Received: 27 June 2020 | Revised: 20 May 2021 | Accepted: 23 May 2021

DOI: 10.1111/1468-5973.12370

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Examining organization‐public relationships in crises: A

thematic meta‐analysis of updated literature from 1997
to 2019

Yang Cheng | Caroline Funkhouser | Tessa Raabe | Rebecca Cross

Department of Communication, North

Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
Correspondence
Yang Cheng, Department of Communication,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh,
NC, USA.
Email: ccylove2010@gmail.com
Abstract
In crises, relationships between organizations and publics are under pressure. Building or
managing relationships in crises has attracted heated discussions among scholars in the
field of public relations and business communication over the past few decades. To
provide an updated systematic analysis of this area, this study presents a review of 131
published journal articles from 1997 to 2019. Findings identified theoretical and meth-
odological trends in current relationship management research in crises. In addition, five
themes of relationships in crises were demonstrated. These included the antecedents,
outcomes, mediating/moderating role, networks and the process of relationships. Results
also indicated that crisis communication strategies, crisis types and prior crisis history
were key precursors of (re‐)building relationships in the literature. Theoretical and
practical implications were discussed.

KEYWORDS
crisis communication, organization‐public relationships (OPRs), satisfaction, strategic
management, trust

1 | INTRODUCTION
Over the past 20 years, organizations and their publics have en-
countered a variety of crises worldwide such as the coronavirus
pandemic in 2020, the financial crisis in 2008, and the SARS public
health emergency in 2002. Organizations began to realize that a
crisis as an event or a process could bring sudden or unexpected
consequences that may threaten their finances or reputation
(Coombs, 2007), and few of them could successfully address all un-
predictable crises and the possible reputation damage. As we con-
tinue to move into a post‐truth era marked by misinformation and
disinformation, terrorist attacks, viral outbreaks and marketing
mishaps (Cheng & Lee, 2019; Clark‐Ginsberg & Petrun Sayers, 2020),
crisis communication is rapidly growing as one of the most important
academic topics in the field of public relations.
In crises, organizations have to make decisions about how to
navigate their relationships with both internal and external stake-
holders (Massey, 2001); Publics need to re‐evaluate relationships
and distrust or dissatisfaction could emerge if their needs could not
be continuously fulfilled by organizations (Kang et al., 2018;
Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002). Therefore, the strength of organization‐
public relationships (OPRs) can be challenged in crisis situations if
the stakeholder needs are not adequately fulfilled. Given this po-
tential challenge in OPR strength in crisis management, stakeholder
relationships could suffer in the aftermath of a crisis event. An or-
ganization's ability to manage its relationships with stakeholders in
crisis time is becoming more crucial (Smith et al., 2021).
To examine how organizations may (re)build their relationships
with publics during and after crises, many scholars have devoted
their research to this area over the past 20 years. Some studies
focused on the positive dimensions of relationships such as trust and
commitment (e.g., Turcanu et al., 2021; Wilson et al., 2008; Xu,
2019). For instance, building on literature from excellence theory (cf.
Grunig, 1992), the relationship management paradigm (cf.
Ledingham, 2003) and issue management (Heath, 2006), Wilson et al.
(2008) developed a conceptual model to examine issues in

