When silence backfires: crisis response sincerity, perceived severity, and brand avoidance in hospitality greenwashing crises

Overview

This research examines how misleading crisis communication strategies influence consumer brand avoidance in hospitality sector greenwashing crises. The study operationalizes two primary misleading communication tactics—omission and paltering—and evaluates their effects through sequential mediation pathways involving perceived response sincerity and brand trust. Perceived crisis severity is examined as a contextual moderator of these relationships. The theoretical framework integrates Situational Crisis Communication Theory with deceptive communication typologies specific to environmental claims.

Methods and approach

Two scenario-based online experimental studies were conducted with manipulated independent variables representing misleading communication types and crisis severity conditions. Analysis of variance techniques and PROCESS macro analysis were employed to test direct effects, indirect effects through proposed mediators, and moderated mediation patterns. The sequential mediation model examined sincerity and trust as intervening variables in the pathway from misleading communication to brand avoidance outcomes.

Key Findings

Misleading crisis communication substantially increases consumer brand avoidance, with omission tactics producing greater negative effects than paltering. The indirect pathway through perceived sincerity and brand trust demonstrates significant mediation of this relationship. Perceived crisis severity functions as a contextual moderator, moderating the indirect effects: omission and paltering produce differentiated consumer responses only under conditions of lower perceived severity. At higher severity levels, both misleading tactics produce equivalently strong brand avoidance responses, suggesting severity amplifies vulnerability to any deceptive communication strategy.

Implications

The findings establish that crisis communication transparency and sincerity constitute critical mechanisms for crisis recovery in greenwashing contexts. Hospitality organizations should prioritize early severity assessment to calibrate communication strategies appropriately, as perceived severity modulates the relative damage caused by different omission versus paltering tactics. The research extends Situational Crisis Communication Theory by incorporating misleading communication typology and sincerity-based restoration pathways, demonstrating that transparency and trust restoration represent more effective crisis management approaches than defensive or evasive tactics in environmental claim disputes. Practitioners should implement comprehensive disclosure strategies and avoid strategic omission of material environmental information, particularly when crisis severity perceptions remain malleable during initial response phases.