Crisis spillover of corporate environmental misconducts: The roles of perceived similarity, familiarity, and corporate environmental responsibility in determining the impact on oppositional behavioral intention
研究一家化工厂爆炸事故后，利益相关者因感知相似性而将负面情绪溢出到同行业无辜企业，并发现该企业的环境责任形象能缓解这种溢出效应。
Abstract Negative impact of a firm's environmental misconduct can spread to other firms under the same category due to stakeholders' categorization. Such problem implies a sociocognitive process that has yet to be explored. Therefore, this study extends the current literature by exploring how interfirm similarity affects the spillover effects through stakeholders' engagement. We propose that interfirm similarity can be perceived by stakeholders as a categorization standard, which can lead to their opposition to other firms. Spillover of misconduct is caused by the decreasing stakeholders' trust, wherein the negative effect is contingent upon stakeholders' perceptions. A questionnaire study is conducted to investigate how people resist an innocent firm in China when a chemistry firm experienced an explosion accident. Our findings confirm that interfirm similarity increases stakeholders' opposition to the innocent firm by decreasing their trust. However, the negative effect is alleviated when the innocent firm is perceived as highly environmentally responsible. Our work contributes to the crisis spillover literature and carries important implications for the management of innocent firms that may lose from an industry peer's misconduct.