J. Contingencies Crisis Manag. 2021;1–13. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jccm © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd | 1
2 |
transgressions and the consequent outcomes on relationships be-
tween sponsor and sports organizations in Australia. Their findings
suggested that building longer and ongoing relationships could en-
hance the public trust and reduce potential threats in the event of
transgressions (Wilson et al., 2008). Xu (2019) adopted the invest-
ment model and relationship management theory to study OPRs in
crises, and he proposed that relationship maintenance strategies
should prioritize publics' needs to enhance the public commitment
and trust toward organizations. Other studies discussed the negative
side of OPRs such as distrust and dissatisfaction (e.g., Cheng & Shen,
2020; Kang et al., 2018). For instance, Cheng and Shen (2020) con-
ducted a research survey to study consumers' relationships with
United Airlines. Results indicated that distrust, when compared to
trust, had a larger impact on stakeholders' behavioural intentions
after the crises.
In summary, the above‐mentioned studies on OPRs in crises
have gained momentum in the literature with diversified theoretical
and methodologic approaches. To present a systematic review of
crisis communication literature, scholars such as An and Cheng
(2010) conducted a relevant thematic review study of a 30‐year span
(1975—2006) of manuscripts. This book chapter presents the overall
trend and paradigm shifts of crisis communication research. Cheng
and Cameron (2017) reviewed all 69 articles on the topic of social‐
mediated crisis communication from 2002 to 2014. Eriksson (2018)
analyzed advice for effective social media crisis communication
provided by researchers in the field of strategic communication and
identified five thematic lessons via a systematic content analysis of
103 articles from 2014 to 2017. However, an updated study of OPRs
in crisis communication has not yet been attempted, leaving the
existing review studies outdated. While crises have been widely
discussed in interdisciplinary fields such as public relations, busi-
ness or applied communication in general, a synthesized review is
missing. How an organization reacts to crises can have far‐reaching
positive or negative effects on its relationships with key stake-
holders, and the broader effect of crisis outcomes remains unknown.
As such, this study aims to provide an up‐to‐date review of the
literature on OPRs in crises to understand both the historical and more
recent developments of this area. Specifically, this study outlines theo-
retical and methodological trends in terms of the number of published
articles per year, the predominant guiding theories, sampling technique,
sample type and research methods. Furthermore, this study identifies
five themes to describe relationships in crises, provides directions for
future research and offers practical implications on organizational re-
lationships with publics in a dynamic crisis event.
2 | LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 | Crisis communication research and relevant
theories
To manage the potentially detrimental effects of a crisis, previous
literature extensively discussed how to cope with types of crises
CHENG ET AL.
across stages and engaged with stakeholders by using different re-
sponse forms and crisis communication strategies. Building on pre-
vious work on apologia and accounts, Benoit (1997) proposed and
examined the theory of image restoration discourse to help organi-
zations design response messages to help eliminate or minimize the
damage sustained through crises. He also followed the rhetorical
approach and identified five general strategies such as denial,
evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness of event, corrective
action, and mortification to help organizations enhance the effec-
tiveness of reducing defensive messages for crisis communication.
Drawing on inferences from attribution theory, Coombs and his
colleagues further developed the situational crisis communication
theory (SCCT) to guide organizations on adopting various crisis re-
sponse strategies in different scenarios to reach desired outcomes
such as image repair or reducing negative behavioral intentions of
publics (Coombs, 2007). According to this theory, stakeholders
would attribute low, medium or high levels of responsibility towards
an organization depending on accident, victim or preventable types
of crises. The responsibility is generally perceived as low for victim
crises and high for preventable crises. SCCT also argues that orga-
nizations may adopt a range of response strategies depending upon
their perceived level of crisis responsibility. For example, if the
perceived responsibility is low, then a defensive response strategy
such as attacking accusers and denial may be taken; if the perceived
responsibility is high, then an accommodative strategy such as
compensation and apology could be adopted.
In the field of crisis communication, several traditional public
relations theories were also widely applied. For instance, Cameron
and his colleagues (Cancel et al., 1997) developed the contingency
theory of accommodation to highlight the dynamic strategic com-
munication process between organizations and their publics. They
also listed both external and internal contingency factors of how
organizations might choose stances towards their publics in crises or
conflicts.
Among diversified theoretical frameworks, issue management
theory (Seeger et al., 2001) also drew intensive attention from
scholars. For instance, Heath (2006) emphasized the importance of
identifying and monitoring any issues involved in the pre‐, during and
postcrisis stages. Regester and Larkin (2005) developed an in-
tegrated seven‐step model including monitoring, identification,
prioritization, analysis, strategy decision, implementation and
evaluation.
2.2 | Relationships and the relational approach
The concept of relationships has been widely studied by scholars
from interdisciplinary disciplines including interpersonal, business
communication, intra‐organizational and public relations. Earlier, Van
de Ven (1976) used structures, processes and outcomes to explore
three constructs of interorganizational relationships. He regarded
relationship processes as the information flow or interactions
between relational parties. Recent literature on business
CHENG ET AL.
communication (e.g., Jeon & Baeck, 2016; Zhang & Bloemer, 2008)
focused on the relationship quality between customers and the
brand. Fernandes and Moreira (2019)'s study, for instance, indicated
that strong, satisfied, trustful and affective relationships could po-
sitively affect customers' brand loyalty.
Relationship management is a crucial function of the practice of
public relations. Broom and Sha (2013) argue that public relations
itself ‘is the management function that establishes and maintains
mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the
publics’ (p. 5). Prioritizing organizational relationship management is
not a new phenomenon in public relations literature. Beginning in
1984, Dr. Ferguson argued for a shift in the general function of
public relations practice towards a management approach.
Ferguson's (1984) idea that the relationship, not the process of
communication itself, should be the main aspect of study in the
public relations field provided the starting point for a major change
in the way public relations as a study was conceptualized. Moving
forward from that point, Grunig et al. (2002) re‐conceptualized
public relations not just as a communicative function, but as a
management function as well. This reconceptualization of the func-
tion of public relations brought to light the need for public relations
management teams to be highly skilled in areas such as crisis plan-
ning, reasoning and crisis plan implementation (Ledingham, 2003).
Re‐conceptualizing public relations as a management function led to
