When corporations are confronted with a crisis, well-crafted apologies by CEOs or public relations practitioners can function positively to repair, restore and rebuild a damaged corporate image. However, scant research has examined CEOs’ stance negotiations exhibited in apology discourse from an interpersonal semantics approach. By drawing on the appraisal framework, this study analyzed discursive construction of preferred crisis response strategies in corporate apology discourse of leading companies listed in Fortune Global 2000. The results indicate that the crisis response strategies of mortification and corrective action were predominantly used in post-crisis communication while attitude resources were preferred. Negative affect resources were salient in the mortification strategy whereas positive appreciation resources were evident in corrective action. By proposing a new framework to integrate crisis response strategies with appraisal resources, this study provides insights into the strategic employment of evaluative appraisal resources to achieve effective CEO communication for restoring trust via apology discourse.

Crisis response strategy; corporate apology; discourse analysis; appraisal framework; stance negotiation; communicative persuasion