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INTRODUCTION
Crises are taken as a threat to the organizational reputation. Crises damage the reputation and such changes can affect how stakeholders interact with the organization (Barton, 2001; Dowling, 2002). Post-crisis communication can be used to repair the reputation and/or prevent reputational damage (Coombs and Holladay, 2005). The field of crisis communication is dominated by case studies. The end result is that we know precious little about how stakeholders react to crises or to the crisis response strategies used to manage crises (Ahluwalia et al. , 2000; Dawar and Pillutla, 2000; Dean, 2004). Crisis management needs evidence-based crisis communication guidance. Evidence-based guidance for decision making in a crisis must be supported by scientific evidence from empirical research rather than personal preference and unscientific experience (Rousseau, 2006).
Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) provides an evidence-based framework for understanding how to maximize the reputational protection afforded by post-crisis communication. Research using SCCT relies on experimental methods rather than case studies. SCCT identifies how key facets of the crisis situation influence attributions about the crisis and the reputations held by stakeholders. In turn, understanding how stakeholders will respond to the crisis informs the post-crisis communication. The empirical research from SCCT provides a set of guidelines for how crisis managers can use crisis response strategies to protect a reputation from the ravages of a crisis. This paper is the initial detailed presentation of SCCT and its recommendations for crisis communication. The discussion of SCCT begins by unpacking the reputational threat of a crisis and then moves to the explication of SCCT and its application to reputation protection during a crisis.
CRISIS AS A REPUTATIONAL THREAT
A reputation is an aggregate evaluation stakeholders make about how well an organization is meeting stakeholder expectations based on its past behaviors (Wartick, 1992). The term 'organization' is used here instead of corporation because SCCT is applicable to variety of organizational forms and the term 'corporation' implies a specific type of for-profit organization. As evaluations, reputations are favorable and/or unfavorable. Stakeholders are any group that can affect or be affected by the behavior of an organization (Agle et al. , 1999; Bryson, 2004). Reputations are widely recognized as a valuable, intangible asset. Reputational assets can attract customers, generate investment interest, improve financial performance,...