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COMMENTARY Apologia
and crisis
Why a concern for apologia communication
and crisis communication?
337
W. Timothy Coombs
Nicholson School of Communication, University of Central Florida,
Orlando, Florida, USA
Finn Frandsen
ASB Centre for Corporate Communication, Aarhus School of Business,
Aarhus, Denmark
Sherry J. Holladay
Nicholson School of Communication, University of Central Florida, Orlando,
Florida, USA, and
Winni Johansen
ASB Centre for Corporate Communication, Aarhus School of Business,
Aarhus, Denmark

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide context for and a preview of the content for the
special issue on corporate apologia.
Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is a review of literature relevant to crisis
communication and the role of apologia within this body of literature.
Findings – Apologia, a rhetoric of self-defense, has a strong connection in the creation and
development of crisis communication. Current research is moving beyond the parameters of apologia
but it remains a strong influence on the field. Future crisis communication research needs to explore
further the role of emotion if crisis communication and the implications of international crisis
communication. The various contributions the articles in the special issue provide for crisis
communication are reviewed as a means of previewing the special issue.
Practical implications – The paper provides lessons that crisis managers can apply when they
need to communicate during a crisis.
Originality/value – The paper provides insights into the development of crisis communication and
the role of apologia in that development.
Keywords Rhetoric, Corporate communications
Paper type General review

Corporations face a myriad of potential crises each day including explosions/fires,

harmful products, workplace violence, and management misconduct. As experts note,
crises are a matter of “when” and not “if” in corporate life. Even with active prevention Corporate Communications: An
programs, crises will happen. Managers, then, must be ready to respond to the crises International Journal
Vol. 15 No. 4, 2010
they cannot prevent. A crisis response, what management says and does after a crisis, pp. 337-349
is essentially communicative. A crisis response can either improve or make the crisis q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1356-3289
situation worse for a corporation and its various stakeholders. DOI 10.1108/13563281011085466
CCIJ The first priority in any crisis should be stakeholder safety. Every effort must be
15,4 taken to prevent harm to people. Once safety is addressed, the crisis response shifts to
issues of reputational repair. A corporate reputation is a valuable asset (Fombrun and
van Riel, 2004). A crisis is a threat to the corporate reputation and crisis communication
(crisis response) can be an integral part of repairing that harm/protecting the
reputational assets (Barton, 2001; Benoit, 1995). Corporate apologia is the pivotal point
338 around which crisis communication research developed. In general, corporate apologia
is a communicative effort to defend the corporation against reputation/character
attacks. Corporate apologia is a natural fit with crisis communication because a crisis
threats (attacks) the corporate reputation thereby calling forth a defense. Because of the
historical ties to corporate apologia, this special issue on crisis communication was
constructed around the concept. However, we expanded corporate apologia to include
any crisis response strategies designed to protect a corporate after a crisis, not just
those communicative strategies found in traditional corporate apologia.
This introductory article traces the development of crisis communication by
examining the evolution of corporate apologia, the expansion of crisis communication
to perspectives beyond apologia, and the value of crisis communication to a
corporation. Regardless of the research tradition or methods utilized, there is consistent
connection to apologia. This paper provides a foundation that reviews what we know
about crisis communication and where we might go next. The paper within this special
issue provide new insights as they push forward with research thereby adding to our
knowledge of what constitutes effective crisis communication.

Managerial application of crisis communication: protection from a crisis

As we noted at the start, crisis communication can protect stakeholders and
corporations during a crisis. Crisis communication is an integral part of stakeholder
safety. Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), drawing upon the work of
Sturges (1994), argues reputation management efforts should only occur after
addressing public safety. Stakeholders must know how to protect themselves physically
and even psychologically from a crisis before managers consider reputational concerns.
For instance, community members need to know to evacuate an area or to
shelter-in-place while consumers should be alerted to a harmful product. Public safety is
the number one priority in crisis management and crisis communication. It is only after
addressing safety that crisis communication can be utilized for reputation management.
The predominant focus of the crisis communication research involves reputation
management efforts. While this is only part of the larger crisis communication picture
(Coombs, 2009, 2010), it is highly visible and holds serious ramifications for crisis
managers. Crisis communication can be used to reduce the level of negative emotions
experienced by stakeholders. In turn, less negative emotions reduces the reputation
threat posed by the crisis and the likelihood of negative word-of-mouth while it
increases purchase intention (Coombs and Holladay, 2007). The research about the
effects of crisis communication on stakeholder perceptions and reactions to crisis
response strategies is valuable to crisis managers. Crisis managers can use the research
results as guidelines. They can anticipate how stakeholders are likely to perceive and
react in their crisis. Thus, the crisis communication research can help crisis managers to
be more effective in their selection and utilization of crisis communication strategies for
reputation management. Reputational assets are extremely valuable to an organization.
Crisis communication can play a pivotal role in protecting reputational assets during Apologia
a crisis. The goal of this special issue is to build upon that existing knowledge base and crisis
of crisis communication used to address reputational concerns. Toward that end, the
apologia and apology literatures provide a central focus because of their focus on communication
reputation protection.

