Domestic and international audiences of organizational crisis communication: State of the art and implications for cross-cultural crisis communication

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Despite the increasing number and relevance of both transnational organizations and international organizational crises, research on such crises from an audience-oriented perspective is rare and largely based on narrative case studies. Audience-related research on organizational crises has extensively analyzed stakeholder attribution of crisis causes, responsibility, and the effects on organizational reputation and emotions. However, most of that research was conducted only in one national or cultural context although social psychology has found substantial differences between causal attributions or emotional expressions depending on culture. This chapter summarizes some of the important frameworks and findings on organizational crisis communication from an audience perspective. In addition, research and concepts that point to the relevance of studying cross-cultural aspects of crisis communication are reviewed and discussed.status: publishe