Toward a Better Understanding and Management of Product Recall

Abstract

Product recalls have become increasingly common across product categories and countries. Although recalls pose adverse consequences for businesses, regulatory agencies, and society, they also test these stakeholders’ resilience in the face of adversity. Perhaps because scholars from multiple disciplines have studied recalls for nearly four decades now, a large number of terms, most of which stay undefined, has been used to describe recalls and several closely related yet distinct phenomena. We also lack a framework that can help synthesize our knowledge and guide us toward questions that are both interesting and relevant. Finally, there has been no attention to the fundamental question of what firm actions drive the effectiveness of recalls. My thesis seeks to address these two areas of improvement. Specifically, Essay 1 defines product recall, and delineates it from related phenomena. It also offers a framework of the various strategies firms can undertake in the aftermath of defective products, factors that drive choice of these strategies, and the performance implications of the chosen strategies. Essay 2 empirically examines how recall-announcing firms’ marketing communications and marketing channels drive product recall effectiveness. The two essays thus seek to improve academics’ and practitioners’ understanding and management of product recall respectively