Managing spillover: Response strategies to another Charity’s crisis

Abstract

The prior research suggests that an organization’s crisis can damage publics’ evaluation of the industry, which is known as crisis spillover. To examine the crisis spillover and differential effects of the response strategies in the charitable sector, the study conducted a web-based experiment with a mixed-subjects design of 3 response strategies (bolstering vs. denial vs. differentiation) × 2 charity types (local vs. global) × 3 time periods (pre-crisis vs. post-crisis vs. post-response). The results confirm crisis spillover in the charity context and suggest that an innocent organization’s response can mitigate the effects of crisis spillover on the entire charitable sector. Furthermore, the study found that bolstering and denial strategies were more effective in improving public attitudes, trust, and donation intentions toward the responded charity compared to the differentiation strategy. These effects were not moderated by charity types. These findings provide insights into effective response strategies to mitigate crisis spillover in a charity context.