An Examination of Organizational Responses to Mega-Threat Events

Mega-threat events are adverse, highly publicized events, in which someone or a group of people are harmed, threatened, or targeted because of their membership within a specific social identity group (Leigh & Melwani, 2019). A recent example of such an event is the grocery store mass shooting of Black Americans in Buffalo, New York in May 2022. In the aftermath of such events, many organizations grapple with whether to issue a response to their employees. Moreover, when organizations elect to publish or communicate a response to their employees, they struggle with how to respond in a way that is credible, and sensitive to the needs of employees whose social identity group is most impacted. While there is burgeoning scholarship on mega-threat events and their impact on organizational life, there is a specific need to understand how organizational communication about such events could impact employees’ perceptions and the employee-employer relationship. Drawing on signaling theory (Spence, 1973) and the psychological contract literature, across three experimental studies (N = 1, 100), we shed light on this organizational policy dilemma. In Study 1, we test whether an organizational response to a mega-threat event is a contemporary obligation within the modern employee-employer relationship as measured by anticipated psychological contract violation. In Study 2, we introduce, test, and identify organizational event sensegiving as a type of organizational communication process in the context of a mega-threat event that could generate positive organizational perceptions. We find that this relationship is mediated by identity safety for those whose social identity group is most directly affected by the mega-threat event (i.e., Asian participants), and perceived organizational support (POS) for all participants. Lastly, in Study 3 (pre-registered replication), we replicate the findings from Study 2 and test whether timeliness of organizational communication (immediate/well before other organizations vs. delayed/well after other organizations have responded) moderates the relationships found in Study 2. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.