Company culpable product harm crisis through young consumers' ethical eyes: an experimental study of an attribution approach

Abstract

causation of an unexpected and negative incident decides the way the consumer responses and the causal attributions mainly influence consumer perceptions. This research makes a unique contribution to the product harm crisis literature by exploring how consumers see a wounded company through their ethical eyes; i'e' through their moral reputational perspective in midst a company culpable product harm crisis. Study uses a fictitious company culpable product harm crisis scenario related to a fictitious yogurt brand to see the effect of product harm crisis on consumers' moral reputation towards the wounded company during a company culpable product harm crisis. Undergraduate Agribusiness management students [n=54] participated the survey. A self-administrated, pre-tested questionnaire survey was conducted with respect to two situations; control and the experiment. Results of ANOVA revealed that consumers, moral reputation towards the wounded company significantly differs in these two situations. The degradation of consumers' moral reputation in the experiment highlights that the company culpable product harm crisis significantly downgrades consumers' moral reputation toward the wounded company, while disclosing a new insight in the product harm crisis management literature. This study provides new insights for product harm crisis managers, marketers and policy makers in particular.