The Impact of Corporate Strategies for Image Restoration on Consumer Trust in Crisis Events: The Moderating Role of Prosocial Motivation

The existing theoretical studies and practical observations indicate that, after the crisis events, although corporations implement different types of coping strategies to repair the damaged corporate image and consumer trust, the intervention effectiveness varies extremely. Unfortunately the present research still hasn't given a systemic explanation that, which strategy used by corporations is eventually effective in resolving the crisis, reshaping the corporate image and restoring consumer trust? From the perspective of prosocial motivation, the influence mechanism of corporate strategies for image restoration on consumer trust in crisis events was explored by employing the scenario experiments. Results show that the strategies of denial & defense, reticence & evasion, apology & communication as well as correction & compensation have differential effects on consumer trust. In terms of the restoration effectiveness of consumer trust, pro social motivation plays a moderating role in selecting image restoration strategies. The priority rankings of corporate strategies for image restoration demonstrate a difference under different prosocial motivation levels, however this difference disappears from the view of positive-negative coping strategies.