Corporate crisis contagion

Corporate crisis contagion has become an emerging research topic in the field of crisis communication. This phenomenon is of particular importance in an age of social media increasing the speed by which a crisis can spread from one organization to another. The negative consequences of crisis contagion can be significant when consumers make assumptions of guilt by association. This entry introduces the accessibility-diagnosticity framework which can be used to assess the risk of crisis contagion. It also discusses four risk factors which can increase the likelihood of crisis contagion, including country of origin (COO), industry, organizational type, and positioning strategy. Then, how companies should respond to a crisis in order to avoid being involved in crisis contagion is discussed. The entry ends with proposing some directions for future research which can contribute to advancing our understanding of crisis contagion.