Dr Benedetta Crisafulli — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

Benedetta is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Birkbeck, University of London. She joined Birkbeck in July 2018 from Cranfield University where she was Lecturer in Marketing and Deputy Director for the MSc in Strategic Marketing.

At Birkbeck, she is Director of the MSc Marketing Communications, Admission Chair for the Department of Management, and Department Lead for the School's Marketing and Communications. Benedetta is a Teaching Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA), and holds visiting positions at other European business schools.

Benedetta’s teaching interests are in consumer behaviour, services marketing and business research methods (mainly quantitative). Her research focuses on the psychology of consumers during situations of crisis, including brand crises and unsatisfactory service encounters.

Benedetta studied in Italy, Germany and UK, where she worked in the private sector and completed her doctoral studies. Her doctoral thesis won the 2016 EDAMBA (European Doctoral Association in Management and Business Administration) thesis competition award.

Prior to joining academia, Benedetta held a marketing position at the London office of a global technology company where she looked after the marketing activities for Europe and the company's relationship with business partners and resellers. She is currently involved in consultancy projects working with companies in a variety of sectors, including hospitality, retail, FMCG and healthcare.

Highlights

Guest editor of the Special Issue on "Sustainable Business, Social Responsibility, Ethics and Consumer Behaviour Research" at Sustainability journal (IF: 2.576) - see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Sus_business_sr
My latest publications are listed below:
Antonetti, P. and Crisafulli, B. (2021). “I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree with you”: How social media users react (or not) to online out-group aggression. Psychology & Marketing. (early online version forthcoming)
Antonetti, P., Crisafulli, B. and Tuncdogan, A. (2020). “Just look the other way”: Job seekers’ reactions to the irresponsibility of market-dominant employers. Journal of Business Ethics.

Antonetti, P., Crisafulli, B. and Katsikeas, C. (2020). Does it really hurt? Making sense of varieties of anger. Psychology & Marketing.

Singh, J., Crisafulli, B., Quamina, L. T. and Xue, M. (2020). ‘To trust or not to trust’: the impact of social media influencers on the reputation of corporate brands in crisis. Journal of Business Research.

Qualifications

PhD in Marketing
MSc in Business Research Methods
MA in Marketing
Laurea (Honours degree) in Linguistics and Business
Teaching Fellow by the Higher Education Academy

Administrative responsibilities

Admissions Chair, Department of Management
Director of the MSc Marketing Communications, Department of Management
Marketing and Communications Lead for the department, BEI School
Admission Tutor for the MSc Marketing Communications, Department of Management

Visiting posts

Visiting Professor, Universita' degli Studi di Padova, Padua (Italy),
Visiting Professor, Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (Italy),

Professional activities

Ad hoc reviewer for Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Service Research, Services Industry Journal

External PhD Examiner at various institutions

Professional memberships

Fellow, Higher Education Academy (HEA)

Honours and awards

Best conference paper award, 2014 American Marketing Association (AMA) SERVSIG conference, November 2014
Doctoral thesis competition award, European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management & Business Administration (EDAMBA) , November 2016
Best conference paper award, 3rd International Colloquium on Corporate Branding, Identity, Image and Reputation, November 2018
Highly commended paper in 'Collaboration' category , Birkbeck Public Engagement Awards, November 2019

ORCID

0000-0002-7065-6182

Research

Research interests

service recovery management
consumer emotions following brand failures
brand crises
influencer marketing

Research overview

Benedetta's research mainly focuses on the psychology of consumers in situations of crisis, whether brand crises, service failures and/or corporate social irresponsibility events. She is currently in a research project focusing on patient experience in the UK public health sector, in collaboration with academics at the University of Southampton and Guildford, and a public Trust. She investigates the above issues using mainly experimental designs and quantitative analytical methods.

Her research has been published in international, high reputed journals including; Journal of Service Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Psychology & Marketing, European Management Review, Computers in Human Behavior and Journal of Service Management. Some of her most recent research has attracted funding from the Marketing Trust and has received media attention.

She regularly presents her research at various international conferences including AMA Winter, Frontiers in Service, EMAC, and AMA SERVSIG, where she won the 2014 Best Paper Award.

Research clusters and groups

Marketing and Consumer Research Group

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest, and in particular:

consumer responses to brand crises
consumer emotions following brand crises
influencer marketing
service recovery management

Please reach out to me via email including your CV and a copy of your research proposal.

