CAN BRAND IMAGE BE RECOVERED AFTER NEGATIVE PUBLICITY? EFFECTS OF SEVERITY AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Year 2019, Volume: 6 Issue: 4, 239 - 251, 30.12.2019

May-ching Ding Chih-huang Lin Yu-bing Wang Yi-jing Lee

Abstract

Purpose- This research examines the effectiveness of CSR’s function to minimize and repair the severity of negative publicity towards company’s brand image in two periods of time.
Methodology- A convenient student sampling of 225 respondents was used and employed ANOVA and T-test to measure the significance difference of brand image recovery between Time0 (the time when the negative publicity incident occurred) and Time1 (a year after).
Findings- Findings showed that brand image was higher (recovered) in Time 1 than in Time 0 whether factoring in CSR or not. In addition, CSR can still positively redeem brand image from negative publicity in Time 0 compared to Time 1.
Conclusion- Findings supported that CSR can function and serve as a corporate image ‘safety net’. The implication of this study recommends that companies should invest in one or more domains of CSR initiates, such as employee training or social and community involvements in case of negative publicity events.

Keywords

Negative publicity, CSR, severity, time, brand image recovery

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