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
Master thesis | Crisis and Security Management (MSc)
open access
The research in this thesis will investigate which different leadership communication styles and traits there are, whether they are connected to gender, and to what extent they influence public...Show moreThe research in this thesis will investigate which different leadership communication styles and traits there are, whether they are connected to gender, and to what extent they influence public trust in government during a crisis. More specifically, the thesis answers the following research question: “How do male and female leadership communication styles affect trust in government during the COVID-19 pandemic?”. The relevance for this is the importance of leadership and communication in times of crisis and whether these have explanatory power for influencing public trust. The thesis starts by investigating expectations about leadership communication connected to gender. Then it goes on to exploring female and male styles in leadership communication and additional existing feminine and masculine traits. This is applied to speeches of prime ministers in four different countries in which a comparison can be made between two smaller and two larger countries. The research found that gendered leadership communication does influence trust in government. Even more, when controlling for infection rates in the levels of trust, there still was a difference in the outcome of trust, which is attributed to the actual communication in practice.Show less