the development of analyzing the outcomes of those management
relationships (Hon & Grunig, 1999). These outcomes not only help to
determine the value of the public relations management, but they
also serve as a way to measure the viability of the long‐term re-
lationships that these organizations have with their stakeholders
(Hon & Grunig, 1999; Kang & Yang, 2010). With this re-
conceptualization of public relations in literature arose a need for a
new definition of public relations in which the concept of relation-
ships is located at the core. Broom et al. (1997) argued that the
absence of an appropriate definition might lead public relations re-
searchers to make inaccurate claims about relationships. Their work
conceptualized that a new definition should allow for ‘valid opera-
tional measures of organization‐public relationships' and promoted
new theory building within the field of public relations (Broom et al.,
1997, p. 83). Following their work, Ledingham (2003) proposed the
relationship management theory as a general theory of public rela-
tions emphasizing what public relations is, rather than what public
relations does. The relationship management theory dictates that the
organization and its key stakeholders are no longer separate entities
with different objectives; instead, the actions of one group directly
affect the outcome for the other (Ledingham, 2003). The desire to
build and maintain positive OPRs with key publics serves as an im-
portant management function of public relations (Ledingham, 2003).
2.3 | Relationship management in crises
In crisis communication literature, relationships between organiza-
tions and their stakeholders have attracted continuous attention.
| 3
Particularly with relevance to precrisis relationship history, scholars
(Coombs, 2000) have supported the benefits of relationship man-
agement. For instance, Coombs and Holladay (2001) found that if
stakeholders' prior reputation is positive, organizations might be able
to prevent potential reputational damage resulting from crises. In
addition, Brown and White (2011) determined that in a university
crisis setting, positive relationships could prevent students from at-
tributing responsibility towards the university. The relational ap-
proach, thus, is crucial for organizations to establish a positive
postcrisis outcome.
While the concept of relationships has been frequently discussed
in previous crisis communication studies, a majority of them (e.g.,
Lee, 2017; Xu, 2019) followed Hon and Grunig's (1999) con-
ceptualization of OPRs and examined relationships by positing four
major components—commitment, trust, control mutuality and sa-
tisfaction. Commitment means ‘the extent to which each party be-
lieves and feels that the relationship is worth spending energy to
maintain and promote' (Lee & Li, 2020, p. 2). Trust refers to a sta-
keholder group's level of confidence in the other relational parties'
existence in a relationship (Cheng et al., 2020). As a crucial part of
the relationship between a corporation and its stakeholders, control
mutuality is defined as ‘the degree to which parties agree on who has
rightful power to influence one another’ (Hon & Grunig, 1999, p. 13).
Satisfaction is widely used as a relational feature as well (Kang &
Yang, 2010), and a satisfying relationship will occur if the received
rewards outweigh what parties invest in the relationship (Kim, 2018).
For example, Kim et al. (2019) adopted trust, control mutuality,
commitment and satisfaction as four sub‐dimensions of employee‐
organization relationships and found the positive outcomes of re-
lationships and stealing thunder strategies on employees' supportive
behaviours and internal reputation. Xu (2019) focused on publics'
commitment and trust as two key variables to study the mediating
effects of relationships between organizations' relationship main-
tenance strategies and publics' accommodative or hostile postcrisis
behaviours. A few other studies such as Cheng and Shen (2020) also
included both trust and distrust as important dimensions to ex-
amine OPRs.
Based on literature from marketing, public relations, and inter-
personal communication, Ledingham and Bruning (1998) also em-
ployed involvement, trust, openness, investment and commitment as
five sub‐categories of relationships. Scholars in crisis communication
adopted concepts such as openness or involvement to study func-
tions of media platforms for relationship building. For instance, du
Plessis (2018) mentioned that openness of media tools were critical
for OPRs and could significantly facilitate stakeholder support in
social media crises. He employed GitLab's case as an example and
suggested that if organizations could invite stakeholder participation
with the content by being direct, unguarded, reliable and honest,
crises might be resolved in a collaborative effort with enhanced re-
lationship qualities in postcrisis situations (du Plessis, 2018).
Regarding relationship management in crises, one prevalent type
of crisis communication research placed an emphasis on the ante-
cedents of OPR. As Hung explained, ‘OPRs arise since organizations
4 |
and their strategic publics are interdependent’ (Hung, 2005, p. 396)
and such interdependence makes organizations manage relationships
constantly. Scholars of crisis management illustrate how factors such
as prior reputation, crisis types and timing, or crisis response stra-
tegies determine relationship qualities (e.g., DiStaso et al., 2015; Xu,
2018). Other studies seemed to focus more on the outcomes of re-
lationships such as postcrisis reputation, employees' supportive be-
havioural intentions, blame, positive/negative megaphoning, and so
forth (e.g., Kim et al., 2019; Lee, 2017). The relationship in this type
of crisis communication literature was regarded as ‘the state that
exists between an organization and its key publics in which the ac-
tions of publics impacts the economic, social, and political and/or
cultural well‐being of the other entity’ (Ledingham & Bruning,
1998, p. 62).
There were also studies aimed at understanding the information
flow between organizations and their publics and emphasizing the
contingency and dynamic nature of relationships in crises (Cheng &
Cameron, 2019; Chung et al., 2019). Coombs (2000) suggested that
organizations should treat crises as one incident situated within a
longer and an ongoing relationship (Coombs, 2000) for examining
OPRs in crises. Some other research conceptualized OPRs as com-
municative dialogue between organizational‐centric social networks
in crises (Yang & Taylor, 2014).
In summary, the relationship between organizations and publics
has formed as a key concept in the field of crisis communication and
resulted in diversified research clusters. Despite the rise of such
discussions, an up‐to‐date thematic meta‐analysis reviewing re-
lationship management in crises is lacking. Some previous scholars
(e.g., Huang & Zhang, 2013; Ki & Shin, 2015) have provided valuable
literature reviews regarding the status of relationship management
research in the field of public relations. However, their collected data
were out of date. In addition, their reviews did not focus specifically
on the relationship management in crisis situations. Concerning the
importance of understanding the state of relationships in crisis
communication, this study aims to review the existing scholarship by
addressing three research questions below.
RQ1: What patterns exist in terms of the number of published
articles focusing on relationships in crises from the selected 14
journals (1997‐2019)?
RQ2: What are the theoretical and methodological approaches
of literature on relationships in crises?
RQ3: What are the main research themes in the literature on
relationships in crises?
3 | METHOD
To examine the state of academic research on relationship man-
agement in crises, we first searched previous review studies in the
field of public relations. According to Ki and Ye (2016), thematic
