The Impact Of Stealing Thunder On The Effectiveness Of Brand Crisis Repair

With the frequent occurrence of brand crisis,it has become a great concern for the whole society to repair brand crisis effectively and further improve the crisis management level of Chinese brand.The current researches on brand crisis repair focus on the passive response of companies exposed by third-party,but neglect the repair effectiveness of self-disclosure by companies themselves which is called stealing thunder.It is still to be founded out that how brand crisis type and brand reputation influence the effectiveness of brand crisis repair,and how stealing thunder influences the effectiveness of brand crisis response strategy.This hinders the development of theory and practice on brand crisis repair greatly.Taking this above as starting point,this dissertation focuses on the impact of stealing thunder on the effectiveness of brand crisis repair which is moderated by brand crisis type and brand reputation and the moderating role of stealing thunder on the repair effectiveness of brand crisis response strategy.The main content is as followed.Firstly,provide the research hypotheses and models on the basis of three relating theories after the review of current research.Secondly,the dimensions and influencing factors of the effectiveness of brand crisis repair are developed through semi-structured interview.Thirdly,the moderating role of brand crisis type,brand reputation and brand crisis response strategy on the effectiveness of brand crisis repair are respectively demonstrated through three situational experiments.Finally,put forward the total conclusions,theoretical contributions,and managerial implications which is followed by research limitations and directions of further research.The research conclusions are as followed.Firstly,the organizations stealing thunder get better effectiveness of brand crisis repair compared with those without stealing thunder in the situation of function-leading crisis,but there is no significant differences in the situation of morality-leading crisis.Secondly,in the situation of function-leading crisis,it is more effective for both high-and low-reputed brands to steal thunder to get better effectiveness of brand crisis repair.In the situation of morality-leading crisis,it is possible for just the high-reputed brands to get better effectiveness of brand crisis repair through stealing thunder,but not for low-reputed brands.Thirdly,when organizations respond to crisis,functional and informational strategiessignificantly improve the repair effectiveness of stealing thunder.However,affectionate strategy does not significantly improve the repair effectiveness of stealing thunder.The managerial implications are proposed as followed: it is better for high/low-reputed brands to steal thunder decidedly in the situation of function-leading crisis;it is better for organizations to steal thunder depending on the brand reputation in the situation of morality-leading crisis;the importance of brand crisis response strategy should be valued by organizations when use stealing thunder.The organization should strengthen external and internal information communication to make stealing thunder applicable;the regulator should further perfect the disclosure system about crisis information of public companies.The innovation of this dissertation is to extend the perspective of brand crisis repair from passive response to initiative response and explore the moderating role of brand crisis type and brand reputation on the impact of stealing thunder on the effectiveness of brand crisis repair.So it improves the application value of stealing thunder strategy in the brand crisis repair to some extent,for the further development of theory and practice related to brand crisis management.