Historical overview of crisis communication 339

The term apologia is rather unusual and can be confusing. On the surface, apologia
appears to be linked to apology but the two are different. We can gain a richer appreciation
of apologia by examining its origins and development as it relates to crisis communication.
Case study research premised on corporate apologia and the related area of image
restoration theory have been the predominant focus of crisis communication research
(Avery et al., 2010).

Apologia: definition and understanding the concept

Apologia is a genre drawn from rhetoric and refers to self-defense. Ware and Linkugel
(1973) were the first to fully articulate the genre. A genre is a family of speeches that
share common elements and are bound together by those similarities. Apologia is
initiated by a public attack on a person’s character. There is an attack that demands a
defense – apologia. The apologia genre is driven by a situation characterized by the
attack and defense of character (Ware and Linkugel, 1973). Though apologia as a genre
has been refined over the years, a full examination of a rhetorical genre becomes a
tangent from our focus crisis communication. Our interest lies in how apologia became
a base for crisis communication not the technical aspects of genre itself.

Strategies and consequences

Dionisopolous and Vibbert (1988) argued that apologia could be applied to
corporations. They posited that corporation’s have character (reputations), there can
be attacks on that character, and managers can provide self-defense in response to the
character attacks. We have witnessed the continued interest in corporate character
manifest in research related to organizational and corporate identity (Cornelissen et al.,
2007; Cornelissen and Elving, 2003) and organizations as social actors (King et al., 2010).
Such research reaffirms Dionisopolous and Vibbert’s (1988) initial claim. Dionisopolous
and Vibbert (1988) then argued that the four strategies from corporate could be used
essentially as the first identified set of crisis response strategies:
(1) denial;
(2) bolstering;
(3) differentiation; and
(4) transcendence.

Denial states that there are no grounds for the character attack and seeks to establish
that claim as valid. If there are no grounds for the character attack, the character is
preserved. Bolstering are attempts by speakers to identify themselves with something
their audience views as positive. The positive associations become the focal point rather
than the character attack. Character is protected by positive associates facilitated by
bolstering.
CCIJ Differentiation typically asks the audience to suspend judgment until all the
15,4 evidence is presented. Speakers then provide evidence designed to provide a different
more, favorable interpretation of the particulars of the case (whatever action
precipitated the character attack). Essentially the character attack is re-defined as a
more favorable event. Transcendence moves people away from the particulars of the
case to a more abstract interpretation of the character attack. The particulars are placed
340 in a new context. The new context should allow people to see the particulars in a more
favorable light (Ware and Linkugel, 1973). These four strategies provided the basis
for articulating crisis response strategies – ways to categorize what managers said and
did after a crisis occurs (Coombs, 2009). Corporate apologia became an analytic tool for
crisis communication found in the crisis communication studies of Hearit (1995), Ice
(1991), Hobbs (1995), and Ihlen (2002). But corporate apologia was only the start for
developing crisis response strategies and building crisis communication theory.

