Whose crisis is it anyway? Examining complexity in blame attribution and reputational risk in the airline industry.

The airline industry has long been identified as crisis prone (Gonzales-Herrero & Pratt, 1996). Yet in recent years, the industry has faced an increasingly difficult task in managing issues, not least of all because of the complex international audiences and situations facing it. The complexity surrounding catastrophic events is not limited to the different global audiences to whom the airline might be speaking but also the level of coordination required to respond as was demonstrated by the March 2015 crash of the Germanwings flight in France where the world heard from the leaders of France, Spain, and Germany along with the Spanish King all before hearing from the company itself. In a 2x2 experimental design, approximately 200 respondents from each of the following countries – Bulgaria, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the US – were exposed to a news article customised to their region reporting on either a health or safety crisis with either an accommodative or defensive response from the airline.