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Article
Publication date: 9 August 2011

Yvonne Siew‐Yoong Low, Jeni Varughese and Augustine Pang

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…

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Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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.

Practical implications

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.

Originality/value

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.

Article
Publication date: 17 June 2021

Augustine Pang, Eada Hogan and Igor Andrasevic

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…

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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

Practical implications

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

Originality/value

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

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 27 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 January 2009

Frank Dardis and Michel M. Haigh

Image restoration theory has become a dominant paradigm for examining corporate communication in times of crises. However, much insight gleaned from scholarly research in this…

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Abstract

Purpose

Image restoration theory has become a dominant paradigm for examining corporate communication in times of crises. However, much insight gleaned from scholarly research in this area remains descriptive – simply recounting how certain corporations or companies communicated during times of crisis – rather than prescriptive. Therefore, to provide more direct guidance to corporations and organizations, this paper offers the first empirical test of Benoit's five image restoration strategies vis‐à‐vis each other simultaneously within the context of a single crisis situation.

Design/methodology/approach

An experimental investigation that measures consumers' reactions to differentially manipulated crisis‐communication messages. Methods of data analysis include ANOVA and post hoc comparisons of means.

Findings

Results indicate that the strategy of reducing the offensiveness of the event consistently led to higher reputation‐related perceptions of a company than did the other four strategies – denial, evasion of responsibility, corrective action, and mortification – when implemented during a product‐harm crisis situation.

Practical implications

Findings have direct implications for corporate communicators and the organizations they represent in developing and implementing crisis‐communication strategies.

Originality/value

This paper offers an original test of all image restoration strategies within the context of a single crisis. In addition to providing clearer guidelines to practitioners, such inquiry also accelerates the transfer of image restoration theory from the realm of retrospection and description to that of prescription and inference.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 July 2012

Göran Eriksson and Mats Eriksson

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…

2027

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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).

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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.

Practical implications

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.

Originality/value

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.

Details

Journal of Communication Management, vol. 16 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-254X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Young Women's Carceral Geographies: Abandonment, Trouble and Mobility
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-050-9

Article
Publication date: 12 October 2010

Michel M. Haigh and Pamela Brubaker

The paper aims to test Benoit's five image restoration strategies to examine how each strategy impacts perceptions of the organization‐public relationship (OPR) and corporate…

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to test Benoit's five image restoration strategies to examine how each strategy impacts perceptions of the organization‐public relationship (OPR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It also examines how the strategy used impacts the credibility of the source cited in the crisis response message.

Design/methodology/approach

An experiment measures stakeholders' reactions to the different crisis messages and the messages' impact on perceptions of the OPR, CSR, and source credibility measures.

Findings

Results indicate the reducing the offensiveness strategy led to higher perceptions of the OPR and CSR. The image restoration strategy employed does impact stakeholders' perceptions of the credibility of the source.

Practical implications

The paper indicates organizations should try to bolster, minimize, transcend, and differentiate when preparing crisis messages during a product recall crisis. These types of messages protect the OPR and perceptions of CSR.

Originality/value

It adds to the experimental literature (whereas previous research uses cases studies). It expands Dardis and Haigh by examining the impact image restoration strategies have on OPR and CSR. It also extends current literature by examining the source of the message and how the image restoration strategy employed impacts the credibility of the source.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2002

Heather Höpfl

This is a paper about the cinematic as spectacle and the construction of the sublime. It is concerned with gendered constructions of desire and construes the object of desire in…

1946

Abstract

This is a paper about the cinematic as spectacle and the construction of the sublime. It is concerned with gendered constructions of desire and construes the object of desire in this case as a sublime object. At the same time, the paper is about decadence and falling, falling away. Therefore, this piece of writing attempts to deal with some thoughts on the relationship between decadence and mortification. So this paper is also about distance and about movement, about kinema (Greek movement) and the distance that is described by falling from the constructed sublime and its associated melancholy. These ideas are explored via an examination of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most powerful films, Vertigo (1958), and a notion of the tragic sublime. Taken together, the concept of the sublime and the narrative of the film provide insights into the melancholy of commodified representations in the obsessive‐compulsive pursuit of organisational idealisation.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 15 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Young Women's Carceral Geographies: Abandonment, Trouble and Mobility
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-050-9

Article
Publication date: 26 May 2023

Derrick Boakye, David Sarpong, Dirk Meissner and George Ofosu

Cyber-attacks that generate technical disruptions in organisational operations and damage the reputation of organisations have become all too common in the contemporary…

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Originality/value

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.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 37 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 8 October 2013

Sheri L. Erickson, Mary Stone and Marsha Weber

This case study analyzes Countrywide Financial’s responses to its recent financial crisis and illustrates the use of communication theory and image restoration strategies by…

Abstract

This case study analyzes Countrywide Financial’s responses to its recent financial crisis and illustrates the use of communication theory and image restoration strategies by utilizing several crisis response frameworks. The study uses a critical analysis methodology to examine the communication strategies employed by Countrywide, a large mortgage lending company in order to attempt to restore its image. The authors look at excerpts from media stories, carefully examine the language used by company representatives in response to the banking crisis, and categorize the corporate communications into various strategies as defined in the crisis communication literature. Countrywide faced several crisis situations during the period of this study, including the subprime mortgage crisis, public criticism of its CEO’s executive compensation package, allegations of insider trading, and financial difficulties. Corporate responses are critical in determining what amount of damage is done to the firm’s image during a crisis. Countrywide responded to these situations most often using the strategies of image bolstering, reducing the credibility of its accuser, and minimizing the crisis (Benoit, 1995). Through these communications, the company attempted to appear well established and untarnished. It also criticized the media, the courts, and the regulators in an attempt to reduce their credibility. Countrywide made no deliberate attempt to admit fault or to take measures to prevent the problem from reoccurring.

Details

Managing Reality: Accountability and the Miasma of Private and Public Domains
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-618-8

Keywords

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