본 연구는 위기유형과 위기 심각성이 소비자 반응에 영향을 미치는데 있어 대응유형전략과 대응시점의 조절역할을 규명하였다. 분석결과, 기업태도에 대한 위기유형과 대응유형전략의 이원상호작용(2-way interaction)효과와 위기유형, 위기 심각성, 대응유형전략 간의 삼원상호작용(3-way interaction) 효과가 통계적으로 유의미하게 나타났다. 구체적으로 위기가 심각한 경우 위기유형과 관계없이 사과전략이 기업태도 회복에 효과적인 것으로 나타났다. 즉, 위기가 심각한 경우 사과전략이 부인전략보다 크게 효과적으로 나타났으며, 위기가 심각하지 않은 경우도 사과전략이 부인전략보다 약간 더 높게 나타났다. 게다가 삼원상호작용 결과에 의하면, 위기가 심각한 경우에는 위기유형(능력위기 vs. 정직성 위기)에 상관없이 모두 사과전략(vs. 부인전략)이 기업태도 회복에 더 효과적인 것으로 나타났다. 반면, 위기가 심각하지 않은 사건의 경우에는 능력위기에는 사과전략(vs. 부인전략)이 기업태도 회복에 효과적인 전략으로 나타났으나, 정직성 위기의 경우에는 사과전략과 부인전략의 차이가 없는 것으로 나타났다. 끝으로 본 연구에서는 위기유형, 위기 심각성, 대응유형전략, 대응시점 간의 다양한 상호작용 효과를 기대했지만, 대응시점과 관련된 상호작용 효과는 나타나지 않았다. 따라서 본 연구결과를 통해 기업들에게 기업위기 시 사건의 심각성과 위기 유형을 파악하여 효과적인 대응을 할 수 있는 전략을 제시하였다는 점에서 실무적인 시사점을 제공할 것으로 기대한다.
Most of the previous studies related to the corporate crisis advocate the establishment of an effective crisis system. In other words, a number of previous studies on the use of "how (coping strategy)" in accordance with "What event (type of crisis)" can effectively restore the reputation of the corporation. But unlike previous research this study, focuses on how an effective response to "what event (type of crisis)," "What situations (crisis severity), ‘When (corresponding time)," " ‘how (coping strategy)" will be able to configure the corresponding strategic crisis response system. Therefore, corporate need to determine how effective these corresponding "What event (type of crisis)," "What situations (crisis severity)," "how (coping strategy)". Thus, the present study employed a 2 (type of crisis: competence violation vs. integrity violation) x 2(coping strategy: apology vs. denial) x 2(corresponding time: immediate response vs. delayed response) x 2(crisis severity: high severity vs. low severity) between-subjects design, with control conditions, in order to test the hypotheses. The dependent variable is corporate attitudes with controlled product involvement. Specifically, the results of the study are as follows. Firstly, unlike our reasoning, hypothesis 1 was rejected. It is because integrity crisis appeared to be more negative towards corporate attitudes than competence crisis. Secondly, hypothesis 2 was also rejected because of the crisis severity appeared to show no affect to the corporate attitudes. Thirdly, because of the conflicting results occurred in coping type strategies for integrity crisis, the hypothesis 3 was partially supported. For a competence violation, apology tends to effectively restores corporate attitudes than denial. Also, for an integrity violation, apology tends to effectively restores corporate attitudes than denial. Further, the hypothesis 4 was also partially supported. Although crisis severity and coping type strategies are not statistically significant, the crisis type, crisis severity and coping type strategies are significant. In particularly, when crisis severity is high, the corporate is more effective in its corporate attitudes and corporate image recovery unconditionally by sincere apology, regardless of the type of crisis. On the other hand, when the crisis severity is low, the competence crisis apology strategy is more effective than denial strategy. Further, when the crisis severity is low, with integrity crisis it shows that apology strategy and denial strategy both are not significant for corporate attitudes. Hence, the following is the effect of the corresponding time. The predicted interaction effect between crisis type(H5) and crisis severity(H6) are not significant for corporate attitudes. These results regardless of the corresponding time, the type of crisis and crisis severity showed that people give priority to the apology or compensation. This study contributes new insights along with three dimensions: First, we identify the mixed results of previous studies. In other words, a sincere apology strategy is more effective regardless of the type of crisis in the efficacy of coping strategies according to the type of crisis (Support Sung et al.(2013) result.). Second, because apology strategy is the most effective strategy for the recovery of corporate attitudes, regardless of the type of crisis and corresponding time, companies are encouraged toward sincere apology. Finally, if the corporate crisis is with high severity, it is recommended to address with sincere apology aggressively because it has a responsibility to consider the case as involving more than just corporate responsibility information. On the other side, if the crisis severity is low, the corporate can simply convey the objective explanation for the incident.