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1 – 10 of 566Brianna Rea, Yong J. Wang and Jason Stoner
The purpose of this study is to investigate differences in consumer reactions to high- versus low-equity brands in terms of consumer attitude toward the brand, involvement with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate differences in consumer reactions to high- versus low-equity brands in terms of consumer attitude toward the brand, involvement with the brand, company credibility and consumer purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
Experimental procedure is conducted to test three hypotheses using 317 consumer participants. The experiment is carried out comparing a high-equity personal computer (PC) brand and a low-equity PC brand involved in product-harm crisis.
Findings
The results indicate that, in the case of product-harm crisis, negative consumer perceptions regardless of brand equity level; less negative perceptions for a high-equity brand than for a low-equity brand; and smaller loss in consumer perceptions for a high-equity brand than for a low-equity brand.
Research limitations/implications
The findings highlight the importance of brand equity in crisis management explained by covariation theory of attributions.
Practical implications
Although product-harm crisis is inevitable for many firms, continuous investment in brand equity can mitigate the negative consequences.
Originality/value
Product-harm crisis can pose serious consequences for firms on both financial and intangible dimensions. Given the occurrence of numerous product-harm crises involving both reputable and less known brands, it is important to consider potential influences of brand equity on consumer reactions to such crisis.
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David H. Silvera, Tracy Meyer and Daniel Laufer
This article aims to examine differences between older and younger consumers in their reactions to a product harm crisis. Research suggests that motivational and cognitive changes…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to examine differences between older and younger consumers in their reactions to a product harm crisis. Research suggests that motivational and cognitive changes due to aging might cause information to be differentially utilized. The authors use primary and secondary control influences on information processing to explain why older consumers perceive themselves as less susceptible to the threats associated with a product harm crisis. This has important implications in terms of blame attributions, and marketing variables of interest such as purchase intentions and negative word of mouth.
Design/methodology/approach
Two studies were conducted in which participants were asked to read a short newspaper article about a product harm crisis and to respond to a series of questions. Participants were split into two groups based on age.
Findings
The empirical findings indicate that, compared with younger consumers, older consumers perceive product harm crises as less threatening, place less blame on the company, and have stronger intentions to purchase and recommend the product involved in the crisis.
Practical implications
The finding that the more physically vulnerable older population actually perceives themselves as less vulnerable to harm suggests that socially responsible companies should work harder to make older consumers aware of risks created by product harm crises when dealing with this increasingly important target market.
Originality/value
This research advances our understanding of differences between older and younger consumers, and adds another dimension to what it means to embrace the true essence of corporate social responsibility with regard to older consumers.
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Roberta Carolyn Crouch, Vinh Nhat Lu, Naser Pourazad and Chen Ke
Although international product-harm crises have become more common, the influence of the country image (CI) associated with foreign goods in such crises remains under researched…
Abstract
Purpose
Although international product-harm crises have become more common, the influence of the country image (CI) associated with foreign goods in such crises remains under researched. This study aims to investigate the extent to which the CI of a foreign made product influences consumers’ attribution of blame and trust and, ultimately, their future purchase intentions after the product is involved in a crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 (country) × 3 (crisis type) quasi experimental design was used, with data collected from Australia (n = 375) and China (n = 401).
Findings
CI can influence attribution of blame, subsequent levels of trust and likely purchase intentions. Australian and Chinese consumers have different views when it comes to trusting a company or placing blame, depending on the country of origin or the type of crisis. The direct and positive effect of CI on consumer purchase intentions following a product-harm crisis is sequentially mediated by attribution of blame and trust. Trust is the most powerful influence on future purchase intentions in both samples.
Research limitations/implications
In this research, only one type of crisis response strategy (no comment) was used. Thus, the results of this study must be viewed with caution when considering outcomes relating to other response options. Additionally, the testing was limited to only two samples, focussing on three countries (England, China, Vietnam), and one product context using a hypothetical brand. Further, despite our reasonable sample size (N = 776), the number of respondents represented in each cell would still be considered a limitation overall.
Practical implications
When developing crisis response strategies, managers should take into account the influence of a positive/negative source CI in driving attribution and trust. To minimize the impact of crisis on future purchasing decisions, organizations can leverage positive biases and mitigate negative ones, aiming to maintain or restore trust as a priority.
Originality/value
The study provides cross-country understanding about the significant role of CI during a product-harm crisis in relation to subsequent consumers’ blame attribution, their trust in the focal organization and ultimately their future purchase intentions.
