Author(s)

Xiaobao Peng, Weiguang Gong^*, Mengling Peng

The School of Public Affairs, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.

The trust of the public for government is greatly damaged because of the frequent occurrence of public crisis event, which has resulted in serious trust crisis of the government. To date trust repair has been a key issue to study by local governments. This paper researches that the initial trust of the public for government and the severity and attribution of public crisis event are exerted influence upon the trust damage of government under the political and cultural environment of current China in the methods of situational simulated and questionnaire survey. Moreover, the repair effects of two different trust repair strategies (denial and apology) are verified in this paper as well. The research findings show that the strength level of initial trust of the public for government and the severity of the public crisis event are positively correlated with the trust damage of government; different attribution of different public crisis event is made no difference with different damage degree of trust of government; different trust repair strategy is made significant difference upon repair effect, and the repair effect of apology is better than that of denial; the strength level of initial trust of the public for government is positively correlated with the repair effect of trust of government, that is to say, if the initial trust of the public upon government is stringer, the damaged trust of government will be easier to repair. Theoretical perspective of trust repair of government is expanded in this paper, which has provided repair strategy and solution for trust crisis caused by government in the current situation of China.

Public Crisis Event, Trust for Government, Trust Damage, Trust Repair

Peng, X. , Gong, W. and Peng, M. (2016) Empirical Study on Trust Repair of Government in Public Crisis Event. Open Journal of Business and Management, 4, 376-391. doi: 10.4236/ojbm.2016.42040.