Emotions, purchase intention and culture in crisis communication: A research on crisis types and response strategies

Crisis communication focuses on a corporation's actions and discourses in a crisis situation. The main determinants of this communicative practice are the crisis type and the crisis response strategy presented by the corporation in the face of the crisis. The necessity of researches about crisis communication to focus on culture and emotion structures is one of the points emphasized in the literature. In this context, the purpose of the research is to reveal the effect of crisis type and crisis response strategies on emotions and purchase intention and to analyse crisis communication in terms of the "uncertainty avoidance" dimension of culture. The research is structured in two stages based on the mixed method design. The results of the research revealed that purchase intention did not differ significantly according to the crisis type but differed significantly for the crisis response strategy. It was determined that certain emotions differed in terms of both crisis type and crisis response strategy. Various differences have been identified between the groups in terms of purchase intention and emotions. It was observed that the interaction effect of the crisis type and the crisis response strategy on the purchase intention was not significant but the interaction effect on emotions of anxiety, sadness and fear was found to be significant. As a result of the thematic analysis of focus group interview data, a total of five themes have emerged: "Lack of information", "pre-incident control", "post-incident process", "apologising" and "trust."