Original Research Article
Year: 2016 | Month: July-September | Volume: 1 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 11-19
How Sri Lankan young consumers morally repute the troubled company during a product harm crisis: A challenge of financial sustainability
Ganganee Chandima Samaraweera
Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka.
ABSTRACT
Product harm crises are mounting at an accelerating rate throughout the world recently alarming the importance of scrutinizing this worst nightmare through a new empirical angle. Therefore, this study discusses how consumer looks a troubled company during a product harm crisis through his ‘ethical eye’, i.e., his moral reputational perspective. Based on 492 young Sri Lankan consumers view, results revealed that causative dimensions (internal-company, stable, and controllable-company) affect adversely on consumers’ moral reputation toward the troubled company. Further study uncovers that consumers’ moral reputation is an important bridging connection between the attribution process and consumers based brand equity. This study provides new insights for companies to protect their consumers’ moral reputation toward them, while safekeeping the consumer based brand equity in midst of product harm crisis.
Key words: product harm crisis, brand equity, causative dimensions.