Corporate social responsiveness in crisis of public opinion: From the perspective of issue management

This paper conducts a comparative case study based on two controversial events on the Internet in the rescue period of 5.12 earthquake disaster. Through analysing and refining 17180 valid comments in Sohu community, the authors explore how corporates respond to public opinion issues in crisis and why their responses are successful or not from the perspective of issue management. Research results show that whether corporate responses (including response time, response way, response channel and response action) and the evolution characteristics of public opinion match each other, is the key of corporate social responsiveness to public issues in crisis. More importantly, this study combines the network characteristics of public opinion and the theory of corporate social responsibility, on that basis, the authors rich the research findings of issue management in the context of China.