This study advances our theoretical knowledge of how organizational crises and crisis communication affect reputation. Prior research solely emphasizes the importance of organizational crisis responsibility in this process. Three experiments show that stakeholders' empathy toward the organization provides a second explanation. The first two experiments demonstrate that victim crises not only inflict less reputational damage than preventable crises because stakeholders consider the organization less responsible for the events, but also because they are more likely to empathize with the company. The third study shows that empathy can also explain the outcomes of crisis communication. An apology arouses empathy among stakeholders and subsequently increases reputation repair, unlike denial. The role of empathy in the crisis communication process has implications for both theory and practice.

During an ongoing outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Belgium, residents of the affected area took part in an online field experiment. The impact of four distinct crisis messages used by the Belgian authorities was tested on uncertainty, fear and trust. After receiving any of these messages, participants felt less insecure, less

Research on crisis communication has mainly focused on verbal aspects of organizational responses. However, the nonverbal cues of the organizational spokesperson communicating about the crisis may also influence stakeholders’ perceptions. This study examines the impact of two vocal cues, voice pitch and speech rate. In addition, the study examines how these cues affect perceptions of organizations depending on the message’s verbal content. A 2 (voice pitch: low vs. high) × 2 (speech rate: slow vs. fast) × 2 (crisis response strategy: deny vs. rebuild) between-subjects experimental design was conducted. Results show that voice pitch and speech rate affected postcrisis reputation. However, these vocal cues affected perceptions only when the organization applied a rebuild strategy (i.e., apology) and not in the case of a deny strategy. This interaction between verbal and vocal cues was partly mediated by vocal attractiveness.

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When a chief executive officer (CEO) or spokesperson responds to an organizational crisis, he or she communicates not only with verbal cues but also visual and vocal cues. While most research in the area of crisis communication has focused on verbal cues (e.g., apologies, denial), this paper explores the relative importance of visual and vocal cues by spokespersons of organizations in crisis. Two experimental studies have more specifically examined the impact of a spokesperson's visual cues of deception (i.e., gaze aversion, posture shifts, adaptors), because sending a credible response is crucial in times of crisis. Each study focused on the interplay of these visual cues with two specific vocal cues that have also been linked to perceptions of deception (speech disturbances in study 1; voice pitch in study 2).Both studies show that visual cues of deception negatively affect both consumers' attitudes towards the organization (study 1) and their purchase intentions (study 2) after a crisis. In addition, the findings indicate that in crisis communication, the impact of visual cues dominates the outcomes of vocal cues. In both studies, vocal cues only affected consumers' perceptions when the spokesperson displayed visual cues of deception. More specifically, the findings show that crisis communication messages with speech disturbances (study 1) or a raised voice pitch (study 2) can negatively affect organizational post-crisis perceptions.