Managerial Implications of Product Harm Crisis: A Review
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Date
2021
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
A product-harm crisis is one of the worst nightmares prevailing in the market place that creates a
threat to human lives as well as the company reputation and equity of brands. Therefore, the whole
world struggle with how to best manage the product harm crisis. Hence, a systematic review of
scientific articles was conducted using popular bibliographic databases by capturing relevant
empirical studies which evaluating the product harm crisis management practices utilized to mitigate
societal damages and to secure intangible assets. The study suggests that implementing a total quality
management system (TQM) and organizational complaint management, developing online software
to monitor customer response, reengineering the company work and building cross-functional teams,
learning and evaluating the past and envisioning the future while detecting the weak signals become
fruitful strategies to mitigate societal damages. Accordingly, global crisis management involving
three phases including the pre-crisis phase, crisis phase and post-crisis phase in order to efficient
management of product harm crisis. Past literature directs that protecting loyal consumers via
building customer satisfaction, initiating customer relationship management (CRM), developing 3Vs‟
approach that includes defining the value of customer segment, proposition and the network that will
deliver will secure the brand equity and company reputation. Moreover, specific managerial
implications concerning the valuation of Consumer Based Brand Equity in a product harm crisis,
customer-oriented bottom-up approach and the consumer‟s sense of control yield productive results
in the management of product harm crisis. Most interestingly, past scholars have repeatedly
documented that product harm crises are ethical issues and consumers‟ cultural variation is of utmost
importance in crisis response strategy in particular. Finally, maintaining efficient financial records
and pre-planned crisis agendas seem vital to the management of financial status in the product harm
crisis context. However, the study concludes that further efforts are required to establish a holistic
framework applicable to all cultures which is vital from a managerial perspective and managers
should treat a product harm crisis as an ethical issue and attempt to understand moral perceptions of
consumers by implementing moderating roles of brand attitude, brand trust and perceived quality of
the brand.
Keywords: Brand Equity; Management Implications; Product Harm Crisis; Reputation; Societal
Damages
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Keywords
Agriculture, Crop Production, Management Implications