The growing number of data breaches demands an effective approach to prevent reputational harm to companies. Situational Crisis Communication Theory suggests that stronger crisis response...Show moreThe growing number of data breaches demands an effective approach to prevent reputational harm to companies. Situational Crisis Communication Theory suggests that stronger crisis response strategies should be used when more responsibility for the crisis is attributed to the company. However, the theory is not fully applicable to data breaches due to the ambiguous nature of the responsibility for the incident. This paper aims to make this less ambiguous by suggesting that one of the predictive factors for the attributed responsibility, and therefore the level of crisis responsibility used, is the sensitivity of the leaked data. This paper examines the relationship between the sensitivity of the leaked data in data breaches and the type of crisis communication response. With content analysis, this paper systematically compares 20 data breach notifications from universities and hospitals in the U.S. Literature would suggest stronger crisis response strategies when the data breach contains sensitive information. However, the frequency analysis shows that companies dealing with sensitive data in data breaches use few strong crisis response strategies in their crisis responses, which would suggest that these companies could be more effective at limiting their reputational damages.Show less
