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Article
Publication date: 15 July 2019

Zhimei Yuan, Yi Guo and Xingdong Wang

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of action visibility in moderating the relationship between firm response and individual legitimacy judgment. Since a firm may…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of action visibility in moderating the relationship between firm response and individual legitimacy judgment. Since a firm may decouple its public commitment from its actual practice to cope with conflicting stakeholder interests, visibility is important for consumers to make judgment because it is difficult for them to observe a firm’s actual fulfillment of its public commitment to quality assurance after a product-harm crisis.

Design/methodology/approach

Scenario-based mixed design experiments were employed and 718 valid responses were collected.

Findings

The results indicated that, while acknowledging responsibility produced more favorable legitimacy judgment than denial, decoupling produced no better judgment than denial. However, higher visibility significantly amplified the effect size. Specifically, under the condition of high visibility, not only did acknowledging responsibility produce much more favorable judgment than denial, but so did decoupling.

Research limitations/implications

This study provided empirical evidence that action visibility moderated the relationship between firm response and individual legitimacy judgment, thus complementing the literature on crisis management.

Practical implications

This study provided executives or managers with optimal, suboptimal and least optimal response strategies under different levels of action visibility.

Originality/value

Much of the extant research on response strategy for organizations to deal with product-harm crisis ignored the moderating role of action visibility. Past research on legitimacy judgment focused on organization. This paper combined firm response, action visibility and individual-level legitimacy judgment.

Details

American Journal of Business, vol. 34 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1935-519X

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Article
Publication date: 8 May 2019

Claire Seungeun Lee

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore how China uses a social credit system as part of its “data-driven authoritarianism” policy; and second, to investigate how…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore how China uses a social credit system as part of its “data-driven authoritarianism” policy; and second, to investigate how datafication, which is a method to legitimize data collection, and dataveillance, which is continuous surveillance through the use of data, offer the Chinese state a legitimate method of monitoring, surveilling and controlling citizens, businesses and society. Taken together, China’s social credit system is analyzed as an integrated tool for datafication, dataveillance and data-driven authoritarianism.

Design/methodology/approach

This study combines the personal narratives of 22 Chinese citizens with policy analyses, online discussions and media reports. The stories were collected using a scenario-based story completion method to understand the participants’ perceptions of the recently introduced social credit system in China.

Findings

China’s new social credit system, which turns both online and offline behaviors into a credit score through smartphone apps, creates a “new normal” way of life for Chinese citizens. This data-driven authoritarianism uses data and technology to enhance citizen surveillance. Interactions between individuals, technologies and information emerge from understanding the system as one that provides social goods, using technologies, and raising concerns of privacy, security and collectivity. An integrated critical perspective that incorporates the concepts of datafication and dataveillance enhances a general understanding of how data-driven authoritarianism develops through the social credit system.

Originality/value

This study builds upon an ongoing debate and an emerging body of literature on datafication, dataveillance and digital sociology while filling empirical gaps in the study of the global South. The Chinese social credit system has growing recognition and importance as both a governing tool and a part of everyday datafication and dataveillance processes. Thus, these phenomena necessitate discussion of its consequences for, and applications by, the Chinese state and businesses, as well as affected individuals’ efforts to adapt to the system.

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