ABSTRACT

This study expands the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) with rumor theory to examine the influence of online rumors on attribution of organizational crisis responsibility and attitude toward organization during a period of crisis uncertainty. Controlling for crisis issue involvement, findings from a three-group with control online experiment (N = 366) revealed that people tend to believe fact-based rumors more than rumors with subjective claims, leading to greater organizational blame and, consequently, more negative attitudes toward the organization. Findings extend the theoretical premise of rumor as postulated in SCCT with evidence that online rumors pose different levels of crisis attribution and reputational threat to organizations and suggest that organizational responses to fact-based rumors might need to be viewed beyond a victim-type crisis.

摘要

这项研究用谣言理论扩展了情境危机沟通理论（SCCT），以研究在不确定的危机时期在线谣言对组织危机责任的归属和对组织态度的影响。控制危机问题的参与，三组在线控制实验的结果（N= 366）表明，人们倾向于相信基于事实的谣言，而不是带有主观主张的谣言，从而导致更大的组织责任，因此，对组织的态度更加消极。研究结果扩展了SCCT所假设的谣言的理论前提，并提供了证据表明在线谣言对组织造成了不同程度的危机归因和声誉威胁，并表明，组织对基于事实的谣言的反应可能需要超越受害者型危机。