meta‐analysis helps to identify, analyze and interpret patterns of
meaning through systematic meta‐synthesis of relevant research
CHENG ET AL.
studies. Previous thematic meta‐analysis could fall into two main
categories: one being analysis of a certain field such as a synthesized
review of public relations research for 10 years (e.g., Ferguson,
1984), the other one is the review of a specific topic. For instance, Ki
and Ye (2016) conducted a thematic meta‐analysis of global public
relations; Ki and Shin (2015) provided a review of literature on OPRs
from 1985 to 2013. Cheng (2018a) reviewed previous OPR litera-
ture, provided a timeline for the development of OPR itself, and
found an increased interest in OPR research by various scholars over
the past few decades. As the relationship management approach
continuously developed itself as one of the most important concepts
in crisis communication research, this study followed previous the-
matic meta‐analysis and collected published journal articles on this
topic of relationship management in crises.
3.1 | Data collection
To provide an overview of past literature on relationship management
in crises, we first identified fourteen relevant journals for data collec-
tion. These journals came from interdisciplinary fields such as public
relations (i.e., Public Relations Review, Journal of Public Relations Research,
Journal of Communication Management, Corporate Communications: An
International Journal, and Public Relations Inquiry), crisis/risk management
(i.e., Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, and Journal of Risk
Research), applied or mass communication (i.e., Journal of Applied Com-
munication Research, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly),
and business communication (i.e., Business Horizons, Journal of Business
Ethics, Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Business
Communication, and Corporate Reputation Review). We then conducted a
keyword search in the topics of each journal, which include “crisis” or
“crises” or “disasters” or “incident” or “accident”, and “relationship(s)” or
“OPR(s)” or “relationship management” or “relational outcomes” or
“relationship quality” or “trust” or “distrust” or “control mutuality” or
"commitment" or “openness” or "investment" or “involvement” or “sa-
tisfaction”. Only journal articles in English were included, and the initial
search received 145 results. We then removed irrelevant or duplicate
search results from the pool and finalized 131 journal articles published
from 1997 to 2019 for our data analysis.
3.2 | Unit of analysis and coding scheme
The unit of analysis was each journal article. To provide a thematic
meta‐analysis of the 131 articles on the relationship management in
crises, four categories of measures were implemented from the co-
debook. We first coded the general information of each article, in-
cluding journal name, article title, and publication year. Second, the
content of each article, including theoretical applications, usage of
research question(s), hypothesis/hypotheses or both, five themes of
relationships in crises were measured. Third, the researchers coded
general methodological approaches, sampling methods, data gath-
ering procedure and source, and measures of relationships. Lastly,
CHENG ET AL.
the coders identified types of crises, organizations and stakeholders,
and crisis communication strategies mentioned in each article. Each
variable and its measures were presented below.
3.3 | Theoretical applications
Following previous thematic meta‐analysis (e.g., An & Cheng, 2010;
Wang et al., 2021), coders examined this variable as each explicit
theoretical framework, such as image repair theory or SCCT, iden-
tified in each article. They first coded whether the article included a
theory or not, then they wrote down the specific name of the theory
in the codebook.
3.4 | Use of research questions or hypotheses
Adopting Cheng's (2018a) coding scheme, each article was coded based
on whether or not it utilized only hypotheses, only research questions,
both hypotheses and research questions, or neither of them.
3.5 | Themes of OPRs
Coders collected the most prevalent theme about relationship manage-
ment mentioned in each article. Specifically, antecedents of relationships
refer to how the antecedents such as maintenance strategy, conflict
strategy, crisis response, online interactivity, transparency, bipartisanship
messaging and candidate exposure influence OPRs. Outcomes of re-
lationships are defined as consequences of conducting relationship
management in crises such as changes in stock price, reputation gain/loss,
financial gain/loss, etc. Mediation/moderation of OPRs refers to how
OPR mediates/moderates the association between variables (e.g., orga-
nizational relationship maintenance strategies and publics' relational
behaviors). Process of relationships describes a dynamic approach to
examine the information flow/interactions between organizations and
publics. Finally, structures of OPRs mean the analysis of organizational‐
centric social network relationships with multiple publics in multiple
channels at a time.
3.6 | General methodological approaches
To code methodological approaches, we applied quantitative, qualitative
and mixed methods as three categories. According to Torrentira (2020),
the qualitative method is the process of seeking in‐depth understanding
of social phenomena via in‐depth interview, focus group, case study or
literature review. Quantitative methods refer to a study quantifying the
collection and analysis of data and results can be generalized to a larger
population. It involves content analysis, survey, experiment and social/
semantic network analysis, etc. If both were applied in one study, it was
coded as a mixed method.
| 5
3.7 | Sampling methods
To identify how the research reached its sample and possible dif-
ferences between the samples, coders noted the sampling method
and chose from the following types of sampling: Nonprobability
sampling method (e.g., convenience sampling, purposive sampling,
quota sampling, snowball sampling, etc.), probability sampling
method (e.g., systematic sampling, simple random sampling, stratified
sampling, cluster sampling, etc.), mixed sampling methods or no
sampling methods mentioned.
3.8 | Data gathering procedure and source
The data gathering procedure refers to the method used for data
collection (An & Cheng, 2010). We included in‐depth interview,
focus group, case study, literature review, content analysis, sur-
vey, experiment and social/semantic network analysis, etc. in the
coding scheme. For articles in which the researchers noted their
sources of data collection, we coded the sources as people (i.e.,
students/employees/general publics), media (i.e., social media
content/newspaper articles/press releases/websites), literature
or a mixed sample.
3.9 | Measures of OPRs
Following previous scales of OPRs (i.e., Hon & Grunig, 1999;
Ledingham & Bruning, 1998), we included trust, commitment, sa-
tisfaction, control mutuality, openness, investment, involvement,
others (e.g., distrust, dissatisfaction and dissolution intentions, etc.),
and no mentions as categories of coding.
3.10 | Crisis types
Coders coded which crisis type was mentioned from each article. Ten
basic categories were included such as natural crisis, technological
crisis, confrontation crisis, malevolence, skewed management values,
deception, global catastrophe, workplace violence (e.g., shootings),
organizational misdeeds, and business and economic crisis (Cheng &
Cameron, 2017).
3.11 | Types of organizations/stakeholders
Following Cheng and Cameron's (2017) study, organizational types
included non‐profit organizations or charities, governmental institu-
tions, corporations and others. We also coded both internal stake-
holders (i.e., employees, owners or top‐management) and external
stakeholders (i.e., customers, journalists, activists, governmental of-
ficials, general publics or others).
6 | CHENG ET AL.

