Covariation-Based Causal Attributions during Organizational Crises: Suggestions for Extending Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)

The potential of attribution theory is, by far, not exhausted to understand how causal attributions of stakeholders arise and how they influence their perceptions of organizations under crisis conditions. Therefore, a theoretical framework for explaining covariation-based causal inferences will be proposed for crisis communication research. Illustrated by several crisis scenarios, basic assumptions of Kelley's covariation principle will be outlined and suggested for future empirical tests. The resulting framework possibly may be considered as complementary to Situational Crisis Communication Theory as explicated by Coombs and Holladay. Such an extension could help to deepen our understanding of how crisis responsibility attributions emerge, how they influence organizational reputation, and how crisis managers can refine their communication strategies beyond postcrisis concerns.