Watch how you say it: The Effect of Crisis Strategy and Tone of Voice in the Netherlands and United States.
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2020-07-16
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en
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to understand the effect of crisis strategy, tone of voice and
culture on Dutch versus American consumers’ responses to an organization in the context of
a crisis by using a 2 (crisis strategy: apology/compensation) x 2 (tone of voice:
human/corporate) x 2 (culture: Dutch/American) between-subject experimental design. 120
Dutch and 120 American respondents were exposed to a fictional online news article
describing a fictional organization and the crisis it was facing, as well as an organizational
crisis response. The results indicate that crisis strategy, tone of voice and culture do not affect
consumers in terms of organizational reputation, trust in the organization and attitude towards
the message. The absence of an effect of crisis strategy and tone of voice are in line with the
current literature on both crisis strategy and tone of voice in the Dutch context, but do not
match with literature on these factors in the American context. By focusing on the
Netherlands and the United States, this study contributes to a better understanding of the
effect of crisis strategies and tone of voice in cross-cultural communication, thereby enriching
the field of prior crisis communication research.
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Faculteit der Letteren