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Sungha Jang, Jinsoo Kim, Reo Song and Ho Kim
Actual product-harm crises pose significant challenges to firms, but so can defaming product-harm crises, which are defined as crises caused by false or malicious rumors made by…
Abstract
Purpose
Actual product-harm crises pose significant challenges to firms, but so can defaming product-harm crises, which are defined as crises caused by false or malicious rumors made by consumers or competing firms. Unlike typical product-harm crises, in defaming product-harm crises, the truth often emerges only after substantial damage has been done to the victim firm. Thus, crisis management strategies in these two cases may be different. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a defaming product-harm crisis that involved two competing firms, this paper examines how the firms changed their advertising strategies and how the changes affected consumers’ online search behavior regarding the two firms.
Findings
The analyses show that after the crisis, the offending firm sensitively reacted to its own and the victim firm’s advertising levels, but the victim firm did not react to the offending firm’s advertising as it had previously. The effectiveness of advertising on consumers’ online search weakened for both firms after the crisis.
Originality/value
The paper provides a new insight about marketing strategies and their effectiveness in the product-harm crisis literature.
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Rubing Bai, Baolong Ma, Zhichen Hu and Hong Wang
This paper aims to explore whether products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more from the effects of product-harm crises than other brands. Most studies on handwritten…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore whether products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more from the effects of product-harm crises than other brands. Most studies on handwritten scripts focus on their positive effects, such as humanizing a product or creating an emotional tie with consumers. However, seldom have researchers investigated the negative effects of handwritten scripts. This paper goes some way to filling this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
Five experimental studies were conducted to test three hypotheses. These experiments provide evidence of the negative effects of handwritten scripts. In addition, they reveal the mechanisms that lead to these outcomes and outline the boundary conditions of the negative effects.
Findings
Framed by attribution theory, three conclusions can be drawn from the experiments: when a product-harm crisis occurs, consumers react with greater negativity toward the brand using handwritten scripts than to those using machine typefaces. The negative effect is explained by a serial mediation process that follows the pattern: typeface → perceived humanization → brand responsibility → brand attitude. The negative effect decreases when the crisis is perceived to be an accident.
Originality/value
This paper enriches the theory of marketing in terms of both handwritten scripts and product-harm crises, providing valuable guidance for enterprises that use handwritten scripts in their marketing activities.
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George Siomkos, Amalia Triantafillidou, Aikaterini Vassilikopoulou and Ioannis Tsiamis
Product‐harm crises have become an almost familiar phenomenon in today's business environment as technology becomes more vulnerable. Even if a product‐harm crisis is associated…
Abstract
Purpose
Product‐harm crises have become an almost familiar phenomenon in today's business environment as technology becomes more vulnerable. Even if a product‐harm crisis is associated with the company that manufactured the defective product, the entire industry may be affected. Not only consumers of the affected company, but also consumers of competitors are affected by the crisis. The paper seeks to deal mainly with the situation of competitors and examines the potential opportunities and threats that may arise when another company in the same industry faces a product‐harm crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
For the purposes of this paper, an experiment was conducted that relied on four important influential factors of crisis management (i.e. corporate reputation, crisis scope, external effects, and organisational responses). The crisis was described through a hypothetical scenario. Consumer attitudes towards competitive products were used to determine impending prospects and threats.
Findings
The paper's results demonstrate that consumers are very receptive in buying competitor brands, especially when the extent of the crisis was medium or high and the company involved in the crisis had shown low levels of social responsibility.
Originality/value
Previous research studies on crisis management mainly focus on the affected company and how it confronted the crisis. The paper approaches crisis management from the competitor's perspective. Because a crisis may influence the entire sector, adequate preparation and effective crisis management skills are essential assets for competitors.
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Camilla Barbarossa, Patrick De Pelsmacker and Ingrid Moons
The purpose of this paper is to investigate “how” and “when” the stereotypes of competence and warmth, that are evoked by a foreign company’s country-of-origin (COO), affect blame…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate “how” and “when” the stereotypes of competence and warmth, that are evoked by a foreign company’s country-of-origin (COO), affect blame attributions and/or attitudes toward a company’s products when a company is involved in a product-harm crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
Study 1 (n=883) analyzes the psychological mechanisms through which perceived COO competence and warmth differently affect blame attributions and evaluative responses. Study 2 (n=1,640) replicates Study 1’s findings, and it also investigates how consumer ethnocentrism, animosity toward a country, and product category characteristics moderate the hypothesized COO’s effects.
Findings
COO competence leads to more favorable attitudes toward the involved company’s products. This effect increases when the company sells high-involvement or utilitarian products. COO warmth leads to more favorable attitudes toward the involved company’s products directly as well as indirectly by diminishing blame attributions. These effects increase when consumers are highly ethnocentric, or the animosity toward a foreign country is high.
