When in Rome? The effects of spokesperson ethnicity on audience evaluation of crisis communication

An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of using organizational spokespersons of ethnic backgrounds similar to or different from possible stakeholders of a multinational organization. The investigation used a fictitious crisis in the United States and varied the home country of the organization involved in the crisis (United States, Mexico, and Japan), as well as whether the organization used a spokesperson from its home country. Although the participant groups did not generally prefer similar spokespersons, path analyses found that the degree to which each participant identified with his or her own ethnic group affected spokesperson similarity ratings, which, in turn, predicted spokesperson credibility ratings. Additionally, the extent to which participants accepted the crisis response given by the organization was predicted by spokesperson credibility ratings. Implications for multinational organizations experiencing a crisis in host, or foreign, countries are discussed.