Browsing by Subject "Crisis communication"
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Item Evaluating a safety campaign as a form of renewal(2018-05-18) Crace, Ryan Douglas; Barbour, Joshua B.This study is an evaluative case study of the Be Safe campaign at the University of Texas at Austin. It measured the campaign’s outcome goals, which were to foster intentions to engage in safety behaviors, engage in conversations about safety, think about their safety, and feelings of renewal from the campaign. Correlations between feelings of renewal and the campaign’s outcome goals were measured. In this study, feelings of renewal are described as feeling positive and optimistic about campus safety as well as not looking back on past crises. This definition of renewal is crafted from the discourse of renewal literature. This study compared different message features of forty-three posters developed by the campaign. Posters were categorized into two types (posters with text-only and posters with text and visual components), and into three themes that promoted different safety behaviors. This study found that roughly half of the participants were familiar with the campaign, and those who were familiar with the campaign tended to view the campaign positively. This study also found that posters that contained only contained a textual element outperformed posters that contained a visual element along with a textual element on measures of intentions to change safety behaviors, intentions to engage in conversations about safety, intentions to think about safety, and understandability of the poster. Lastly, participants reported being optimistic and forward-looking about campus safety, but not avoiding looking back on past crises. The study contributes to theory by using discourse of renewal literature to develop a scale to measure renewal. The study contributes to practice by providing information on a unique safety campaign.Item Never easy to say "sorry" : exploring the interplay of crisis involvement, brand image and message framing in developing effective crisis responses(2014-05) Lee, So Young (Ph. D. in advertising); Atkinson, Lucinda; Drumwright, MinettePlanning and executing a crisis response strategy that includes successful and effective communication with stakeholders are essential for companies, organizations and governments in order to maintain their reputations and sustain brands following a crisis. To determine the effectiveness of crisis response communication in terms of consumers’ evaluation and information processing, this study experimentally examined the impact of crisis involvement and brand image and interaction effect in a corporate product harm crisis. Using fictitious scenarios to manipulate crisis involvement, brand image, and message framing, this study examines the effect of crisis response strategies (i.e., apology) on post-crisis attitudes toward a crisis brand and apology message, future purchase intention, and intention to engage in negative eWOM. Specifically, the study attempts to identify whether the interplay between these factors would increase the effectiveness of a company’s crisis response regarding consumers’ favorable attitudes and behavioral intentions. The results of the present research showed that the overall three-way interaction between crisis involvement, brand image, and message framing is significant. First, in the case of high crisis involvement, the combination of rational framing and symbolic brand image increases the effectiveness of the apology message, while the combination of emotional framing of crisis communication and functional brand image increases the effectiveness of the apology message. In contrast, in the case of low crisis involvement, the combination of rational framing and functional brand image increases the effectiveness of the apology message, while the combination of emotional framing and symbolic brand image increases the effectiveness of the apology message. In addition, the study suggests that crisis involvement and brand image have a primary effect on the efficacy of the apology message from the crisis company in terms of attitude towards the crisis brand and purchase intention. The study has significant practical implications in that the results indicate that practitioners can alleviate the consequences suffered in a crisis by employing a crisis response strategy that properly aligns crisis type with level of involvement. Following a crisis, it is necessary to communicate with consumers using proper response messaging that takes into consideration consumers’ crisis involvement, brand image and message framing.Item Unprecedented or unprepared? : exploring the role of organizations in motivating employee protective behaviors during a health crisis(2023-04-17) Tich, Kendall Paige; Stephens, Keri K.; Donovan, Erin; Treem, Jeffrey W; O'Connor, AmyThe world has experienced an increase in crises and disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, practitioners and scholars alike have looked for ways to prepare and empower people to understand risk, prepare for disasters, and protect themselves. During health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations, the government, public health officials, and the media shared information around safety measures and healthy behaviors (Kim & Kreps, 2020; Stephens, et al., 2020) to invoke positive behaviors such as taking protective action (Liu, et al., 2020; Stephens, et al., 2020). Guided by the use of Protection Motivation Theory (Maddux & Rogers, 1983), PMT, this study applied a new perspective to our understanding of risk communication and protective action-taking: incorporating the role of organizations in risk communication to understand how people intend to respond to threats, such as the COVID-19 health threat. The current study extended research in risk information seeking, risk and disaster preparedness, and protective behaviors taken during crises by drawing on variables in the PMT. The findings revealed that although organizational relationship variables are important in understanding protection motivation behaviors, it is the exposure of employees to messages about protective action and how satisfied they are with those messages that tell the story of an organization’s role in influencing employee behavior. The connectedness one feels to their organization (i.e. identification) and the behaviors of employees around them (i.e. norms), did not significantly influence employee protective action-taking above and beyond PMT variables. The application of PMT alongside organizational variables, led to a deeper understanding of the role organizations and message exposure play in helping employees take protective actions during a crisis. This provided an important space for organizational communication scholarship to contribute to the growing body of literature in risk and crisis communication. The purpose of this study was to understand the potential impact of organizational variables on engagement in protective behaviors, above and beyond the role that PMT variables play, during a health crisis. The results build upon our understanding of the role organizations can play in the crisis context and provide significant theoretical and practical implications for organizational and risk communication and the practice of communication during a crisis. This understanding of the role message exposure and organizational message satisfaction can play during crises can help organizations make communicative improvements with the hope that future efforts can facilitate and encourage a more prepared workforce so that an “unprecedented” crisis is prepared for and “precedented.”