IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rom/merase/v10y2025i3p583-593.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk and Reward: Regulatory Focus Orientation and the Effectiveness of Promotion and Prevention Targeted Organizational Apologies

Author

Listed:
  • Eric RHODES

    (California State University, USA)

  • Masahisa Kurt YAMAGUCHI

    (Chaminade University, USA)

  • Samuel CLARKE

    (Utah Tech University, USA)

Abstract

Organisations are expected to apologise when they cause offense, but apologies sometimes fail to restore trust. This study applies regulatory focus theory (RFT) to examine why some apologies are more effective than others based on the inclusion of regulatory focus keywords. Our findings are based on a textual analysis of 38 real-world apologies and instrument data from 298 U.S. participants recruited from the CloudResearch Connect platform. Both paired samples t-tests and a mixed-design ANOVA showed that apologies containing promotion or prevention-focused elements restored significantly more trust, p

Suggested Citation

  • Eric RHODES & Masahisa Kurt YAMAGUCHI & Samuel CLARKE, 2025. "Risk and Reward: Regulatory Focus Orientation and the Effectiveness of Promotion and Prevention Targeted Organizational Apologies," Management and Economics Review, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 10(3), pages 583-593, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:rom:merase:v:10:y:2025:i:3:p:583-593
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mer.ase.ro/files/2025-3/10-3-4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Florina-Valentina NICOLAE & Ioana-Maria PAVEL, 2016. "Empirical Study Regarding the Trust Relationships Established in a Community," Management and Economics Review, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 1(2), pages 243-251, December.
    2. Edward C. Tomlinson, 2011. "The context of trust repair efforts: Exploring the role of relationship dependence and outcome severity," Journal of Trust Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 139-157, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter Ping Li, 2017. "The time for transition: Future trust research," Journal of Trust Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 1-14, January.
    2. Ping Han & Shuwei Hao & Bingqing Luo, 2025. "How and when can the start-up repair venture capital firms’ trust with an informational strategy after task conflict: a moderated mediation model," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(3), pages 428-459, July.
    3. Desmet, Pieter T.M. & Leunissen, Joost M., 2014. "How many pennies for your pain? Willingness to compensate as a function of expected future interaction and intentionality feedback," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 105-113.
    4. Yan Wan & Yifan Zhang & Fengting Wang & Yufei Yuan, 2023. "Retailer response to negative online consumer reviews: how can damaged trust be effectively repaired?," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 37-53, March.
    5. Eric RHODES & Samuel CLARKE & Masahisa Kurt YAMAGUCHI, 2025. "The Impact of Proximity on Trust Restoration from an Organisational Apology," Management and Economics Review, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 10(1), pages 80-88, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rom:merase:v:10:y:2025:i:3:p:583-593. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ciocoiu Nadia Carmen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mnasero.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.