, 2015). Najib was also accused of embezzling state money (Reuters, 2015) and damaging the image of the country (“Najib tried to bribe me”, 2015). This chapter aims to examine the strategies used by the Malaysian prime minister to repair his image in the 1MDB scandal, the effectiveness of these strategies, and how these impacted Malaysia’s public diplomacy efforts in restoring the country’s image and reputation. Findings showed that the prime minister denied wrongdoing, and simultaneously bolstered his position and promised to turn 1MDB around. In contrast to the current explication of Benoit and Pang’s (2008) image repair strategies, Najib’s way of attacking the accusers sheds light into how image repair strategies may be operationalized in the Asian context. A new image repair strategy – diversion – is proposed to be added to the existing framework.

This paper aims to determine the influence of travel fair selection factors on exhibitor intention to attend, in conjunction with the role of political risk within that relationship.

Following the basic premises of image repair theory, this quantitative study examines the perceptions of 205 exhibitors – both domestic and international – at Belgrade Travel Fair.

Two variables – travel fair customer acquisition and retention orientation and market orientation – were found to influence travel fair intention in a statistically significant manner, while multi-group structural equation modeling indicates a positive statistically significant correlation between travel fair customer acquisition and retention and travel fair market orientation and travel fair intention for exhibitors that place higher importance on political risk in the region.

The limitations of the research are its regional focus and its small sample size.

Travel fair organizers should consider market orientation and customer acquisition and retention orientation as important antecedents of travel fair intention. Exhibitor perception of political risk enhances image repair efforts.

The study focuses on the perception of travel fair exhibitors when attending a travel fair in a region which is continually exposed to political risk. Thus, travel fairs can act as image repair instruments for companies affected by political risk in a region, as they have the capacity to present a positive image to a specific audience.

The study enhances the existing work related to image repair theory by observing how travel fairs can be used as image repair instruments. The originality of the study lies in its provision of further understanding of the reasons for exhibitor attendance at travel fairs and, more specifically, the role of political risk in this context. The study’s findings extend the applicability of the image repair theory in the context of the behavioral nature of travel fair attendance.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effectiveness of image-repair strategies adopted by organizations to restore their public image and reputation following crisis situations, the lessons learned from these cases and the significance of contextual factors that are likely to affect image-repair efforts and strategies adopted.

Three cases have been reviewed in this paper: Weather, Jordan; Nestlé Waters, Jordan; and Victoria College School, Jordan. Information was obtained from published materials, such as YouTube commentaries, local newspapers and online news agents, primarily the Jordan Times, which is considered the number one daily in the country. The discussion of these cases is original and based on academic theory and literature.

Organizations differ in terms of the ways they respond to corporate crises and the strategies they are likely to adopt to restore/recover their reputation and public image.

Corporate reputation or public image is an asset that is built over time. Organizations within all industries seek to secure positive images in the minds of people. The image of an organization however can be threatened by crises. Trust and public image decline when stakeholders feel they have not been adequately informed in times of crises regarding the different attributes of the situation or how the organization is dealing with the crisis. Organizations have the choice to adopt one image-repair strategy at a time or a combination of strategies according to the requirements of the situation.

Image-repair strategies have been examined in American and European contexts but have, to the author’s knowledge, never been examined in the context of Arab organizations and more specifically in the context of Jordanian organizations. This paper therefore provides a new insight into how to apply these strategies in a unique and new context and will also motivate future research in this regard.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the image repair theory by focusing on the largely ignored context of the face‐to‐face communication. The paper offers an exploratory study of how image repair work is carried out in interviews with politicians in the context of press conferences.

The paper combines theoretical reflections with two qualitative case studies of press conferences of Swedish politicians. These press conferences were held to manage the challenge posed to the politicians’ public image by the media criticism. The analytical frame employed in this study is Conversation Analysis (CA).

The way journalists act during interviews and how they pose questions have noticeable consequences for the accused actor's image repair work. Image repair strategies like “apologizing” and “mortification” during the speech section of a press conference tend to be more effective as they give the accused greater opportunities to take control of the interaction.

Due to the exploratory nature of this interactional approach and the fact that the analysis involves only two cases, the findings must be seen as provisional.

The knowledge of how journalists construct a question is of high relevance for crisis communication and image repair work, and therefore of high value of public relations practitioners.

The interactional approach to image repair offers a new theoretical frame for the understanding of crisis management in interview situations. The approach especially highlights the importance of journalists’ questions in image repair work.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the differences in image repair strategies adopted by two governments that operate in the Western and Asian societies when faced with similar crises.

Textual analyses are presented of communication of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Morakot by the Taiwanese and US governments, respectively.

Faced with similar accusations of slow response, the Asian culture, represented by the Taiwanese Government, used predominantly mortification and corrective action strategies. The Western culture, represented by the US Government, used predominantly bolstering and defeasibility and a mixed bag of other strategies such as shifting the blame and attack the accuser.

A limitation of the study is that it depends on news reports, instead of news releases and speeches, for analysis. However, given the rapidity and volatility in the unfolding drama of each of the two crises, many of the comments made were to the media and not in prepared speeches. It is a limitation the authors accept.

Strategies reflected Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance and power distance dimensions. These dimensions should be considered when designing communication strategies in different cultures so as to be culturally sensitive and relevant.