3.12 | Crisis communication strategies TABLE 1 The number of articles in each journal

Number of
Categories such as denial, shifting the blame, excuse, provocation, Name of each journal articles Percentage (%)
good intention, compensation, apology, bolstering, minimization and
Business Horizon 1 1
attacking the accuser, as so forth. were covered (cf. Cheng, 2018b).
Corporate Communications: An 3 2
Three well‐trained graduate student coders analyzed a total of
International Journal
131 articles. Each coder analyzed about 45 articles independently
Corporate Reputation Review 1 1
after they discussed the definition of each variable and finalized
categories of coding items. For the pre‐testing and a reliability check, International Journal of Business 1 1
Communication
about 15% of the articles were selected and coded by each coder.
The inter‐coder reliability in each category ranged from 0.85 to 0.92 Journal of Applied Communication 1 1
by applying Krippendorff (2018). Based on the acceptable pre‐testing Research

reliability results, the coders were able to continue with coding. Journal of Business Ethics 16 12

Journal of Business Research 4 3

Journal of Contingencies and Crisis 18 14

4 | RESULTS Management

Journal of Communication 9 7
4.1 | The general trends (RQ1)
Management

Journalism & Mass Communication 2 2

The first research question examined the state of relationship
Quarterly
management research in crises from 1997 to 2019. Table 1 provides
an outline of the number of relevant articles published in each Journal of Public Relations 11 8
Research
journal. Note that nearly half of the 131 articles analyzed were
collected from Public Relations Review (n = 57, 43%). Besides, Journal Journal of Risk Research 6 4

of Contingencies and Crisis Management (n = 18, 14%), and Journal of Public Relations Review 57 43
Business Ethics (n = 16, 12%) each account for more than 10% of the Public Relations Inquiry 1 1
total number of articles.
Total 131 100
Additionally, the data show an increase in the number of articles
on relationship management in crises in recent years. As shown in
Figure 1, from 1997 to 2007, only 11 articles focused on relationship
management in crises, while from 2008 to 2019, 120 articles were
identified. Breaking down the data even further, in a specific 5‐year
time span from 2015 to 2019, a total of 80 articles were collected,
demonstrating the recent increase in relationships in crisis man-
agement research.

4.2 | Theoretical frameworks (RQ2)

RQ2 focused on theoretical and methodological approaches of OPR

research in crisis. Concerning theoretical approaches, results pre-
sented the number of articles that adopted at least one theoretical
framework has significantly increased from 9 in 1997–2009 to 74 in
2010–2019, resulting in 83 articles adopting a theoretical frame- FIGURE 1 Trend of published research articles from 1997
to 2019
work. Within the coded theories, we also found that SCCT appeared
most frequently in 16 articles (19%), followed by relationship man-
agement theory (n = 15, 18%), image repair theory (n = 6, 7%), si-
tuational theory of publics/situational theory of problem solving The data regarding hypothesis or research questions applied in
(n = 5, 6%), attribution theory (n = 4, 5%), social‐mediated crisis current literature indicated that 39 articles (30%) implemented only
communication model (n = 3, 4%), stakeholder theory (n = 2, 3%) and hypotheses, followed by 36 articles (28%) with neither research
contingency theory of conflict management (n = 2, 3%). Other men- questions nor hypotheses, 32 articles (24%) have only research
tioned theories included issue management theory, chaos theory, questions and 24 articles (18%) contained both hypotheses and re-
dialogic theory, complexity theory and excellence theory, etc. search questions.
CHENG ET AL. | 7

