沉默未必不是金:企业家负面曝光事件的应对策略研究

Silence Is Not Always So Bad:Research on Negative Publicity of Entrepreneurs and Response Strategies

本文探究企业家负面曝光事件的应对策略是如何影响消费者对企业家形象评价的。以往对于危机事件的应对,缄默策略被认为是最不可取的方法,本文试图为这一理论寻找边界条件。本文的研究结果表明:当企业家遭受能力负面曝光时,就减少消费者对企业家的负面评价而言,和解策略最优,缄默策略和辩解策略之间没有显著差异;当企业家遭受道德负面曝光时,辩解策略最优,缄默策略次之,和解策略最差。因此,不论出现哪种类型的负面曝光,除了能够找寻到最优的应对策略之外,缄默策略都是比较保险的选择,而且在道德负面曝光事件的应对中表现尤为明显。

This paper explores how response strategies for entrepreneurs'negative publicity affect consumers'evaluation of entrepreneurs'image.Evidence from previous literature shows that reticence is always viewed as the worst response strategy to crises.This paper tries to find the boundary of the reticence response.The results indicate that when entrepreneurs are encountered with negative publicity of incompetence,in terms of reducing consumers'negative evaluation of entrepreneurs,accommodation strategy is better than reticence strategy and defense strategy,and there is no obvious difference between the latter two;when entrepreneurs are encountered with negative publicity of immorality,defense strategy is the best,reticence strategy comes the second,and accommodation strategy is the last choice.From the result we can conclude that unless the best response strategy is available,reticence is always the suboptimal to either type of negative publicity,especially in the negative publicity of immorality.