Expansion of corporate apologia

Corporate apologia was developed for individual speakers. While corporations have
character that was subject to attack and required defense, there were differences from
individual speakers as well. A number of researchers used these differences in their
efforts to expand corporate apologia beyond the four communicative strategies offered
by apologia. The expansion of corporate apologia can be traced through the works of
Hearit (2006), Benoit (1995), and the eventual linkage to apologies.
Hearit’s (1997, 1999, 2001, 2006; Hearit and Brown, 2004) work contributed the most
to developing corporate apologia as a more refined tool for crisis communication
analysis. His extensions of corporate apologia are evident in his work on dissociations.
Dissociations separate a concept into two parts (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969).
Crisis communication can in involve one of three dissociations. The opinion/knowledge
dissociation claims the charges against the corporation (character attack) have no merit
and do not match the facts of the situation. The individual/group dissociation argues
that it is just a part of the corporation (a few people) that did something wrong and that
the actions are not representative of the corporation as a whole. The act/essence
dissociation acknowledges the corporation acted badly but claims that action does not
represent the true nature of the organization. Hearit (1995) elaborates on self-defense of
character by arguing that crisis communication is used to re-establish a corporation’s
social legitimacy with its stakeholders. Crises can call social legitimacy into question,
hence, the need for corporate apologia to restore it.
Benoit (1995) extends corporate apologia through his work with image restoration
theory or image repair theory as it is now called (Benoit and Pang, 2008). Benoit argues
that corporations have reputations (images) that are valuable to the corporation and
warrant protection when threatened. Image restoration/repair theory blends ideas from
rhetoric, including apologia, with account giving from social science (how people justify
their actions) to generate a list of possible crisis response strategies a crisis manager
can use (Benoit, 1995). (See Benoit (1995) for a full explanation of his crisis response
strategies). Benoit’s work is one of the most comprehensive lists of potential crisis
response strategies develop thus far and extends well beyond the basic four derived
from apologia (Coombs, 2010). Among Benoit’s strategies is mortification, when
the corporation accepts responsibility for the action and asks stakeholders for
forgiveness. Image restoration/repair theory has a bias toward favoring mortification
as the optimal crisis response strategy. Mortification represents the bridge between Apologia
apologia and apology. and crisis
The apology aspect of crisis communication communication
The apology research is spread over a wide range of disciplines belonging to both the
social sciences and the humanities. Smith (2008, p. 9) refers to two books that he regards
as pioneering: Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation by Tavuchis (1991) 341
and On Apology by Lazare (2004). Although both are general in their scope and defining
the apology as a social act or a social tool; these two books differ when it comes to their
academic point of departure. Tavuchis (1991, p. 48) takes a sociological approach
introducing “four structural configurations of apology (and forgiveness) with respect to
the units of interaction”:
(1) one to one or interpersonal apologies;
(2) one to many apologies;
(3) many to one apologies; and
(4) many to many apologies.

Lazare (2004), instead, takes a psychological or psychiatric approach explaining

apologies by referring to emotions like shame, guilt and humiliation. He also brings up
two interesting questions which are closely linked to each other and to which we will
return later in this paper: “Are apologies on the rise?” and “Why have apologies grown
in importance?” (Lazare, 2004, p. 16). In his own book, I Was Wrong, Smith also focuses
on the historical angle talking about our times as “a transitional age for apologies”
where our dissatisfaction with apologies may be explained as “a nostalgia for the moral
certainties of the past” (Smith, 2008, pp. 1 and 7).
Beside these three books, which all offer a broad perspective, apologies have been the
object of study within such disciplines as philosophy and linguistics (the apology as a
speech act, see Austin, 1962 and Searle, 1969), law (Cohen, 1999, 2002a, b), linguistics
(Meier, 1998) and intercultural communication where the Japanese culture of
apologizing has attracted the interest of several researchers (Barnlund and Yoshioka,
1990; Lingley, 2006; Sugimoto, 1998).
The term apology actually has multiple meanings even in research. It is useful to
distinguish between full and partial apologies. A full apologies recognizes a crisis
occurred, accepts responsibility, and requests forgiveness. A partial apology is simple
an expression of regret or concern for crisis victims (Cohen, 2002a; Kellerman, 2006). We
are using the term apology here to refer to full apologies. As the preceding discussion
indicates, apologies are used in a wide range of literatures but we will restrict the
discussion to applications in corporate communication with application for crisis
communication.
Apology research can be divided into three categories:
(1) content;
(2) source; and
(3) timing (Wooten, 2006).