4.3 | Methodological approaches (RQ2) nonprobability sampling methods. Trust and satisfaction served as
the most frequently applied dimensions of OPRs.
To answer RQ2, researchers coded the method type referenced in
each article along with other more specific methodological selections
such as sampling method and data source. Findings indicated that 4.4 | Five main themes of research (RQ3)
across the past 20 years, quantitative methods (n = 85, 65%) were
more popular than qualitative methods (n = 38, 29%). As shown in RQ3 examined the main themes appearing in the current literature
Table 2, experiment was found to be the most common method on relationships in crises. As shown in Figure 2, the first identified
(n = 37, 28%), followed by survey (n = 36, 27%), case study (n = 16, theme is antecedents of OPRs, which was the most discussed in 63
12%), interview/focus group (n = 12, 10%), literature review (n = 10, articles (48%), followed by other themes such as consequences of
8%), content analysis (n = 8, 6%) and computational methods such as OPRs (n = 34, 26%), mediating/moderating role of OPRs in crises
social network analysis and semantic network analysis (n = 4, 3%). A (n = 18, 14%), process of OPRs (n = 13, 10%), and networks of OPRs
mixed‐methods approach was used in eight articles (6%). (n = 3, 2%).
Most research data were gathered using non‐probability sam-
pling methods (n = 99, 76%). Probability sampling methods were used
in 16 articles (12%), and mixed‐methods sampling was utilized in four 4.5 | Theme 1: Antecedents of OPRs
articles (3%). No sampling method was mentioned for the remaining
twelve articles (9%). Among the sample type, 84 articles (64%) used We found that scholars extensively examined how crisis types and
people as samples; 14 articles (11%) used media content for data timing, crisis response strategies, prior reputation, transparency,
analysis; 18 with cases/articles (14%) and 15 with mixed samples discourse of renewal, awareness of relationship building activ-
such as both media content and people (11%). ities and culture, etc., influence the relationship quality (e.g., DiStaso
Regarding measures of OPRs, data indicated that trust was the et al., 2015; Helm & Tolsdorf, 2013; Maiorescu, 2017; Xu, 2018).
most prevalent dimension of OPRs and appeared in 66 articles (50%), Below we described the antecedents based on three main categories:
followed by satisfaction (27 articles, 21%), commitment (19 articles, organizational attributes, stakeholders' perspectives and crisis types.
15%), control mutuality (19 articles, 15%), involvement (16 articles,
12%), investment (5 articles, 4%), openness (3 articles, 2%), others
such as distrust, dissatisfaction or dissolution intentions (5 articles, 4.5.1 | Organizational attributes
4%), and no mentions (22 articles, 17%).
The general picture, thus, is that the literature on relationships in Among the 131 articles, 56 articles (43%) focused on for‐profit or-
crises involves a broad range of theories, showing the poly‐ ganizations/corporations, 38 of them (29%) on non‐profit or gov-
paradigmatic approach to this topic. A large portion of studies uti- ernmental organizations, and the remaining 37 articles (28%)
lized quantitative methods for data collection, as they specifically mentioned multiple organizations or organizations in general. We
employed experiments and collected people as participants through found that organizational culture, prior crisis history, controllability
of crises, management pressure, transparency and crisis commu-
nication strategies, etc., were identified as crucial elements for re-
TABLE 2 Research methods applied in current literature lationship management in crises (e.g., Grover et al., 2019; Van der
Research Methods Frequency Percentage (%) Meer et al., 2017; Xu, 2018; Zhu et al., 2017). For instance, Xu (2018)
argued that crises might provide opportunities for organizations
Quantitative Methods
engaged in discourse of renewal in postcrisis stages; improving
Survey 36 27
communication efficiency and placing emphasis on organizational
Experiments 37 28 culture and core values could positively affect OPRs. Zhu et al.
Content Analysis 8 6 (2017) added that the culture of the crisis surroundings is a crucial
antecedent as well. In a study conducted by Kim and Choi (2013), it
Computational Method (e.g., social 4 3
network analysis, semantic became apparent that ‘young American participants characterized
network analysis etc.) and evaluated more favorably CSR practices—internal environ-
Qualitative Methods mental, moral, and relational CSR practices—of multinational cor-
porations than did young Korean participants' (p. 114). Meanwhile,
Literature Review 10 8
prior reputation information is important because ‘good performance
Interview/Focus group 12 10
history reduced threats to the organization because people felt a
Case study 16 12 personal bond with, and trust in, the organization’ (Kim, 2017,
Mixed Methods 8 6 p. 277). The more information provided about a company's reputa-
tion, the more inferences could be made about how strong the sta-
Total 131 100
keholder bond was with that company (Kim, 2017).
8 |
FIGURE 2 Five main themes on relationships in crises
It is noted that the organizational crisis response is the most
discussed antecedent among the 131 articles. Some scholars de-
monstrated that organizations' transparency and dialog approaches
are followed by public's trust and mutual respect (e.g., Auger, 2014;
Cheng et al., 2020). Other studies showed a positive influence from
informing the public about a crisis and the public's empathy to a good
reputation (e.g., Kim, 2016; Schoofs et al., 2019). Apology–
forgiveness crisis response process could effectively help the re-
covery of public trust (Grover et al., 2019). It also indicated that,
especially in a social media context, a dialogical strategy enables
information needs and engagement of the stakeholders (e.g., du
Plessis, 2018). Additionally, interactive communication lessens an
organization's crisis responsibility perceived by the publics (e.g., Xu &
Wu, 2015). Overall, the highly recommended strategies that fa-
cilitated (re)building of relationships could be seen as interactive and
proactive, like informing, transparency, dialogue encouragement, as
well as apology and compensation.
Stakeholders' Perspectives. Scholars investigated both internal
publics in 15 articles (11%) and external publics in 116 articles (89%).
Publics' prior brand attitude, pressure, emotions, and attributions of
crisis responsibility were found as the main antecedents (Jahng &
Hong, 2017; McDonald et al., 2010; Van der Meer et al., 2017). For
example, Jahng and Hong (2017) found that in social‐mediated crisis
communication, people's prior positive brand attitude could sig-
nificantly influence their evaluation of corporate reputation, per-
formance evaluation, and purchase intentions. Stakeholders'
negative emotions (McDonald et al., 2010) and pressure (Van der
