Crisis communication and consumer’s responses: the role of the need of cognitive closure

Recently, also because of the spread of Internet, reports of corporate crisis are increasingly frequent. Managers have to act quickly to not deplete the capital of trust and credibility painstakingly built over time. In parallel, scholars dedicate an increased emphasis to the phenomenon as evidenced by the many contributions that ultimately go to feed the literature on crisis management. This paper, through an experimental study, wants to analyze the different impact that the same response strategy (apology) to a real corporate crisis, can have on people with different levels of the need for cognitive closure. Results show that this psychological trait acts as moderator: if the need of cognitive closure is low, the apology strategy is more effective in terms of higher attitude towards the company and higher intention to buy compared to average levels of the same attribute. If the need for cognitive closure is high, the apology strategy seems to have no significant effect on these consumers. Such results suggest to companies to consider some respondents psychological traits in the development of efficient post crisis communication strategies.