Analysis of the Interactive Relationship Between Apology and Product Involvement in Crisis Communication

Abstract

This study explores the interactive relationship between apology, as a crisis-response strategy used in the current Toyota recall crisis, and product involvement in influencing the restoration of the organization’s reputation and customers’ future purchase intentions. The authors measured the impact of the interaction between participants’ perception of an apology and their product-involvement levels using a 2 (perception of apology: high sincerity vs. low sincerity) × 2 (product involvement: high vs. low) experiment design. The results showed that an apology was an effective strategy for repairing the organization’s reputation for those participants who were highly involved and perceived the strategy as highly sincere, but it did not increase their purchase intentions.