The Impact of CEO Ethnicity and Language Choice on Crisis Communication in Japan

Abstract

Spokesperson ethnicity research has shown that organizations can benefit from matching spokespersons to their target audiences. However, one facet of Japanese crisis communication can make this approach difficult for foreign organizations facing crises in Japan. The Japanese tendency to focus on collective-level causality and place blame with leaders through proxy logic, frequently forces CEOs into the role of crisis spokesperson. The current study utilized an experimental design to examine the effect of CEO ethnicity and language choice on how culturally matched and unmatched crisis responses were evaluated by a Japanese audience. Specifically, participants’ perceptions of ideological similarity, spokesperson credibility, and organizational reputation were compared between the Japanese CEO baseline and a Caucasian CEO speaking either in English or Japanese. The study found that the foreign CEO condition was evaluated more favorably across all measures independent of response match but found variations in the impact of choosing to forgo a translator in favor of delivering the response in Japanese.

Keywords

cross-cultural crisis communication spokesperson ethnicity language choice Japan

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

2014 nen waasuto kiki kouhou. (2015). Kouhoukaigi, 72, 20-35.

Arpan

L. M.

(2002). When in Rome? The effects of spokesperson ethnicity on audience evaluation of crisis communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 39, 314-339.

Arpan

L. M.

Sun

(2006). The effect of country of origin on judgments of multinational organizations involved in a crisis. Journal of Promotion Management, 12, 189-214.

Azuma

(2010). How open is Japan linguistically? Natives’ attitudes toward non-natives’ use of honorifics in business settings. Global Business Languages, 6, 5. Retrieved from https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/gbl/vol6/iss1/5

Befu

(1993). Nationalism and nihonjinron. In Befu

(Ed.), Cultural nationalism in East Asia: Representation and identity (pp. 107-135). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Berscheid

(1966). Opinion change and communicator-communicatee similarity and dissimilarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 670-680.

Brewer

M. B.

(1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love and outgroup hate? Journal of Social Issues, 55, 429-444.

Brock

T. C.

(1965). Communicator-recipient similarity and decision change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 650-654.

Coombs

W. T.

(2007). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10, 163-176.

10.

Coombs

W. T.

(2017). Revising situational crisis communication theory: The influence of social media on crisis communication theory and practice. In Austin

Jin

(Eds.), Social media and crisis communication (pp. 21-37). New York, NY: Routledge.

11.

Creighton

M. R.

(1995). Imaging the other in Japanese advertising campaigns. In Carrier

J. G.

(Ed.), Occidentalism: Images of the West (pp. 135-160). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

12.

DeShields

O. W.

Jr. Ali

(2000, July). The persuasive effect of spokesperson similarity moderated by source credibility. Paper presented at the American Marketing Association Winter Educators Proceedings, Chicago, IL.

13.

Drumheller

Benoit

W. L.

(2004). USS Greeneville collides with Japan’s Ehime Maru: Cultural issues in image repair discourse. Public Relations Review, 30, 177-185.

14.

Fujimoto

(2001). Japanese-ness, whiteness, and the “other” in Japan’s internationalization. In Collier

M. J.

(Ed.), Transforming communication about culture: Critical new directions (pp. 1-24). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

15.

Hambleton

(2011). Reinforcing identities? Non-Japanese residents, television and cultural nationalism in Japan. Contemporary Japan, 23, 27-47.

16.

Haruta

Hallahan

(2003). Cultural issues in airline crisis communications: A Japan-US comparative study. Asian Journal of Communication, 13, 122-150.

17.

Hearit

K. M.

(2006). Crisis management by apology: Corporate response to allegations of wrongdoing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

18.

Hosman

L. A.

(2002). Language and persuasion. In Pfau

Dillard

J. P.

(Eds.), The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice (pp. 371-390). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

19.

Hovland

C. I.

Weiss

(1951). The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15, 635-650.

20.

Kalbermatten

(2011). Schindler elevators and the challenges of the Japanese market. In Haghirian

Gagnon

(Eds.), Case studies in Japanese management (pp. 203-229). Singapore: World Scientific.

21.

Kobayashi

(2010). Discriminatory attitudes toward intercultural communication in domestic and overseas contexts. Higher Education, 59, 323-333.

22.

Kovacs

(2011). Nihon media ni okeru shazai kaiken no bunseki [Analysis of apology conferences in the Japanese media]. Sociologist, 13, 145-167.

23.

Lehmberg

Hicks

(2018). A “glocalization” approach to the internationalizing of crisis communication. Business Horizons, 61, 357-366.

24.

Lie

(2000). The discourse of Japaneseness. In Douglas

Roberts

(Eds.), Japan and global migration foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society (pp. 70-90). New York, NY: Routledge.

25.

