Investigating of Consumer Emotions during Product-Harm Crises
Authors: Theofilou, A., Vassilikopoulou, A. and Skourtis, E.
Conference: Academy of Marketing 2011
Dates: 5-7 July 2011
Abstract:This paper attempts to explore the impact of three main product-harm crisis factors on consumer emotions. The three factors explored are: corporate reputation, crisis extent and company response. The experiment which was conducted for the needs of the paper used imaginary scenarios which were randomly assigned to 16 treatment groups (2 levels of crisis extent x 2 levels of corporate reputation x 4 levels of company response). Results indicate that consumer emotions are significantly affected by the explored product-harm crisis factors. Consumers feel higher levels of anger, sadness and fear when: a) a renowned company is involved and b) humans are severely injured. Moreover, respondents express stronger negative emotions when the company denies the responsibility. Taking into consideration the possibility that negative emotions may provoke specific action tendencies, the examination of factors that influence consumer emotions could help researchers and practitioners comprehend consumer reactions to a crisis and hence limit the negative outcomes of a crisis.
http://www.academyofmarketing.org/conference-2011/2011.html
Source: Manual
Preferred by: Anastasios Theofilou