The Effects of Response Strategies Used in Product-Harm Crisis on the Evaluation of the Product and Re-purchase Intention in Different Cultures: An Abstract

Abstract

Product-harm crises are becoming more widespread with each passing day, and these crises may cause many negative effects both on the firm/brand and stakeholders of the firm. Thus, managing a product-harm crisis is a challenging period, especially for the firms operating in different countries, since culture plays a vital role as a perceptual lens to shape and interpret information and other factors. As a matter of fact, cultural characteristics, namely uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism, could determine various aspects such as how individuals will evaluate firm strategies (proactive vs passive), whether they will attribute blame to the firm, how they will process information (functional or emotional) in their evaluations for the product and how their expectations differ according to the firms’ corporate reputation levels (high vs low). Therefore, two different studies with a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design were conducted. Study 1 was performed using the data obtained from Turkey selected as a collectivist structure with a high level of uncertainty avoidance country. It was concluded that blame attribution and negative emotions were serially mediated the effect of crisis response strategies on repurchase intention. Study 2 was conducted with the data obtained from the USA, which has an individualist structure and a low level of uncertainty avoidance; the functional evaluation was found to mediate the relevant process. Also, it was observed that corporate reputation had a moderating role on the indirect effect of firm strategies in both studies, where these effects also showed differences between studies depending on the culture. While proactive efforts of the firm with the high reputation level appreciated more in the collectivist and high level of uncertainty avoidance country, proactive efforts of the firm with the low reputation level provided better results in individualist and low level of uncertainty avoidance country. Theoretically, culture causes differentiation of individuals’ information processing, blame attribution, and perceptions of corporate reputation. Thus, practitioners are advised to understand the cultural characteristics of the market they serve for taking appropriate steps in the face of product-harm crisis, especially for creating the correct message content or offering satisfactory compensation.

This research has derived from the doctoral dissertation conducted under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Dr. F. Zeynep Özata and accepted by Anadolu University Graduate School of Social Sciences.

This research was supported by the Anadolu University Scientific Research Projects Commission under Grant [1908E140].