Trust-building strategies in corporate discourse: An experimental study

Abstract

This paper presents a scenario-based experiment designed to test the effects of trust-building strategies, realised in stance-taking acts, which a previous corpus-based study found to be salient features of stakeholder-facing corporate communication. The experiment relies on a betweensubjects design in which a target group of subjects are exposed to trust-building strategies while another control group are not. We apply this paradigm to corporate discourse in the form of an About Us webpage produced by a fictitious multinational pharmaceutical company that has been accused by a whistleblower of corporate misconduct. The results of the study show that these strategies are indeed effective in fostering trust in the company and have an indirect positive effect on the perceived credibility of the company's denial in response to the allegations made by the whistleblower. The strategies are therefore able to mitigate the potential damage caused by public accusations of wrongdoing and help companies insure against future threats to their legitimacy and freedom to operate, as when their behaviour violates, or is said to violate, societal norms and values. Theoretically, the results provide insights into the psychological mechanisms of trustbuilding and reader response. Methodologically, the study contributes to the growing body of work using experimental methods in CDA by further demonstrating that experimentation can usefully complement more traditional discourse-analytical methods as a form of triangulation.

An Analysis of Boeing’s Trust-Repair Discourse

“…Wang and Liu (2019) also contribute to the analytical model of trust-repair discourse by modifying Fuoli and Paradis' model. Fuoli and Hart (2018) proposed trust-building strategies in corporate discourse by an experimental approach. A majority of previous studies are centered on unraveling how trust is built and rebuilt under specific contexts.…”

British and Australian Corporate Communication: A Socio-Linguistic Perspective

“…Communication is a process that is characterized by a mutual exchange of information based on various social, cultural, political, cognitive, and discursive factors (Fuoli & Hart, 2018). Corporate communication considered in this study can be effective only if it helps to achieve certain corporate goals and maintain a corporate image.…”

Too good to be true: The effect of conciliatory message design on compromising attitudes in intractable conflicts

“…Although sensitive to the ways in which language is used, social science scholars do not extensively engage in discourse analysis, probably due to a lack of training in textual and linguistic methods. In the various branches of discourse analysis, specifically CDA and PDA, methods for studying audience reception are used as a form of triangulation to the core of linguistic analysis of text and talk (Bartlett, 2017; Fuoli and Hart, 2018). These methods include ethnography (Bartlett, 2012), cognitive uptakes (Macgilchrist, 2007), corpus-informed checks (O’Halloran, 2007) and, more recently, experimental studies (Fuoli and Hart, 2018; Hart, 2017, 2018).…”

“…Specifically, we explore how the textual design of a peace proposal publicly presented by a leading political opponent in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict affects public attitudes toward a peace based on compromise and trust. In so doing, we aim not only to provide a better understanding of the conditions under which conciliatory discourse may achieve its intended end, but also to contribute to two contemporary research trends in discourse analysis: progressive (or positive) discourse analysis (PDA) ‘which considers how people make the world a better place and designs interventions based on such considerations’ (Bartlett, 2017: 133) and experimental critical discourse analysis (CDA) which ‘can usefully complement more traditional discourse-analytical methods as a form of triangulation’ (Fuoli and Hart, 2018) by focusing on the effect of discursive strategies and phenomena.…”