Y. Kang, T. Legendre, Seonjeong (Ally) Lee, Melissa A. Baker
{"title":"Heroes Rise in Tough Times: The Role of Ethical Idealism, Empathy, and Firm Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Y. Kang, T. Legendre, Seonjeong (Ally) Lee, Melissa A. Baker","doi":"10.1177/19389655231214706","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"During crises, hospitality firms practice a range of coping strategies such as laying-off or furloughing employees to cope with financial pressure (denying strategy) to cutting CEOs’ salaries to maintain jobs for employees (rebuilding strategy). While firms are still managing the effects of the pandemic, it is unclear how consumers judge how firms respond to crises. This study applies signaling theory to investigate how consumers’ ethical idealism influences customers emotional and behavioral responses of firm crisis responses. Study 1 conducts a 2 (crisis response: denying vs. rebuilding) × 2 ethical idealism (low vs. high) quasi between-subjects design experiment to examine the two-way interaction effects on purchase intention, brand support, and positive word of mouth. Study 2 examines the effect of empathy as a key mediator, using a moderated mediation model. Study 1 results show that although negative intentions were not observed toward denying strategies, consumers’ purchase intention, brand support, and positive word-of-mouth were elevated when rebuilding strategies are employed among consumers with high ethical idealism. Study 2 results find that consumers with high ethical idealism are more empathetic to the companies’ rebuilding responses, thus greater behavioral intentions were witnessed.","PeriodicalId":47888,"journal":{"name":"Cornell Hospitality Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cornell Hospitality Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19389655231214706","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
During crises, hospitality firms practice a range of coping strategies such as laying-off or furloughing employees to cope with financial pressure (denying strategy) to cutting CEOs’ salaries to maintain jobs for employees (rebuilding strategy). While firms are still managing the effects of the pandemic, it is unclear how consumers judge how firms respond to crises. This study applies signaling theory to investigate how consumers’ ethical idealism influences customers emotional and behavioral responses of firm crisis responses. Study 1 conducts a 2 (crisis response: denying vs. rebuilding) × 2 ethical idealism (low vs. high) quasi between-subjects design experiment to examine the two-way interaction effects on purchase intention, brand support, and positive word of mouth. Study 2 examines the effect of empathy as a key mediator, using a moderated mediation model. Study 1 results show that although negative intentions were not observed toward denying strategies, consumers’ purchase intention, brand support, and positive word-of-mouth were elevated when rebuilding strategies are employed among consumers with high ethical idealism. Study 2 results find that consumers with high ethical idealism are more empathetic to the companies’ rebuilding responses, thus greater behavioral intentions were witnessed.
期刊介绍:
Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CQ) publishes research in all business disciplines that contribute to management practice in the hospitality and tourism industries. Like the hospitality industry itself, the editorial content of CQ is broad, including topics in strategic management, consumer behavior, marketing, financial management, real-estate, accounting, operations management, planning and design, human resources management, applied economics, information technology, international development, communications, travel and tourism, and more general management. The audience is academics, hospitality managers, developers, consultants, investors, and students.