The Effect of Overcompensation Information Frame on Brand Trust: The Interactive Ritual Chains Perspective

Abstract

Companies will provide overcompensation for some reasons in brand crisis, which means that companies have to consider how to frame the information of overcompensation. Is punishing offenders or compensate victims better? Based on the Interactive Ritual Chain Theory, this research debates the effect of overcompensation information frame on brand trust. We conduct experiment and find that, in performance-related crisis, the overcompensation framed in compensating victims will increase more brand trust than punishing offenders, and perceived benevolence mediates the effect; in value-related crisis, the overcompensation framed in punishing offenders will increase more brand trust than compensating victims, and perceived integrity mediates the effect. Implications and future research directions are discussed. Journal of Service Science and Management, 2017, 10, 13-27