This study investigates the effects of individuals' ethics on perceptions and responses to a company's crisis,Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, it empirically tests a theoretical model of crisis attribution and emotional reaction with two antecedents (i.e., individualizing moral and binding moral) on three outcomes (i.e., crisis attribution, emotions, and boycott intentions), using more than 4000 samples from four culturally-diverse countries-the U.S., South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. The study finds that individualizing and binding moral foundations have significant effects on attribution, emotional reaction, and behavioral intentions related to corporate irresponsibility, but that their effects are distinct and vary across countries. Individualizing moral foundations lead to boycott intentions through their positive direct effects and indirect effects via blame attribution and emotional reactions. However, the effects of binding moral foundations is multifaceted. They directly inhibit boycott intentions while invoking boycott intentions through their positive indirect effects via attribution and emotion.

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Considered one of the deadliest incidents in the history of aviation crises and labelled a “continuing mystery,” the ongoing search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 offers no closure. With endless media attention, and negative reactions of stakeholders to every decision made by the airline, this study investigates the types of emotions found in social media posted by publics to the MH370 search suspension announcement. It content analyzed 5,062 real-time tweet messages guided by the revised integrated crisis mapping model. Our findings indicated that, in addition to the four original emotions posited, there was a fifth emotion because of the long-drawn crisis and only two dominant emotions were similar to the model. A redrawn version to better encapsulate all the emotions is offered for one quadrant in the model. Implications for both crisis communication scholarship and the importance of social listening for organizations are discussed.

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