The role of product category involvement when stealing thunder during organizational crises

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Today's media landscape, which is based on instant news dissemination, allows a crisis to quickly be brought upon an individual or an organization. It has never been more critical for organizations and public relations practitioners to be readily prepared with crisis communication strategies. One type of proactive disclosure, and the focus of this study, is "stealing thunder." This tactic is used to minimize the impact of potentially damaging information to an individual or organization by addressing it before the information is revealed by another entity. An experiment investigated the efficacy of this strategy and explored whether post crisis evaluations varied based on the product category involvement of participants with the beverage industry. The results upheld the enhanced credibility theory while also illustrating the weight product category involvement has in the post crisis evaluation process.