The attitude of the population towards company engagement in Public–Private Emergency Collaborations and its risk perception — A survey

Governmental actors benefit from collaboration with companies in emergencies. Even though
there are good reasons for companies to support state disaster response, research on so-called
Public–Private Emergency Collaborations (PPEC) is still rare. In particular, companies are
currently unable to assess to what extent the population values their involvement in such PPECs.
We characterize corporate social responsibility (CSR) concepts, emergency cooperation and risk
perception from a structured literature research. A survey of 402 participants examines the
perception of consumers to link CSR and the associated involvement in emergency cooperation
with the economic success of the company. We find that companies’ involvement in PPECs is
in general highly valued. Nevertheless, the quality and quantity of corporate communication
as well as the communication channel used and the communication strategy strongly affect the
population’s perception. In addition, we uncover a highly significant correlation between risk
perception and approval of engagement in PPECs. We are contributing to the underexplored
field of research by evaluating the involvement of companies in PPECs from the perspective
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of the population, to take account of the decision-makers in companies as to whether an
involvement can be advantageous for them in the long term.