효과적인 기업위기 대응전략에 관한 연구: 위기유형, 위기 심각성, 대응유형과 대응시점의 역할을 중심으로

Abstract

Corporate crisis an omnipresent phenomenon in today's marketplace. Such crises can cause major revenue and market share losses, lead to costly product recalls, and destroy carefully nurtured brand equity (Cleeren et al., 2013). In particular, today’s rapid spread of information through various communication sources inhere not only positive aspect but also substantial threats, resulting in more serious consequences from the negative aspects. This gives more weight to negative news than positive news, because product reviews perceived by more people are diagnosed with surprise on the negative news (Herr et al., 1991). The audience also tends to trust these media, the more they trust, the more severe damage is caused by the crisis (Cleeren et al., 2013). Therefore, researchers propose that the strategic response is extremely necessary to equip the crisis response system (Dutta and Pullig, 2011). Most of the previous studies related to the corporate crisis advocate the establishment of an effective crisis system. In other words, a number of previous studies on the use of 'how (coping strategy)' in accordance with 'What event (type of crisis)' can effectively restore the reputation of the corporation (이상경, 이명천, 2007; 최윤형, 최세나, 2013; Dutta and Pullig, 2011; Ferrin et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2004; Lei et al., 2012; Sung et al., 2013; Vassilikopoulou et al., 2009). But unlike previous research this study, focuses on how an effective response to 'what event (crisis type),' 'What situations (crisis severity), ‘When (corresponding time strategy),' ' ‘how (coping type strategy)' will be able to configure the corresponding strategic crisis response system. Therefore, corporate need to determine how effective these corresponding 'What event (crisis type),' 'What situations (crisis severity),' 'how (coping type strategy)'. Thus, the present study employed a 2 (crisis type: competence violation vs. integrity violation) x 2(crisis severity: high severity vs. low severity) x 2(coping type strategy: apology vs. denial) x 2(corresponding time: immediate response vs. delayed response) between-subjects design, with control conditions, in order to test the hypotheses. The dependent variable is corporate attitudes and corporate image with controlled product involvement. Specifically, the results of the study are as follows. Firstly, unlike our reasoning, hypothesis 1 was rejected. It is because integrity crisis appeared to be more negative towards (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image than competence crisis. Secondly, hypothesis 2 was also rejected because of the crisis severity appeared to show no affect to the (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image. Thirdly, because of the conflicting results occurred in coping type strategies for integrity crisis, the hypothesis 3 was partially supported. For a competence violation, apology tends to effectively restores (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image than denial. Also, for an integrity violation, apology tends to effectively restores (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image than denial. Further, the hypothesis 4 was also partially supported. Although crisis severity and coping type strategies are not statistically significant, the crisis type, crisis severity and coping type strategies are significant. In particularly, when crisis severity is high, the corporate is more effective in its corporate attitudes and corporate image recovery unconditionally by sincere apology, regardless of the type of crisis. On the other hand, when the crisis severity is low, the competence crisis apology strategy is more effective than denial strategy. Further, when the crisis severity is low, with integrity crisis it shows that apology strategy and denial strategy both are not significant for (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image. Hence, the following is the effect of the corresponding time. The predicted interaction effect between crisis type(H5) and crisis severity(H6) are not significant for (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image. These results regardless of the corresponding time, the type of crisis and crisis severity showed that people give priority to the apology or compensation. This study contributes new insights along with three dimensions: First, we identify the mixed results of previous studies. In other words, a sincere apology strategy is more effective regardless of the type of crisis in the efficacy of coping strategies according to the type of crisis (Support Sung et al.(2013) result.). Second, because apology strategy is the most effective strategy for the recovery of (a) corporate attitudes and (b) corporate image, regardless of the type of crisis and corresponding time, companies are encouraged toward sincere apology. Finally, if the corporate crisis is with high severity, it is recommended to address with sincere apology aggressively because it has a responsibility to consider the case as involving more than just corporate responsibility information. On the other side, if the crisis severity is low, the corporate can simply convey the objective explanation for the incident.