Lingley

(2006). Apologies across cultures: An analysis of intercultural communication problems raised in the Ehime Maru incident. Asian EFL Journal, 8, 97-122.

26.

Littlefield

R. S.

Cowden

(2006, November). Rethinking the single spokesperson model of crisis communication: Recognizing the need to address multiple publics. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the National Communication Association, San Antonio, TX. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228418318_Rethinking_the_single_spokesperson_model_of_crisis_communication_Recognizing_the_need_to_address_multiple_publics

27.

Liu

B. F.

Pompper

(2012). The crisis with no name: Defining the interplay of culture, ethnicity, and race on organizational issues and media outcomes. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 40, 127-146.

28.

Lucero

Kwang

T. T. A.

Pang

(2009). Crisis leadership: When should the CEO step up? Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 14, 234-248.

29.

McCroskey

J. C.

Richmond

V. P.

Daly

J. A.

(1975). The development of a measure of perceived homophily in interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 1, 323-332.

30.

McCroskey

J. C.

Young

T. J.

(1981). Ethos and credibility: The construct and its measurement after three decades. Communication Studies, 32(1), 24-34.

31.

McCroskey

L. L.

McCroskey

J. C.

Richmond

V. P.

(2006). Analysis and improvement of the measurement of interpersonal attraction and homophily. Communication Quarterly, 54, 1-31.

32.

Miller

R. A.

(1977). The Japanese language in contemporary Japan: Some sociolinguistic observations. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

33.

Nakajima

(2007). Sono kishakaiken machigattemasu! kikikanri kouhou no jissai [That press conference was wrong! The reality of crisis management PR]. Tokyo, Japan: Nihonkeizaishinbun.

34.

Nottage

(2006). The ABCs of product safety re-regulation in Japan: Asbestos, buildings, consumer electrical goods, and Schindler’s lifts. Griffith Law Review, 15, 242-286.

35.

Ohbuchi

(2015). Shippai shinai ayamari kata [How not to fail at apologizing]. Tokyo, Japan: CCC Media House.

36.

Petty

R. E.

Cacioppo

J. T.

(1984). Source factors and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In Kinnear

T. C.

(Ed.), Advances in consumer research (Vol 11, pp. 668-672). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.

37.

Pinsdorf

M. K.

(1991). Flying different skies: How cultures respond to airline disasters. Public Relations Review, 17, 37-56.

38.

Pornpitakpan

(2004). The persuasiveness of source credibility: A critical review of five decades’ evidence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34, 243-281.

39.

Prieler

(2010). Othering, racial hierarchies and identity construction in Japanese television advertising. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 13, 511-529.

40.

Rogers

E. M.

Bhowmik

D. K.

(1970). Homophily-heterophily: Relational concepts for communication research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 34, 523-538.

41.

Rothlin

McCann

(2016). The social environment: Business etiquette and cultural sensitivity. In Rothlin

McCann

(Eds.), International business ethics: Focus on China (pp. 321-340). Berlin, Germany: Springer.

42.

Tajfel

Turner

J. C.

(2004). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Jost

J. T.

Sidanius

(Eds.), Key readings in social psychology: Political psychology (pp. 276-293). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

43.

Takaku

Lee

Y. T.

Weiner

Ohbuchi

(2005). A cross-cultural examination of perceptions of apology, responsibility, and justice: The USS Greenville accident and the E-P3 airplane accident. Tohoku Psychologica Folia, 64, 39-57.

44.

Tanaka

(2006). Sonna shazaikaiken de ha kaisha ga abunai [Apology press conferences that are dangerous for companies]. Tokyo, Japan: Bunshunbunko.

45.

Tkalac Verčič

Verčič

Coombs

W. T

. (2019). Convergence of crisis response strategy and source credibility: Who can you trust? Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 27, 28-37.

46.

Torigoe

(2012). Whiteness discourse in Japan: The construction of ideal beauty and racial others in cosmetic surgery advertisements. Seinan Gakuin University Journal of English Literature Studies, 52, 71-94.

47.

Turk

J. V.

Jin

Stewart

Kim

Hipple

J. R.

(2012). Examining the interplay of an organization’s prior reputation, CEO’s visibility, and immediate response to a crisis. Public Relations Review, 38, 574-583.

48.

Wang

Arpan

L. M.

(2008). Effects of race and ethnic identity on audience evaluation of HIV public service announcements. Howard Journal of Communications, 19, 44-63.

49.

Yamashiro

J. H.

(2013). The social construction of race and minorities in Japan. Sociology Compass, 7, 147-161.

50.

Yoshino

(1992). Cultural nationalism in contemporary Japan: A sociological enquiry. London, England: Routledge.

51.

Zemba

Young

M. J.

Morris

M. W.

(2006). Blaming leaders for organizational accidents: Proxy logic in collective-versus individual-agency cultures. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101, 36-51.