Sympathy Toward a Company Facing Disaster: Examining the Interaction Effect Between Internal Attribution and Role Similarity

Abstract

In this article, we propose that bystanders who make a higher (as compared with lower) level of internal attributions for a disaster at another company (i.e., when they blame company management more for the disaster) become less likely to sympathize with that company’s management and also less likely to use voice to try to improve their own organization. We propose that this relationship is particularly true for bystanders whose work roles are highly similar to those of employees who experienced the disaster firsthand. We collected samples from companies in industries that experienced two real-world crises: (a) travel agencies in Taiwan responding to a landslide that killed a group of tourists being served by another travel agency and (b) supervisor/subordinates from a Taiwanese power company responding to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The results support our hypotheses.