Abstract
Past research on scapegoating argues that this crisis communication strategy is often ineffective because it can be perceived as an unfair attempt at shifting blame. In contrast, a few studies have shown that scapegoating can be effective by increasing the perceived ethicality of the sender relative to the target that is presented as responsible for wrongdoing. Reconciling these inconsistent findings, we show that the relative effectiveness of scapegoating depends on the perceptions of the sender and of the target. Our findings show that both the positioning of the sender as an underdog or a top dog and the positive or negative CSR record of the target contribute to explaining the effectiveness of scapegoating. Following a crisis, scapegoating appears to be most effective when the sender is an underdog and the target has a negative CSR record. The effectiveness of scapegoating for an underdog is however reduced when the target has a positive CSR record. At the opposite end, scapegoating might backfire when the sender is a top dog that attacks a target with a positive CSR record. Finally, when a top dog attacks a target with a negative CSR record, scapegoating reduces negative word of mouth even though this effect does not appear to be mediated by perceived ethicality. The study contributes to research on scapegoating communications and on the consequences of an underdog positioning and a positive CSR record for companies trying to manage the negative fallout from an ethical crisis.
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Notes
Perspectives vary as to the ethicality of scapegoating (Kent and Boatwright, 2018). Scholars agree that scapegoating should not be used to target a partner that is not responsible for wrongdoing (Antonetti and Baghi, 2019; Coombs, 2015). Nonetheless, in circumstances where the company is genuinely not responsible for the crisis, scapegoating appears an acceptable crisis communication strategy (Antonetti and Baghi, 2019).
A post hoc power analysis was conducted using G*Power3 (Faul et al., 2007) to test the difference between eight independent group means using an F-test, a medium effect size (f2 V = .06), and an alpha of .05. Results showed that the experimental design achieves a power of .99.
We control that the manipulation of sender positioning does not influence the perception of the target. Results show that the underdog/top dog manipulation of the sender does not affect perceived CSR record of the target (Munderdog = 3.45, Mtop dog = 3.77, t (402) = 1.54, p > .05, d = .15). We also check that the manipulation of the target does not influence the perception of sender positioning (Mpositive CSR = 4.74, Mnegative CSR = 4.81, t (402) = .46, p > .05, d = .04). Finally we control that the positioning of the sender does not influence perceived scapegoating of the target (Munderdog = 4.95, Mtop dog = 5.17, t (402) = 1.70, p > .05, d = .17) and that the CSR record of the target does not influence perceived scapegoating of the target (Mpositive CSR = 5.04, Mnegative CSR = 5.09, t (402) = .36, p > .05, d = .04). All manipulations used in the study were independent.
The independent variable was coded 0 for apology and 1 for scapegoating. Similarly, we coded as 0 top dog positioning/negative CSR record and 1 underdog positioning/positive CSR record. We used 10,000 bootstrap estimation resamples and included gender and age as covariates in the analysis. The effect of age on perceived ethicality was statistically significant: .10, p = .05. All other effects of the covariates were not statistically significant. We report unstandardized coefficients.
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Antonetti, P., Baghi, I. How the sender’s positioning and the target’s CSR record influence the effectiveness of scapegoating crisis communications. Mark Lett 32, 411–423 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-021-09577-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-021-09577-5