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Relational immunity? Examining relationship as crisis shield
Author(s) -
Smith Brian G.,
Krishna Arunima,
Smith Staci B.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5973.12324
Subject(s) - empathy , perception , crisis communication , scholarship , social psychology , blame , extant taxon , psychology , stakeholder , construct (python library) , political science , public relations , neuroscience , evolutionary biology , computer science , law , biology , programming language
This study examined the influence of a crisis on relational perceptions and the role of an empathetic response from stakeholders by investigating students’ perceptions of their relationship with a university following an on‐campus shooting. Findings show that despite the generally positive relationship, the university maintains with its students, the crisis had a negative impact on the students’ perceptions of their relationship with the university. Furthermore, results show how emotions, especially empathy, about an organization in a crisis situation can influence stakeholder relationships. This research helps provide nuance to the extant scholarship on crisis and emotions by introducing stakeholder empathy as a theoretical construct. Results also demonstrate that crisis managers who invest in relationship building before a crisis may elicit empathy more than blame in a crisis and may emerge with less relational damage.