Content research examines variations of apologies with a frequent focus on legal

liabilities (in the USA) stemming from their use by corporations in crisis (Cohen, 2002a).
CCIJ Content articles also compare the effectiveness of apology to other crisis response
15,4 strategies. A frequent comparison is with denial. However, denial and apology are
rarely comparable options because guilt rules out the use of denial by competent crisis
managers (Coombs and Holladay, 2008; Kim et al., 2004).
Source research stresses the importance of corporate leaders as the source for
apologies. Kellerman (2006) emphasized that chief executive officer (CEO) should
342 apologize because they are recognized as ultimately responsible for the problem and
serve an institutional. Timing invokes the old adage of being quick in a crisis. The
timeliness of an apology (sooner rather than later) does affect the effectiveness of an
apology (Tomlinson et al., 2004). Apologies can be viewed as the most widely
researched/discussed crisis response strategy. This discussion of apology includes
crisis research that is social scientific rather than rhetorical, the focus of our next section.

Social science and crisis communication

In addition to corporate apologia, attribution theory has developed as an explanatory
framework for crisis communication. Attribution theory posits that when events,
especially negative and unexpected ones, occur people seek explanations for the causes
of those events. Crises are negative and unexpected so they should generate attribution
searches. Stakeholders will vary in how much they attribute a crisis either to the
corporation involved in the crisis or to the situation surrounding the crisis. The more
stakeholders attribute the crisis to corporation, the greater the threat of the crisis to
damage the corporate reputation (Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001).
Marketing researchers were the first to connect attribution theory to crises. Their focus
was on how consumers would be affected by crises (Mowen, 1980). Crisis communication
was a variable but not the dominant variable in the marketing research. Researchers did
examine how crisis communication strategies might affect people’s reactions and
behavioral intentions following a crisis (Bradford and Garrett, 1995; Jorgensen, 1996).
Coombs (1995) integrated attribution theory with the rhetorical perspective thereby
uniting the two lines of crisis communication research. Eventually, this research became
known as SCCT (Coombs and Holladay, 2002). Owing to the influence from attribution
theory, SCCT pursue a social scientific research method rather than a rhetoric method.
SCCT research is characterized by experimental design rather than the use of case
studies. SCCT builds on the crisis response strategies, such as apologia, from the
rhetorical approaches by utilizing experiments to test the reputation building/protection
ability of those strategies. The research has identified errors in speculations made by the
rhetorical case studies about crisis response strategy effectiveness (Coombs and
Schmidt, 2000) as well as mapping out the match between crisis situation and crisis
response efficacy (Coombs and Holladay, 1996).
Contingency theory also applies a social scientific approach to crisis communication.
Contingency theory is a grand theory that attempts to explain how public relations as
a whole functions. Conflict drives contingency theory. When conflict arises, the
parties involved select a stance of how they will respond. The stances vary from
accommodative (make concessions) to advocacy (advance your own position). Managers
have preferred stances they choose to use in conflict. However, contingency theory
posits that 87 variables have the potential to alter that original stance preference. These
variables are divided between internal and external variables (Cameron et al., 2008;
Shin et al., 2006).
 A crisis can be a conflict situation, hence, the applicability of contingency theory Apologia
to crisis communication. Managers will appraise the threat posed by a crisis by and crisis
examining the threat type (internal or external) and threat duration (long term or short
term). The threat level then serves to guide the manager’s stance in the crisis. The communication
contingency theory research has yielded insights into how stakeholders will react to
crises based upon the threat posed by the crisis (Hwang and Cameron, 2008; Jin and
Cameron, 2007). Through the integrated appraisal model, contingency theory has begun 343
to address concerns about emotion and crises. The extant research suggests that anger
and anxiety are two dominant emotions that emerge from crises and that the type of
emotion generated in a function of crisis type (Jin, 2009; Jin and Pang, 2010). SCCT
has explored the connection between emotion and crises too. The SCCT research
demonstrates a clear connection between anger and attributions of organizational
crisis responsibility. Greater anger “motivates” people to engage in saying to others or
posting online negative information about an organization in crisis – the negative
communication dynamic (Coombs and Holladay, 2007). Both theories are now exploring
the relationship between crisis response strategies and emotions generated by a
crisis. We can see there are similarities between contingency theory and SCCT both in
how they conceptualize and approach crisis communication. The research lines and
results are compatible and their results can be integrated to a degree (Holtzhausen and
Roberts, 2009).
The movement from corporate apologia to social scientific approaches to crisis
communication is more than methodological, it shifts the focal point of crisis
communication as well. As Lee (2004, 2005), noted the corporate apologia research can
be viewed as sender oriented. The focus is on the sender selecting a message. There is no
concern about how the stakeholders might react to the message or their interests in the
crisis. Both SCCT and Contingency theory are more receiver oriented. Both try to
understand how stakeholders will react to the crisis and to the crisis response strategies
utilized by crisis managers. Drawing on the social scientific crisis communication
research, crisis managers take action based upon the anticipated reactions of the
stakeholders and not just their own concerns (Coombs, 2010).

