Reputation management during a public health crisis: Overcompensating when all else fails

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Castro, Samanta Varela; Bustos, Edgar O.; Gonzatti, Daniel Saldivia
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13638
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: ORGANIZATIONAL REPUTATION; Risk communication; legitimacy; POLICY; KNOWLEDGE

摘要

Although reactions to reputational threats have been studied before, there is still an opportunity to understand the dynamics of reputation management facing a crisis. This study seeks to understand how the legal-procedural, moral, performative, and technical dimensions of reputation change during the management of an extended crisis in a public health organization. We explore the communication of the Mexican Health Secretariat by analyzing its press conferences and releases before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on the situational crisis communication theory and considering public interest, we conducted two exploratory examinations based on text-as-data methods to capture reputation-related language. Our analysis suggests that factors influencing reputational threat, such as crisis severity, legitimacy, leaders' individual reputation, and coalition support, may be important for choosing between strategies. We argue that the Secretariat radically changed its reputation management strategy during the pandemic-they first stressed the technical and, as damage rose, the performative dimensions.