TY - JOUR
T1 - A Discursive Analysis of Crisis Response Strategies in CEO Apologies—Drawing on Linguistic Insights from the Appraisal Framework
T2 - A Discursive Analysis of Crisis Response Strategies in CEO Apologies—Drawing on Linguistic Insights from the Appraisal Framework
AU - Wang, Qian
AU - Ngai, Cindy Sing Bik
AU - Singh, Rita Gill
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities with grant No. G2019KY05202.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2021/11
Y1 - 2021/11
N2 - When corporations are confronted with a crisis, well-crafted CEO apologies can serve to repair, restore, and rebuild a damaged corporate image. In prior research, the use of linguistic resources exhibited in CEO corporate apology discourse for different crisis response strategies has not been sufficiently examined. Drawing on the appraisal framework and subsumed linguistic resources, this study analyzed the discursive construction of crisis response strategies in the corporate apology discourse of leading companies listed in the Fortune Global 2000. The findings revealed an integrated use of crisis response strategies in which attitude appraisal resources predominated, while different types of appraisal resources were deployed in various crisis response strategies to achieve rhetorical persuasion in corporate communication. The proposed framework integrating crisis response strategies in CEO apology discourse with appraisal resources could guide CEOs and crisis communicators to use the right words when composing corporate apologies.
AB - When corporations are confronted with a crisis, well-crafted CEO apologies can serve to repair, restore, and rebuild a damaged corporate image. In prior research, the use of linguistic resources exhibited in CEO corporate apology discourse for different crisis response strategies has not been sufficiently examined. Drawing on the appraisal framework and subsumed linguistic resources, this study analyzed the discursive construction of crisis response strategies in the corporate apology discourse of leading companies listed in the Fortune Global 2000. The findings revealed an integrated use of crisis response strategies in which attitude appraisal resources predominated, while different types of appraisal resources were deployed in various crisis response strategies to achieve rhetorical persuasion in corporate communication. The proposed framework integrating crisis response strategies in CEO apology discourse with appraisal resources could guide CEOs and crisis communicators to use the right words when composing corporate apologies.
KW - appraisal framework
KW - corporate apology
KW - crisis response strategy
KW - discursive analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106261913&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/08933189211012009
DO - 10.1177/08933189211012009
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85106261913
SN - 0893-3189
VL - 35
SP - 602
EP - 622
JO - Management Communication Quarterly
JF - Management Communication Quarterly
IS - 4
ER -