infonet-economy

Although ethical scandals are a common phenomenon in the service industry, there is little research on the service-specific aspects of crisis management. In this research, we argue that frontline employees are of crucial importance after a scandal and examine how firms can secure the support of frontline employees following different kinds of scandals. Specifically, we demonstrate that corrective responses that address the internal causes of a scandal and ceremonial responses that guide attention to positive aspects unrelated to the scandal moderate the impact of different scandals on frontline employee support. Three experiments showed that frontline employee support was greater after scandals that involved a great rather than a small number of wrongdoers and after scandals that had been caused by high-ranking managers rather than low-ranking employees when a corrective response was implemented. In contrast, support was greater following scandals that had been committed by a few low-ranking employees rather than high-ranking managers when a ceremonial response was employed. These results have important implications by illustrating how companies can effectively restore frontline employee support following a scandal.