Jie Sun’s research while affiliated with Siena College and other places

In a crisis communication context, this work examines the impact of Psychological Ownership (PO) appeals on Ad message recipients’ development of feelings of PO. It demonstrates that increased levels of PO influence the managerially relevant outcomes attitude toward the company and purchase intentions. In doing so, it finds new application for the construct. In order to better understand the factors that may contribute to or mitigate PO, this research also investigates environmental consciousness as an additional antecedent and gender, persuasion knowledge, and geographic distance as moderators of individuals’ response to such appeals. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.

When businesses cope with the risk of bad press, they seek to limit the impact of negative publicity by engaging in crisis management (Lamb et al., 2010). Inspired by BP ads in the wake of the Gulf spill, we aim to decipher which crisis management message factors result in different attitudes across individuals. In particular, we expect psychological ownership to impact attitudes towards the ad and BP and that these attitudes will mediate the impact of the ad on purchase intentions.