Few, if any, studies on image repair theory have addressed the role of culture in strategies used. This study fills the gap by integrating Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory.

This study argues that online user comments on social media platforms provide feedback and evaluation functions. These functions can provide services for the relevant departments of organizations or institutions to formulate corresponding public opinion response strategies.

This study considers Chinese universities’ public opinion events on the Weibo platform as the research object. It collects online comments on Chinese universities’ network public opinion governance strategy texts on Weibo, constructs the sentiment index based on sentiment analysis and evaluates the effectiveness of the network public opinion governance strategy adopted by university officials.

This study found the following: First, a complete information release process can effectively improve the effect of public opinion governance strategies. Second, the effect of network public opinion governance strategies was significantly influenced by the type of public opinion event. Finally, the effect of public opinion governance strategies is closely related to the severity of punishment for the subjects involved.

The theoretical contribution of this study lies in the application of image repair theory and strategies in the field of network public opinion governance, which further broadens the scope of the application of image repair theory and strategies.

This study expands online user comment research to network public opinion governance and provides a quantitative method for evaluating the effect of governance strategies.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2022-0269

Cyber-attacks that generate technical disruptions in organisational operations and damage the reputation of organisations have become all too common in the contemporary organisation. This paper explores the reputation repair strategies undertaken by organisations in the event of becoming victims of cyber-attacks.

For developing the authors’ contribution in the context of the Internet service providers' industry, the authors draw on a qualitative case study of TalkTalk, a British telecommunications company providing business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) Internet services, which was a victim of a “significant and sustained” cyber-attack in October 2015. Data for the enquiry is sourced from publicly available archival documents such as newspaper articles, press releases, podcasts and parliamentary hearings on the TalkTalk cyber-attack.

The findings suggest a dynamic interplay of technical and rhetorical responses in dealing with cyber-attacks. This plays out in the form of marshalling communication and mortification techniques, bolstering image and riding on leader reputation, which serially combine to strategically orchestrate reputational repair and stigma erasure in the event of a cyber-attack.

Analysing a prototypical case of an organisation in dire straits following a cyber-attack, the paper provides a systematic characterisation of the setting-in-motion of strategic responses to manage, revamp and ameliorate damaged reputation during cyber-attacks, which tend to negatively shape the evaluative perceptions of the organisation's salient audience.

Ireland is viewed as the shining base for Catholicism. That image is shattered as survivors revealed the abuse in the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, and sexual abuse by priests. This study aims to examine image repair efforts by the Pope during his August 2018 visit.

Examined against the Letter of His Holiness released days earlier, this study evaluates all the Pope's speeches during his visit to Ireland using the image repair theory (Benoit and Pang, 2008) as its theoretical lens.

Pope Francis used the evasion of responsibility strategy to address the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes scandal and denial, corrective action and mortification for sex abuse crisis.

Addresses call by Ferguson et al. (2018) to examine the consistency and effectiveness of strategies.

Beyond rhetoric, stakeholders would be looking to organizational leaders to provide relief and concrete steps to recover from their pain.

A leader's narratives represent the organization's narratives; thus, insights from this study can help leaders plan what they should say when conducting image repair. It is not just their own reputations that are on the line but, in this case, it is also the reputations of the people they represent

A good corporate image is important to organizations. However, little is elaborated on how organizations can work on their images. This study seeks to explicate the types of image management before, during, and after a crisis through the development of the crisis pre‐emptive image management model.

Integrating insights from communication and marketing literature, this paper uses cases from the USA, Europe and Asia to make the concepts come alive.

At each stage of Wilcox and Cameron's crisis life cycle, different types of image management can take place. At the proactive stage are image creation and maintenance; at the strategic stage are image strengthening and transformation; at the reactive stage is image repair; and at the recovery stage are image renewal and reinvention.

This paper is a comprehensive examination of the types of image management that organizations can consider as they seek to solidify their images at different stages of the organizations' existence.

This study demonstrates what organizations can do to communicate their desired images through multiple platforms with the aim of heightening their awareness of the profound effects lingering images have on the organization.

While certain concepts like image creation and maintenance and image repair have been explored before, this paper introduces new concepts like image strengthening, image transformation, image renewal, image reinvention, and enduring image with the view of demonstrating how image can work for or against the organization.

This paper aims to examine the impact that brand transgressions, and the effect of an apology or lack thereof, have on consumers’ intentions to co-create with a brand, perceived brand equity and brand love, and compares these effects on brands that are viewed positively versus brands that are viewed negatively.

Two studies were deployed. In the first study, a 2 × 2 between subjects factorial design using fictitious brands is used to test the hypotheses. The second study seeks to replicate the findings of the first study by using a brand connected to a real retailer.

Regardless of a brand issuing an apology or not, co-creation, higher perceived brand equity and increased levels of brand love, are more likely to occur when a consumer views a brand as being positive versus negative. However, the results vary when the consumer has a prior level of knowledge and a stronger relationship with a brand.

This paper focuses on consumers between the ages of 18 and 29 years. While the findings of Study 1 are mostly replicated in Study 2, a more generalizable sample could create additional insights into the impact of brand transgressions and issuing or not an apology.

The findings of this paper add to the current literature on co-creation, brand equity, brand love and theory of reasoned action, in terms of the impact of an apology, or lack thereof, on brand transgressions and consequent consumer responses.