Future directions for crisis communication research

This paper can only highlight the key findings in the crisis communication research.
While the body of crisis communication knowledge is growing, significant gaps still
remain. Crises are increasingly becoming international because of extended supply
chains and corporations selling products globally. Yet we know little about the effects
of the international context on crisis communication. How does the international
context affect crisis communication? We have just begun to scratch the surface of
emotion’s role in crisis communication. What emotions are relevant to crisis
communication and how do they affect the process? Our range of crisis response
strategies is rather limited depending greatly on Benoit’s (1995) work. What other
valuable crisis response strategies might exist?

Overview of special issue articles

The set of seven articles in this special issue capture the rhetorical/qualitative and
quantitative approaches to crisis communication and apology. Four of the articles
represent the rhetorical/qualitative approach while three reflect the quantitative
approach.
CCIJ Rhetorical/qualitative approaches
15,4 Frandsen and Johansen article, “Apologizing in a globalizing world: crisis communication
and apologetic ethics”, uses Hearit’s (2006) rhetorical model of apologizing and apologetic
ethics to examine a series of three apologies issued after Pope Benedict XVI delivered a
lecture in 2006 at the University of Regensburg in Germany. The lecture received
condemnation from various Muslim countries due to a disputed passage about the Islamic
344 prophet Muhammad. Frandsen and Johansen examine and evaluate the series of apologies
offered by the Vatican or by the Pope applying Hearit’s (2006) rhetorical model of
apologetic ethics. It is shown that although the apologies seem to live up to the paradigm
case or ethical standards established by Hearit, they do not work as intended. This is
explained by several factors, including the process of globalization, political, religious,
sociocultural and linguistic differences, the role of the media in accelerating crises, the
growing number of third parties and the fact that more and more people “stand on their
rights.” Thus, it has become easier to transgress a sociocultural order by wrongdoing and
more difficult to apologize for this wrongdoing. This also means that Hearit’s model has to
be revised when it comes to the use of his concept of sociocultural order in a global setting.
The paper concludes with a short discussion of the new concept of meta-apology.
Vigsö article, “A study of Vattenfall’s communication following an incident at the
nuclear plant at Forsmark, Sweden,” focuses on the crisis communication response
prompted by a serious non-planned, immediate shutdown that occurred at a nuclear
power plant at Forsmark, Sweden. Clearly, any incident at a nuclear power plant
should generate concern. In spite of the danger, the Swedish public seems to perceive
only a low level of risk associated with nuclear power. The author credits the nuclear
power industry with cultivating trust through effective communication. The Vattenfall
case addresses the media’s accusations and Vattenfall’s response to illustrates how an
effective crisis response strategy can uphold the public’s perceptions of the competence
of the organization.
Valentini’s article, “Alitalia’s crisis in the media – a situational analysis,” focuses on
the Italian media context by examining how national and international newspapers
framed the year-long crisis surrounding Alitalia’s move from government ownership to
private ownership. Press releases posted in 2008 on Alitalia’s web site and the Italian
government’s web site were examined along with the tone and crisis response strategies
reported in media coverage. The international media reported these crisis response
strategies in generally neutral tones, although coverage became more negative in the
third period examined. International media focused on providing information about the
economics of the situation and possible solutions. In contrast, the Italian national media
tended to not report Alitalia’s and the government’s crisis response strategies or to
explain the economic and technical issues surrounding the transition to privatization.
Instead the national media focused on political and social issues, including employment
issues for Italians who would be affected by Alitalia’s cuts and crew reductions. National
coverage of the government, the company, and labor unions was negative and
accusatory and stressed the emotional and sensational aspects of the crisis.
The aim of Chikudate’s conceptual paper, “Reinterpreting Corporate Apologia as
Self-discipline”, is to reinterpret the concept of corporate apologia from a perspective
informed by Edmund Husserl’s theory of the intersubjective life world and by Michel
Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power. Corporate apologia is not just a strategic
response produced by an organization in a crisis situation but can be defined in more
broad terms as corrective self-discipline and as a means of living as “normalized” Apologia
organizations in society. The reinterpretation of corporate apologia is illustrated with and crisis
examples from Japanese companies such as Toshiba (crisis in 1987), Snow Brand Milk
Products (crisis in 2000), and Toyota (crisis in 2010). The implications of the communication
