Why scapegoating can ruin an apology: The mediated-moderation model of appropriate crisis response messages in the context of South Korea.

As South Korean companies frequently use apologies for various crisis situations and pair them with other types of crisis response strategies (i.e., scapegoating), theory-driven recommendations for crisis response messages may fall short in practice. This study empirically examines the effectiveness of two crisis response messages (i.e., apology + compensation vs. apology + scapegoating) by integrating the theory of communicative responsibility and situational crisis communication theory. South Korean participants ( The findings indicate that an apology that is provided with compensation is more appropriate than those with scapegoating. The appropriateness is moderated by the perceived symmetry in communicative responsibility, and fully mediates the relationship between apology type and reputation. This study integrates two theoretical models to examine the mechanism behind the crisis response strategies from the perspective of the message receivers, while considering the cultural and normative context of South Korea.

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Copyright © 2023 Youk and Park.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.