Originality/value
This paper frames the investigation of COO stereotypes in a new theoretical and empirical setting, specifically, a product-harm crisis. It demonstrates that consumers differently evaluate a potential wrongdoing company and its harmful products in a product-harm crisis based on their perceptions of a company’s COO competence and warmth. Finally, it defines the moderating effects of individual, consumer-country-related and product characteristics on the hypothesized COO effects.
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Melissa Yi-Ting Hsu and Julian Ming-Sung Cheng
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of gender on the neural substrates of theories on consumer behavior (i.e. the original compared with the revised versions of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of gender on the neural substrates of theories on consumer behavior (i.e. the original compared with the revised versions of consumer learning [CL] theory) and to examine whether gender influences brain activation associated with word-of-mouth (WOM) communications (i.e. information specificity, source expertise and tie strength) after a product harm crisis. This article also discusses the WOM effects of product quality perception, negative emotion and purchase intentions by precise localizing brain activity.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity (i.e. the blood oxygen level-dependent signal) during WOM communication after a product harm crisis.
Findings
The male participants treat the product quality as a constant and tend to support the original CL theory. The female participants, however, showed differentiable brain activation across three factors, suggesting a dynamic representation for product quality (i.e. not a constant), and they appear to be more sensitive to the revised CL theory.
Originality/value
This paper concluded that the original CL theory applies to males and the revised version applies to females. Therefore, gender determines whether the original or the revised version of the CL theory works in consumers’ decision-making, and the extant of research has not focused on the information after a product harm crisis in terms of whether the information being communicated is specific or tensile through WOM communication.
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Ursula Haas‐Kotzegger and Bodo B. Schlegelmilch
Consumers are constantly confronted with negative information on defective or dangerous products (product‐harm crisis): the car does not stop at the red light due to faulty brakes…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumers are constantly confronted with negative information on defective or dangerous products (product‐harm crisis): the car does not stop at the red light due to faulty brakes or the t‐shirt causes the skin to itch. This research aims to provide a holistic picture of consumers' experience of product‐harm crises (p‐h c). The study sets out to investigate under which conditions consumers are impacted by the crisis and how they experience p‐h c in real‐life.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on in‐depth interviews with both experts and consumers in order to investigate factors influencing consumers' experience in crisis situations.
Findings
Based on in‐depth interviews, a theoretical model is developed that captures the impact of p‐h‐c on consumers. Impact consists of personal relevance and perceived severity of the crisis and is a prerequisite for consumers' response. The study finds evidence that the personal impact and the consumer response to crisis situations are influenced by the crisis context, consumer context and company context.
Research limitations/implications
Given the qualitative nature of the study, a quantitative approach should now be used to further substantiate the presented findings and validate the theoretical model.
Practical implications
Consumer response to crises is primarily influenced by the personal impact of the crisis. The nature of the crisis as well as consumer characteristics heavily influence the way a consumer is impacted by a crisis event.
Originality/value
This study illustrates the complexity of consumers' p‐h c experience and contributes to a better understanding of their behavior in p‐h c situations.
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Dirk Standop and Guido Grunwald
The purpose of this paper is to present the current empirical research examining communication, compensation and logistics as elements of product crises management in retailing.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the current empirical research examining communication, compensation and logistics as elements of product crises management in retailing.
Design/methodology/approach
The advantages and disadvantages of these three elements of crises response strategies are juxtaposed drawing on relevant empirical research. For each element of crises response the major findings of research are summarized and shown how it relates to crisis management. Needs for further research that would be necessary to solidify recommendations to retail managers are derived.
Findings
The investigation finds that both communicative and compensatory response elements as well as the retailer's logistics can positively influence evaluations of customers directly and indirectly affected by product problems thus enhancing brand equity. This in turn will serve to increase consumers' trust in the retailer that could win him new customers and generally benefit his reputation.
Research limitations/implications
Most of the discussed research rests on the assumption of a given (extraneous) crisis response strategy of the manufacturer. Potential problems concerning the co‐ordination or implementation of manufacturer and retailer strategies remain open to question. Additionally, further research should examine which strategies are appropriate to which crisis situation.
Practical implications
Materially, over‐compensating customers often has a detrimental effect on solving the crisis. The impact of different compensation types on crisis resolution mostly depends on their respective signalling capabilities, the product problem constituting the crisis and consumer attributions. The use and the effects of a communicative crisis response largely depend on moderating factors such as the retailer's reputation or the existence of strong retail brands and consumer expectations. Elements of logistics seem to support the effects of communication and compensation on crisis resolution but are hardly capable of solving a product‐harm crisis.
Originality/value
The role of retailers in product‐harm crisis management has been widely neglected in research although such crises are predominant. This paper outlines the current empirical work on how different crises response elements may contribute to solving a product‐harm crisis for retailers. It derives relevant avenues for further research as well as useful insights to practitioners considering to using such response elements in their own crisis management strategy.
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