Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932 934 [624320]

Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932– 934
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Public Relations Review
Research in brief
Corporate apology and crisis communication: The effect of
responsibility
admittance and sympathetic expression on public’s
anger
relief
Suman Leea,∗, Surin Chungb,1
aGreenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, 204B Hamilton Hall, Ames, IA 50011, United States
bKPR & Associates, 31-7 Jangchung-Dong, Chung-Ku, Seoul, Republic of Korea
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received
20 February 2012
Received
in revised form 13 July 2012
Accepted
7 August 2012
Keywords:Corporate apology
Crisis
communication
ResponsibilitySympathya b s t r a c t
An online experiment was constructed as a 2 × 2 factorial design of independent variables
(active-passive responsibility admittance vs. high-low sympathetic expression) on public’s
anger relief with between-subjects comparison. An apology statement with active respon-
sibility was more likely to relieve public anger than an apology statement with passive
responsibility. There was no difference on public anger relief between a highly sympathetic
apology statement and its counterpart. In the organization-public relationship, people may
not show the same mercy to the organization as they do to other people.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Organizations are vulnerable to unpredictable crises in their relationship with publics. Product recalls, disasters, accidents
and CEO’s corruption scandals are some of those crisis situations that organizations may face. Whenever a crisis caused by
an organization happens, organizations usually apologize for the situation, admit their mistakes directly or indirectly, and
ultimately try to relieve publics’ anger to protect organization’s reputation.
The effectiveness of corporate apology is affected by numerous factors, such as accepting responsibility, expression of
remorse/sympathy, compensation, and assurance (Benoit & Drew, 1997; Patel & Reinsch, 2003 ). Several studies indicated
that whether or not an apology contains such components determines the level of forgiveness it achieves, the amount of
anger victims feel, and organizational reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Scher & Darley, 1997; Tedeschi & Riordan,
1981 ). Accordingly, if an apology does not include proper components, it could be perceived as superficial and insincere to
the eyes of public.
A missing element from the previous studies on the components of corporate apology, however, is a lack of attention
to the degree of each component (responsibility, sympathy, compensation, and assurance). Many previous studies tested
people’s forgiveness and apology acceptance based not on different degree (e.g., high vs. low) of each apology component
but on presence or absence (dummy variable) of apology component. The key question is not only whether a company admits
responsibility and expresses sympathy in apology statement, but also how much it says so. Therefore, this study posits the
following hypotheses and a research question:
∗Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 515 294 0496.
E-mail addresses: [anonimizat] (S. Lee), [anonimizat]m (S. Chung).
1Tel.: +82 70 8248 6489.
0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.08.006

S. Lee, S. Chung / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932– 934 933
Hypothesis 1. An apology statement with active responsibility is more likely to relieve public anger than an apology
statement with passive responsibility.
Hypothesis 2. An apology statement with a high level of sympathy is more likely to relieve public anger than an apology
statement with a low level of sympathy.
Research question . Is there an interaction effect between responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression of corporate
apology on public anger relief?
2. Method
A total of 5000 undergraduate students were randomly selected at a large research university in Midwest. The invitation
was sent out and the response rate was 3.3%. When subjects click the link, they read a fictional news article about an oil spill
accident by a company called Marco Oil & Energy. After reading a news report, people were asked to answer about their
feelings of anger toward Marco Oil & Energy. Subsequently, the subjects read one of the four types of apology statement.
Each apology statement reflects a specific combination of responsibility admittance (active vs. passive) and sympathetic
expression (high vs. low). After reading an apology statement, the subjects were asked to express their feelings of anger
toward the company again.
In the active responsibility statement, it is clearly mentioned that the organization is responsible for the crisis and takes
its responsibility on the misdeed. In the passive responsibility statement, an organization expresses its concern about the
crisis situation and says perfunctory responsibility statements instead of directly admitting its responsibility. In the high
level of sympathy statement, the company expresses emotional words that it felt as if the victim’s feelings were its own and
tries to share many of the same feelings on the victims’ experiences. In the low level of sympathy statement, the company
expresses its understanding what the problems are in the crisis and what is bothering the victims. All four types of apology
statements are six to eight lines long and contain a similar number of words.
The degree of anger was measured by the average of five items: (1) angry; (2) mad; (3) irritated; (4) annoyed; and (5)
outraged. Participants answered the question “To what extent do you feel toward the Marco Oil & Energy?” Ratings
were made on seven-point scales ranging from “1 = not at all” to “7 = very much.” Cronbach alpha reliability check showed
.94 after reading news report and .96 after reading apology statement. The degree of anger relief was calculated by D-score of
two average anger scores measured after reading a news article and apology statements respectively. Zero means no anger
relief, positive score means anger relief, and negative one does anger increase.
3.
Results
Among all respondents, there were more female respondents (53%) than male respondents (47%). The majority (95%) of
the respondents were 18–25 years old. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was conducted to check main effects of
responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression, and interaction effect on public’s anger relief. There was a significant
difference of anger relief (F = 9.26; p = .003) between the group of active responsibility statement (M = .69; SD = 1.28; n = 81)
and the one of passive responsibility statement (M = .16; SD = 54; n = 66). Hypothesis 1 was confirmed. Analysis of variance
(ANOVA) test showed that there was no significant difference of anger relief (F = .62, p = 43) between the group of high
sympathy statement (M = .53; SD = 1.21; n = 79) and the one of low sympathy statement (M = .36; SD = .80; n = 68). Hypothesis
2 was not confirmed. There was no interaction effect between responsibility admittance and sympathetic expression of
apology statement on respondents’ anger relief (F = 2.50; p = .12).
4. Discussion
Interestingly enough, people sensitively detected the difference between active responsibility and passive responsibility
even though two statements were slightly different in linguistic expression. Since the oil spill accident was clearly caused
by Marco Oil & Energy, an apology statement with passive responsibility may appear defensive or morally unacceptable to
people. Therefore, publics negatively respond to organization’s passive responsibility admittance when the organizational
responsibility is apparent in a crisis.
Sympathetic expression did not turn out as a significant factor to relieve public’s anger, differently from the previous
studies (e.g., Coombs & Holladay, 2008 ). One possible explanation is that previous studies compared the dependent vari-
able based on too simple conditions: apology with sympathy vs. apology without sympathy. This study used sympathetic
expression as high and low condition. Even though respondents captured the difference between high and low sympathetic
expressions, it was not good enough to create a significant difference on anger relief. The effect of sympathetic expressions
on anger relief could be influenced by other factors. In close interpersonal relationships, people tend to forgive other people
when they hear a sincere apology. However, in the organization-public relationship, people may not show the same mercy
to the organization as they do to other people. As people generally do not trust big corporations, they may cast a big doubt on
the truthfulness of corporation’s sympathetic apology and disregard it as a flowery rhetoric. An organization has to carefully
consider the employment of high sympathy in relation to responsibility admittance.

934 S. Lee, S. Chung / Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 932– 934
This study brought in new elements to the previous crisis communication studies by introducing elaborated variations of
two key apology components: (1) active vs. passive responsibility admittance and (2) high vs. low sympathetic expression.
The most common way to measure these variables in other studies was dummy coding (presence or absence of responsibility
admittance and sympathetic expression). By measuring people’s anger levels at two different time points (after reading a
news report and after reading an apology statement), this study tried to advance anger measurement from the previous
studies, which mostly measured anger only once. The level of public’s anger toward an organization changes over time and
this study paid attention to that dynamic even though using a limited experiment setting.
References
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