Journal of Public Relations Research

Lee, Betty Kaman

2005 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr1704_3

An experimental study was conducted to investigate Hong Kong consumers' evaluation process in an airline crisis. Three hundred and eighty-five participants (123 men, 227 women, and 35 unidentified) participated in a 2 (causal attribution: internal and external) × 6 (crisis response: shifting the blame, minimization, no comment, compensation, corrective action, and apology) × 2 (crisis severity: severe and extremely severe) between-subject experimental design. Participants were measured on (a) perceived organizational responsibility for crisis, (b) impression toward the organization, (c) degree of trust in the organization, and (d) purchase intention. A path model depicting Hong Kong consumers' evaluation process in organizational crisis was derived. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed.

Hung, Chun-ju Flora

2005 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr1704_4

The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedent of organization–public relationships that affects relationship outcomes. Organizations, realizing the interdependence with their publics, developed different types of relationships, such as communal and exchange relationships. Therefore, there should be other types of relationships influencing the quality of the relationships. In this study, 40 qualitative interviews with 36 multinational companies (from Fortune 500 and Taiwan's Commonwealth 1000) in 9 cities in China and Taiwan were conducted to explore more types of relationships. This study discovered mutual communal, covenantal, contractual, symbiotic, manipulative, and exploitive relationships multinational companies have developed with their Chinese publics. The findings also indicate that covenantal relationships help reach a win–win ground, and mutual communal relationships benefit multinational companies the most in achieving effectiveness. A continuum of types of relationships is provided in this study.

Barnett, Barbara

2005 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1207/s1532754xjprr1704_2

Numerous studies have examined how the press has framed the women's movement. This qualitative study explores how the women's movement has framed itself by analyzing news releases from the National Organization for Women (NOW). The study included more than 100 news releases posted on NOW's Web site from 1995 through 2003. Results showed that NOW used 3 frames to convey its message: NOW presented itself as vigilant and protective of women's rights, united with other advocacy organizations to promote human rights, and struggling against opponents who were unpatriotic extremists and deviant from mainstream American society. Findings suggest that public relations practitioners may use framing not only to organize ideas and define debates, but as a way to correct journalistic frames that ignore or dismiss the work of social movement organizations.