I am one of them: Examining crisis communication from an intergroup communication approach

Abstract

This study took an intergroup communication approach and examined how two types of social identities, namely organizational identity and shared ethnic identity with the victim, affect publics’ reactions to a crisis. Data collected via a quasi-experiment showed that organizational identity affects publics’ reactions, such that internal publics perceive the organization more positively and have less negative word-of-mouth intention. Internal publics feel guilty even if they are not personally responsible for the crisis. Publics do not react more negatively when their ethnic ingroup members are accidentally victimized. Organizations should mitigate the internal publics’ anger and guilt and also clarify that the crisis is nonethnicity-related when the victims happen to be ethnic minorities to avoid any misunderstanding of victims’ ethnic ingroup members.