Work

Beyond blame: Extending crisis responsibility through multi-stakeholder responsibility, cause attribution, and solution attribution

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Crisis communication research has ubiquitously examined crisis responsibility as the extent to which individuals perceive a party to be responsible for the cause of a crisis. Yet, in public crises, responsibility is complex and ambiguous and influenced by stakeholders internal and external to the crisis. This study continues efforts to extend crisis responsibility research by exploring three phenomena, (i) multi-stakeholder responsibility, (ii) solution (in addition to cause) attribution, and (iii) precursors to cause and solution attribution that individuals bring into crisis assessments including relationship quality, issue involvement, and conspiratorial thinking. Survey datasets were collected for two Australian, nationwide public crises that comprised multi-stakeholder and required collaborative behaviors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that participants evaluated crisis responsibility as cause and solution attribution for the three stakeholders involved. For the Australian Government, dynamics of government-public relationship quality, issue involvement, and conspiratorial thinking related to the government had different effects on cause and solution attribution.

Source: Public Relations Review

DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102623

Authors: Lisa Tam, Amisha Mehta

Institution: Queensland University of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Public Relations and Crisis Communication

Subfield: Communication

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,310