Meer et al., 2017) also significantly hurt a positive relationship with
organizations. Bakker et al. (2018) focused on the antecedents of
relationships, and they conducted an experiment to investigate
people's willingness to listen to the local government. Their results
CHENG ET AL.
indicated that accountability for crises was negatively related to
publics' relationships with the local government (Bakker et al., 2018).
4.5.2 | Crisis types
In the current scholarship, crisis types were regarded as the main
antecedent that might influence relationships. We coded the articles
that mentioned a specific crisis (either real or hypothetical) from
1997 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2019 and found that organizational
misdeeds were the most commonly coded crisis type in both time
ranges. Some researchers supported the thesis that the usage of a
particular crisis strategy depends on the specific crisis type (e.g.,
Fuoli et al., 2017; Luoma‐aho et al., 2017). Denial strategies for in-
stance were found to be more effective than apology in restoring
public trust in a corporate corruption crisis, supporting a ‘paradoxical
effect’ referring that an open and interactive response strategy
might even be more harmful to organizations than defensive stra-
tegies in the short term (Fuoli et al., 2017).
4.6 | Theme 2: Consequences of OPRs
The second theme identified from the current literature is con-
sequences of OPRs, which focused on how the relationship quality
such as trust, satisfaction and commitment would influence crisis
outcomes such as postcrisis reputation, financial loss or gain, em-
ployees' supportive behavioral intentions, blame, positive/negative
megaphoning, etc. (Kim et al., 2019; Lee, 2017; Molders et al., 2019).
Lee (2017) for instance investigated the internal organization–
employee relationships in the United States and found that
CHENG ET AL.
communal and exchange relationships had distinct impacts on posi-
tive/negative megaphoning behavior based on high or low‐level of
employees. Lee and Kim (2016) suggested that practitioners should
nurture industry relationships in crises since it could help shape
public attitudes toward organizations.
4.7 | Theme 3: Mediating/moderating role
of OPRs
Eighteen articles addressed the mediating/moderating role of OPRs in
crises (e.g., Kang et al., 2018; Lee & Rim, 2016; Xu, 2019). As the analyzed
articles have shown, relationship quality such as publics' commitment and
trust significantly mediated the relationships between organizational
relationship maintenance strategies and publics' relational behaviours.
Kang et al. (2018) examined government–citizens relationship in the
2015 South Korean MERS outbreak, and found that the relationships
between dialogic communication and negative emotions such as anger,
anxiety and cynicism depended on the level of citizens' distrust toward
governments. Lee and Rim (2016) argued that OPRs took an effective
moderating role between company‐cause congruence and negative spil-
lover effects from partners.
4.8 | Theme 4: Process of OPRs
In this cluster, scholars focused on the information flow or interactions
between organizations and their publics (Cheng, 2020; Cheng &
Cameron, 2019; Chung et al., 2019). For instance, following a dynamic
relational approach, Cheng and Cameron (2019) integrated the con-
tingency theory of conflict management and relationship management
theory to investigate the changing relationships between the Red Cross
of China and its publics in the Chinese context. Based on data collected
from content analysis and interviews, they tracked the dynamics of re-
lational status among stakeholders, media and non‐profit organizations
from 2010 to 2014. In their research, six modes such as competing,
capitulating, neutral, accommodating and cooperating relationships were
explicated and examined using empirical data.
4.9 | Theme 5: Networks of OPRs
The last research focus was on networks of OPRs. Studies in this
cluster adopted social/semantic network analysis to study relational
networks between parties (e.g., Valencia & Jones, 2018; Yang et al.,
2012). For instance, Yang et al. (2012) adopted relationship man-
agement and image building as a framework to study public di-
plomacy and applied semantic network analysis to study the national
relationships in the 2011 Libya crisis, which supported measures of
relationships among multiple parties.
In summary, the current literature on relationships in crisis
mainly covered the above‐mentioned five themes and a high focus of
the research on antecedents or relationship outcomes was identified.
| 9
5 | DISCUSSION AND C ONCLUSION
Through a thematic meta‐analysis of 131 published journal articles
from 1997 to 2019, this study provided an updated systematic
analysis of research on OPRs in crisis. Data demonstrated the
number of articles that adopted at least one theoretical framework
has significantly increased over the past 20 years. The SCCT and
relationship management theory were the most frequently adopted.
More than half of the total articles applied either hypotheses or
research questions in their research. Furthermore, the current lit-
erature was quantitatively oriented and relied on trust and sa-
tisfaction as measures of OPRs. In addition, five themes of
relationships in crises were identified. Theoretical and practical im-
plications of these results were listed below.
First, this study contributed to the existing public relations lit-
erature by exploring how OPRs were examined in crisis situations in
the past 20 years of scholarship. When compared to previous im-
portant literature such as An and Cheng's (2010) thematic analysis,
this study extended their work by collecting published journal arti-
cles from interdisciplinary areas (i.e., public relations, crisis man-
agement, business and applied communication). A total of fourteen
journals were included instead of relying on two leading public re-
lations journals (i.e., Journal of Public Relations Research, Public Rela-
tions Review) selected by An and Cheng (2010). Rather than using
‘crises’ as the only search term, we collected a new sample using a
keyword search, to focus on both positive and negative dimensions
of relationships in crises. Further, An and Cheng (2010)'s study put
an emphasis on the overall trends of crisis communication in terms of
theoretical and methodological trends, research topics, and future
directions for the field. In contrast, this study reviewed updated lit-
erature (1997‐2019) and focused on relationship management in
crises. Data presented five main themes of relationships and noted a
high frequency of journal articles on antecedents (34 articles, 26%)
or consequences (63 articles, 48%) of OPRs in crises.
The research sample shows that organizational attributes such
as culture and precrisis reputation, stakeholders' perceptions and
crisis types all could shape OPR practices (Coombs et al., 2016;
