Spokesperson ethnicity research has shown that organizations can benefit from matching spokespersons to their target audiences. However, one facet of Japanese crisis communication can make this approach difficult for foreign organizations facing crises in Japan. The Japanese tendency to focus on collective-level causality and place blame with leaders through proxy logic, frequently forces CEOs into the role of crisis spokesperson. The current study utilized an experimental design to examine the effect of CEO ethnicity and language choice on how culturally matched and unmatched crisis responses were evaluated by a Japanese audience. Specifically, participants’ perceptions of ideological similarity, spokesperson credibility, and organizational reputation were compared between the Japanese CEO baseline and a Caucasian CEO speaking either in English or Japanese. The study found that the foreign CEO condition was evaluated more favorably across all measures independent of response match but found variations in the impact of choosing to forgo a translator in favor of delivering the response in Japanese.

中文翻译：

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CEO种族和语言选择对日本危机沟通的影响

发言人种族研究表明，组织可以通过使发言人与目标受众匹配而受益。但是，日本危机沟通的一个方面可能会使这种方法对于在日本面临危机的外国组织变得困难。日本人趋向于关注集体层面的因果关系，并通过代理逻辑对领导人负责，这经常迫使首席执行官担任危机发言人的角色。当前的研究使用实验设计来检验CEO种族和语言选择对日本听众如何评估文化匹配和非匹配危机应对的影响。具体来说，参与者对意识形态相似性的看法，发言人的信誉，在日本CEO基线与以英语或日语交谈的白种人CEO之间比较了组织和声誉。该研究发现，在所有与响应匹配无关的指标中，对外国CEO的条件进行了更有利的评估，但发现选择放弃翻译以支持以日语提供响应的影响会有所不同。