Impact of Product-Harm Crises on Brand Equity: The Moderating Role of Consumer Expectations

Abstract

Mark Vandenbosch; participants at research seminars at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Minnesota; and the three anonymous JMR reviewers for valuable comments on previous drafts. To interact with colleagues on specific articles in this issue, see "Feedback" on the JMR Web site at www.ama.org/pubs/jmr.

Effect of Product-harm Crisis on Customer's Based Brand Equity: The Moderating Role of Attitude towards Brand

“…In order to handle such situation, companies call for precise and flexible management, thus pay extra attention and money to get the desired outcomes (Dawar and Pillutla [3]). For many years companies realize those customers profitable which shows repeat purchase behaviors.…”

“…Product-harm crises are serious scenario where either product is found to be unsafe, out of order or harmful (Dawar and Pillutla, [3]). Product harm-crisis also states ''sudden abruption in the life cycle of product'' (Siomkos and Kurzbard, [9]).…”

“…Product-harm crises literature has examined impact of product-harm crises on brand equity and the moderating role of consumer expectations (Dawar et al, [3]). Most research regarding product-harm crises has been conducted in the Western countries (Aikaterini et al, [43]).…”

“…Also little importance was paid to the effect of organizational responses to the crisis in respect to consumer perceptions. The most important factors effecting product harm-crisis, like the intensity and amount of media focus (Weinberger and Romeo, [45]), the several types of media roles during product harm-crises (Jolly and Mowen, [46]; Weinberger, [47]), the amount of causalities (Mowen,[48]; Mowen and Ellis, [60]), Attention paid by regulatory agencies during product harm-crisis (Weinberger,[47]), how a company's reputation play role during product harm-crisis (Siomkos and Shrivastava, [50]), the different types of crises (Coombs, [51]; Mitroff and Pearson, [52]), what type of response messages company disseminates during product harm-crisis (Griffin et al, [58]; Jorgensen, [54], [55]), strategies practice by company during product harm-crisis (Siomkos and Kurzbard, [9]) , brand loyalty in crises (Cleeren et al, [56]),the role of CSR in product harm-crisis (Matos and Rossi, [6]; Klein and Dawar, [57]), role of safety on defective products (Griffin et al, [58]), and customer's prior expectations in product harm-crisis (Dawar and Pillutla, [3]), product recall strategies before crises (Matos and Rossi, [6]) and Baolong Ma et al, [59] has examined the effect of product-harm crisis on a brand's performance and market structure.…”

“…Knowledge about the company's brand as well as goodwill affect the consumer attitude towards brand (Mowen et al, [48]; Siomkos and Kurzbard, [9]; Dean, [63]; Siomkos and Shrivartara, [50]; Dawar and Lei, [4]), the consumer's brand loyalty during PHC (Cleeren et al, [56]), external factors role in product harm-crisis (Siomkos and Kurzbard, [9] [73]), pre-crisis category advertising and usage (Cleeren et al, [56]), the role of CSR (Klein and Dawar, [57]; Matos and Rossi, [6]), safety measures on the defective products (Griffin et al, [58]), before defects, product recall approach (Matos and Rossi, [6]), and customer's prior perceptions (Dawar and Pillutla, [3]). …”