reinterpretation of corporate apologia are related to the idea of collective myopia
among executives and the need for reflexive crisis managers who are able to diagnose
both the external and the internal environment of an organization. 345
Quantitative approaches
The three quantitative studies illustrate the use of experimental design to examine the
effects of crisis communication. The papers cover three of the more popular crisis
communication principles: situational crisis communication theory, integrated crisis
mapping (ICM), and image restoration theory.
The Pace, Feduik and Botero article, “The acceptance of responsibility and
expressions of regret in organizational apologies after a transgression,” empirically
tests the assumption that an organizational apology following a transgression is
viewed as equal to accepting responsibility, and to study the impact of the crisis
response strategy on stakeholder anger and organizational reputation damage. The
theoretical framework is primarily based on the SCCT. The experimental study
(using the reputation measure of SCCT as well as a reputation change score) conducted
by Pace et al. demonstrates a positive relationship between accepting responsibility,
expressing regret and reputation. It shows that accepting responsibility is more than
just issuing an apology, and that an apology may need to be accompanied by an
explicit statement of accepting responsibility, and finally that the expression of regret
is also needed in order to reduce the amount of anger of stakeholders and to lead
to reputation protection. The findings illustrate the importance of careful message
design (wording of the message) at both a practical level and an experimental level
when documenting the phrasing of experimental messages of the research.
Jin, Pang, and Cameron’s article, “The role of emotions in crisis responses: inaugural
test of the integrated crisis mapping (ICM) model”, demonstrates the quantitative side
of crisis communication research. The authors’ ICM model is examined using the
media coverage of five crises. The ICM model maps crises on two continua, the
organization’s engagement in the crisis (low to high) and primary public’s coping
strategy (conative/problem solving to cognitive) and holds that effective crisis
communication requires the organization’s engagement level to meet the emotional
demands and coping strategy needed by the primary public. Their analyses focused on
Quadrant 1 of the ICM model where primary emotions evident in news reports were
found to be anger, anxiety, and sadness. The public engaged in conative coping in four
of five cases and expected, in two of the five cases, the organizations to also engage in
conative coping strategies to deal with the crises. In two cases organizations used the
qualified rhetoric-mixed stance and in three cases there was no significant difference
between the use of the rhetoric mixed stance and the action-based stance.
Haigh and Brubaker article, “Examining how image restoration strategy impacts
perceptions of corporate social responsibility, organization-public relationships, and
source credibility,” tests how Benoit’s (1995) five image restoration strategies impacts
stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization – public relationship, corporate social
responsibility, and source credibility during a product recall crisis. The experimental
CCIJ study conducted by Haigh and Brubaker shows that the reduce the offensiveness
15,4 strategy is the most effective in protecting perceptions of the trust and commitment
dimensions of the relationship between an organization and its public, together with
the image, reputation, and credibility dimensions of the organization’s corporate social
responsibility activities. However, when it comes to source responsibility, it does not
matter who the source of the crisis response message is (CEO, spokesperson, or no
346 corporate source). The paper concludes with offering some evidence-based guidelines
for public relations practitioners on how to craft their messages during a product recall
crisis (or during another type of crisis belonging to the accidental cluster).
The papers in this special do address the future of crisis communication by examining
the international dimension of crises and the role of affect. Moreover, the articles expand
the theory we use to inform crisis communication and the methods we use to analyze it.
Readers will gain new insights into the practice of crisis communication and the ways to
research it. This is an idea fusion because crisis communication should seek to build
applied theories that resonate with both practitioners and researchers.

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Further reading
Coombs, W.T. (2007), “Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: the development and
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Organizations: Volume 1: The Effect of Affect in Organizational Settings, Elsevier,
New York, NY, pp. 271-88.
Coombs, W.T. and Holladay, S.J. (2006), “Unpacking the halo effect: reputation and crisis
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Wiener, B. (2006), Social Motivation Justice, and the Moral Emotions: An Attributional Approach,
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.

Corresponding author
W. Timothy Coombs can be contacted at: tcoombs@mail.ucf.edu

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