Situational crisis communication theory

Theoretical framework

The roots for SCCT can be found in Attribution Theory. Attribution Theory holds that people constantly look to find causes, or make attributions, for different events, especially if those events are particularly negative or unexpected. People will attribute responsibility for the event and react emotionally to that event. In the case of organizations, attributions of causality elicit emotional reactions from stakeholders, especially negative emotions if the organization is attributed as the cause for a crisis. These negative emotions, like anger, affect stakeholders’ future interactions with the organization, changing behaviors like purchases and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Attribution Theory provided one of the first links between crisis situations and crisis responses. Attributions of responsibility that shape strategic crisis responses formed the foundation for SCCT. Coombs built upon Attribution Theory, using it as a base to predict the severity of potential reputational harm—or reputational threat—a crisis may bring to an organization and, using that prediction, guide communication response decisions to minimize damage.

Coombs draws on William Benoit's image restoration theory in his conceptualization of responsibility and reputational threat, stating that perception is fundamental to assessments of both components. If the audience perceives that the organization is at fault, a reputational threat is put into existence and the organization is held responsible.

Crisis responsibility and reputational threat

SCCT suggests that the key to determining the most effective strategic crisis response is understanding the crisis situation and the amount of reputational threat being posed by the crisis. Reputational threat is how much damage a crisis could inflict on an organization if no action is taken to respond to it. Reputational threat is influenced by three elements: (1) initial crisis responsibility, (2) crisis history and (3) prior relational reputation.

Initial crisis responsibility is how much the organization’s stakeholders attribute the crisis to the organization; how responsible the key publics hold the organization itself for the crisis. In assessing the level of reputational threat facing an organization, crisis managers must first determine the type of crisis facing the organization.

Types of crises

Coombs has identified three "crisis clusters," or types of crises, in his SCCT research: the victim cluster, the accidental cluster, and the intentional cluster. Table 2 outlines these crisis clusters. In the victim cluster, the organization is not attributed as the cause of the crisis; rather, the organization is viewed as a victim. In the accidental cluster, the organization has been nominally attributed as the cause of the crisis, but the situation is generally viewed by stakeholders as being unintentional or simply accidental. In the intentional cluster, the organization is given all or most of the attributions for the crisis and shoulders the responsibility. In this case the crisis is considered deliberate.

Once it is determined which type of crisis, or which cluster, the organization’s situation falls under, managers can predict how much attribution will be placed on the organization and how much reputational threat it is facing. In fact, Coombs’ own prior research showed that crisis responsibility and organizational reputation are negatively related.

Crisis history and relational reputation

Another element that threatens an organization's reputation is its history of crisis, whether it has faced similar crises in the past. Within this context, how well an organization has treated its stakeholders in the past—its prior relational reputation—also plays a part in assessing reputational threat. These two elements are involved in the second step crisis managers must take in evaluating the reputational threat facing the organization: if either of these elements exist within the organization, it will intensify attributions of the organization and increase the level of reputational threat. If an organization has a history of facing crises or a poor history of dealing with its stakeholders, attributions of crisis responsibility and the level of reputational threat are greater.

Because of crisis responsibility and reputational threat, crises can effect changes in emotions, and as a result, behaviors. If a person perceives an organization to have a high level of crisis responsibility, he or she is more likely to have feelings of anger toward the organization. Conversely, lower levels of crisis responsibility can evoke feelings of sympathy. Both of these feelings can affect the behaviors of the person toward the organization, whether that person will act positively or negatively toward the organization.

Crisis response strategies

Once the levels of crisis responsibility and reputational threat have been determined, SCCT provides crisis managers with a theoretical base to their strategic crisis response. SCCT’s list for responding to crises assumes that the organization has accepted some level of responsibility for the crisis. Coombs found that the primary responses to crises in SCCT form three groups: deny, diminish, and rebuild. The SCCT list of crisis response strategies is shown in Table 3.

Each of these strategies helps the organization get its side of the story into the media. After all how the crisis is framed in the media will determine how the organization’s publics view the situation. The media’s frames become the stakeholders’ frames. The deny strategies help establish a crisis frame and sever any perceived connection between the organization and the crisis. If the organization is not involved, or if the crisis is a rumor the organization can dispel, and stakeholders and the media accept that there is no crisis, no reputational harm will be done.

Diminish crisis responses attempt to assure the organization’s publics that the crisis is not as bad as it seems or that the organization had nothing to do with the situation. These strategies help lessen the connection between the organization and the crisis and help the organization’s publics see the crisis in a less negative light. However, these strategies must be reinforced with credible evidence. If conflicting crisis frames are presented in the media, the organization’s publics will adopt whichever frame comes from the most credible source. Rebuild strategies help change perceptions of an organization during a crisis by offering real or symbolic forms of aid to victims and asking their forgiveness. These strategies attempt to take the focus off the crisis by taking positive action.

A secondary type of responses, bolstering, attempts to increase positive reputational perceptions by presenting "new, positive information about the organization and/or remind[ing] stakeholders of past good works by the organization". This strategy can bolster goodwill and arouse feelings of sympathy toward the organization, but Coombs warns, should be used to supplement the primary responses, not as replacements.

SCCT suggests that how an organization communicates with its publics—what it says—will affect its publics’ perceptions of the organization. Those perceptions can shape how an organization’s publics emotionally react to or behave toward to the organization. Therefore, the communication decisions crisis managers make in the wake of a crisis could have great consequences, either positive or negative. It is imperative that crisis managers act strategically to save the organization’s reputation. According to Coombs: "Crisis response strategies have three objectives relative to protecting reputations: (1) shape attributions of the crisis, (2) change perceptions of the organization in crisis and (3) reduce the negative effect generated by the crisis."