Last but not least: Lying through the crisis
A Swiss study on crisis communication shows that organizations can protect their trust through communication. However, simply apologizing publicly may still help to build trust in the USA, but in our culture, social norms such as not lying in a crisis are of greater importance.
A study by the University of Fribourg has now officially proven that communication plays a decisive role in maintaining or losing trust during crises. The study examines the effect that certain communication strategies have on the attribution of trustworthiness to profit and non-profit organizations. This is because trustworthiness is considered a key prerequisite for ensuring that positive reputations are anchored in the minds of media consumers in the long term or are not destroyed by crises for years to come. Over 700 people took part in the study, which systematically examines crisis communication by organizations.
The results provide several key findings: For example, although a public apology certainly helps to build trust in the USA or in Asia, this is not the case in our culture. Even the orientation towards social norms - for example not to lie in a crisis or to comply with the legal framework - is apparently taken for granted in our culture to such an extent that neither of these contribute to the attribution of trustworthiness. However, if these norms are not observed, organizations suffer a severe loss of trust.
What is new about the study is that crises are classified according to their reputational risk. On the one hand, this helps to deploy strategies in a targeted manner according to their impact and, on the other, to view crises from the perspective of public perception. All too often, organizations focus their crisis communication on themselves without paying attention to social norms, for example. The study also distinguishes between companies and non-profit organizations for the first time. This is because different criteria are sometimes applied to NPOs in crises when attributing trustworthiness than to companies.
According to the study, crises affect organizations in two ways: firstly, through the often devastating financial damage and secondly, through the sudden loss of trust and credibility. While financial values are often recovered after a short time, credibility continues to suffer for years afterwards.
