When Family Firm Reputation Backfires: The Role of Controllability in Consumer Responses to Negative CSR Incidents
研究发现，在负面企业社会责任事件中，当事件可控性未知时，消费者认为家族企业可控性更低，态度更友好；但当可控性已知且事件高度可控时，消费者对家族企业的态度反而比非家族企业更负面。
We apply attribution theory to examine how family ownership status shapes consumer attitudes toward companies after negative corporate social responsibility incidents, focusing on incident controllability. Two longitudinal experiments reveal that, when controllability is unknown , consumers infer lower controllability for family firms and thus hold more favorable attitudes toward them than non-family firms. However, when controllability is known , low-controllability incidents lead to similar attitudes across firm types, whereas high-controllability incidents reverse the effect, resulting in more negative attitudes toward family firms than non-family firms. These findings challenge the prevailing assumption that family firms consistently benefit from their reputation and inform stakeholder communication strategies.