Luoma‐aho et al., 2017; Nekmat & Kong, 2019). Through relationship
building or repairing, scholars such as Lee and Kim (2016) and Lee
(2017) also confirmed the positive outcomes such as reputation re-
storation, supportive behaviours and financial gain that relationship
management could bring for postcrisis communication. However, we
noticed the prevalence of cross‐sectional studies in current litera-
ture, and most OPR literature commonly relied on self‐reported and
subjective data (Cheng, 2018a). Coombs and Holladay (2015) argued
it is problematic to adopt scales from interpersonal communication
(i.e., Hon & Grunig, 1999) to measure OPRs in the field of public
relations. Many studies have been conducted to analyze and identify
the causes and effects of relationships in a specified crisis context.
Themes on the process or networks of relationships hardly caught
much attention in academia, and the current literature should con-
centrate on ‘the central concepts of the relationship itself’ (Smith,
2012, p. 843).
10 | CHENG
Second, since the majority of past literature still focuses on trust
or satisfaction as key dimensions of OPRs, this study calls for more
attention on the dark side of relationships in crises or conflicts, which
are the negative OPRs such as distrust, dissatisfaction or dissolution
intentions. In crisis communication, when the legitimacy of OPRs was
challenged and re‐evaluated, we must recognize that the desired
outcome of positive relationships might not exist. Instead, both or-
ganizations and their publics strategically posit stances based on
their own benefits first, and then may consider mutual benefits
(Cheng & Cameron, 2019). The relationship management theory
proposed by Ledingham (2003) thus ignored the negative effects of
relationships and maintaining close relationships might not benefit
the publics as it precluded people from seeking better alternative
opportunities in crises (Coombs & Holladay, 2015). Consequently, we
propose communication scholars should not only focus on the de-
sired functions of relationship maintenance, but also prioritize ne-
gative sides of relationships in crisis communication. Further
research is necessary to expand the current theoretical lens via
fulfilling the need for a cross‐disciplinary theoretical framework to
understand both positive and negative sides of OPRs.
Third, future research should look at more specific stakeholder
groups and explore their relationships with organizations. This study
found the most commonly described stakeholder focus in OPR literature
was the “general public” or “general stakeholders” (91 articles, 69%), and
only a few studies discussed internal stakeholders (14 articles, 11%) such
as employees or management teams. A general approach has a wider
application in the field, but stakeholder groups might not be the same.
Van der Meer et al. (2017) argue that “in crisis times, external stake-
holders (i.e., news media and interested citizens) and internal stake-
holders (i.e., management and employees) are able to put substantial
pressure on the organization and its public relations professionals”
(p. 434). Breaking down stakeholders into specific groups, not just gen-
erally, will allow for a better understanding surrounding each group's
relationship with the organization. Looking deeper at the crisis impact
and crisis outcomes on more specific stakeholder groups could provide a
clearer picture of OPR management in future crisis situations.
Practically, this study adds to the historical OPR research
timeline by incorporating recent and up‐to‐date data to help public
relations managers make the best crisis communication decisions
they can for their particular organization in the modern era. As
Coombs (2007) stated, “the field of crisis communication is domi-
nated by case studies. The end result is that we know precious little
about how stakeholders react to crises or to the crisis response
strategies used […].” (p. 163). He mentioned another important point
in his article by citing Rousseau: “Crisis management needs evidence‐
based crisis communication guidance. Evidence‐based guidance for
decision making in a crisis must be supported by scientific evidence
from empirical research rather than personal preference and un-
scientific experience” (Rousseau, 2006, p. 163). Also, the work of the
scholar gives practical application to help PR practitioners to create
and set up a crisis communication plan, which is essential because it
helps to train the practitioners and to create a more specific crisis or
relationship outcome than without. The recent articles also generally
ET AL.
advised a dialogical, informing, and proactive crisis communication
strategy. If an organization is transparent with the crisis issue and
how it proceeds to overcome it, its publics are more likely to believe,
interact or connect with this organization.
Furthermore, as mentioned in the results section, the dominant crisis
type discussed in OPR crisis literature has not changed throughout the
timeline of our article sample. Organizational misdeeds are the most
analyzed type of crisis impacting organizations. This implies that the
actions of corporations are under scrutiny from both the general public
and the organization's stakeholders. While not every crisis can be pre-
vented and human nature dictates that mistakes and misdeeds might
continue, without reassuring communication with stakeholders, a sig-
nificantly high level of negative feelings might occur and evoke “a fear
control process” (De Vocht et al., 2016, p. 325). Public relations firms
should constantly scan the environment to remain aware of any potential
legal, personal, or financial misdeeds of any employees that may quickly
erupt into a reputational crisis for their organizations.
6 | LIM IT A TIO N S
While this study is a robust systematic analysis of literature on re-
lationships in crises, every piece of research has its own limitations.
First, the sample consists of research articles published only in the
English language. To provide an overview of the recent scholarship
on relationship management in crises, important articles written in
other languages from different countries that may have a different
cultural understanding of relationship management could be in-
cluded in future review studies. Second, following earlier thematic
meta‐analyses (e.g., Ki & Shin, 2015; Wang et al., 2021), this study
only considered peer‐reviewed journal articles as the unit of content
analysis. Scholars in the future might add book reviews, commen-
taries, and editorials into the study sample.
ACKNOWLEDGEM EN TS
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in
the public, commercial, or not‐for‐profit sectors.
DATA A VAILABILITY STA TEMENT
The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical
restrictions.
OR C ID
Yang Cheng http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0321-7956
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