Consumer complaints in the Internet forum have posed as a big threat for companies. However, little attention has been given to this issue so far. The users in the Internet forum can be categorized into three groups: complainers, repliers to the messages, and observers who only read the complaints or replies. This study explores how a company's response to complaints online affects the evaluation of the company by the observers, who are major users of the Internet forum. More specifically, this study examines how a company can select a response strategy to protect its reputation according to the context of the complaint.

The proposed model of this research assumes that observers' causal attributions influence the evaluation of a company. The corporate response strategies moderate the effects of causal attributions regarding the evaluation of the company. Causal attributions are affected by the level of consensus in each complaint, as well as its level of vividness. With a view to empirically testing these relationships implied by this conceptual model, two scenario-based experiments has been conducted.

The consensus between the complainer and subsequent repliers was found to be an important factor affecting the assignment of responsibility. In addition, the impact of vividness manipulation on causal attributions was also confirmed. The results of the experiments indicated that the appropriate response strategies varied depending on the observers' perceived locus of responsibility. Implications for marketing/PR practitioners and academicians were discussed, and recommendations for future research has been offered.