Teaching

Teaching modules

Relationship Marketing (BUMN047H7)
Principles of Marketing (BUMN085H7)

Publications

Article

Antonetti, P. and Crisafulli, Benedetta (2020) “I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree with you”: How social media users react (or not) to online out-group aggression. Psychology & Marketing ISSN 0742-6046. (In Press)
Antonetti, P. and Crisafulli, Benedetta and Tuncdogan, A. (2020) “Just look the other way”: Job seekers’ reactions to the irresponsibility of market-dominant employers. Journal of Business Ethics ISSN 0167-4544. (In Press)
Antonetti, P. and Crisafulli, Benedetta and Katsikeas, C. (2020) Does it really hurt? Making sense of varieties of anger. Psychology & Marketing ISSN 0742-6046. (In Press)
Singh, J. and Crisafulli, Benedetta and Quamina, L.T. (2020) How intensity of cause-related marketing guilt appeals influences consumers - The roles of company motive and consumer identification with the brand. Journal of Advertising Research ISSN 0021-8499.
Singh, J. and Crisafulli, Benedetta and Quamina, L. T. and Xue, M. (2020) ‘To trust or not to trust’: the impact of social media influencers on the reputation of corporate brands in crisis. Journal of Business Research ISSN 0148-2963. (In Press)
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Dimitriu, R. and Singh, J. (2020) Joining hands for the greater good: examining Social Innovation launch strategies in B2B settings. Industrial Marketing Management ISSN 0019-8501. (In Press)
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. and Quamina, L.T. and Kottasz, R. (2019) The role of brand equity and crisis type on corporate brand alliances in crises. European Management Review ISSN 1740-4762. (In Press)
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. and Quamina, L.T. (2019) Tackling global challenges through cause-related marketing: How brands should promote their support to social causes. Admap ISSN 0001-8295.
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. and Quamina, L.T. (2019) ‘Corporate image at stake’: the impact of crises and response strategies on consumer perceptions of corporate brand alliances. Journal of Business Research ISSN 0148-2963. (In Press)
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Wasil, M. and Singh, J. and Benoit, S. (2019) Managing patient expectations through understanding health service experiences. British Journal of Medical Practitioners 12 (2), ISSN 1757-8515.
Antonetti, P. and Crisafulli, Benedetta and Maklan, S. (2018) Too good to be true? Boundary conditions to the use of downward social comparisons in service recovery. Journal of Service Research 21 (4), pp. 438-455. ISSN 1094-6705.
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, Jaywant (2017) Service failures in e-retailing: examining the effects of response time, compensation, and service criticality. Computers in Human Behavior 77, pp. 413-424. ISSN 0747-5632.
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, Jaywant (2017) Four steps to ensuring best practice in new brand launches. Admap ISSN 0001-8295.
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. (2016) Service guarantee as a recovery strategy: the impact of guarantee terms on perceived justice and firm motives. Journal of Service Management 27 (2), pp. 117-143. ISSN 1757-5818.
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. (2016) Managing online service recovery: procedures, justice and customer satisfaction. Journal of Service Theory and Practice 26 (6), pp. 764-787. ISSN 2055-6225.

Book Section

Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. (2016) Managing Online Service Recovery at iMAGE Telecom. In: SAGE Business Cases. SAGE. ISBN 9781473952034.
Crisafulli, Benedetta (2016) Managing customer complaints: the case of Imperial Orchid Hotels in Thailand. In: Kumar, R.S. and Dilip S., M. and Bang, N. (eds.) Services Marketing Cases in Emerging Markets: An Asian Perspective. Springer. pp. 35-43. ISBN 9783319329680.
Singh, J. and Crisafulli, Benedetta (2015) Customer responses to service failure and recovery experiences. In: Sahadev, S. and Purani, K. and Malhotra, N. (eds.) Boundary Spanning Elements and the Marketing Function in Organizations: Concepts and Empirical Studies. Springer. pp. 117-135. ISBN 9783319134406.

Conference Item

Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. and Quamina, L.T. and Xue, M. (2018) Retrieving corporate reputation following a crisis: the impact of online communications and affective displays on consumers. 4th International Colloquium on Corporate Branding, Identity, Image and Reputation (COBIIR2018), 2018, Cetraro, Italy
Singh, J. and Crisafulli, Benedetta and Paurav, S. (2017) ‘Too bad to be true’: the effect of guilt appeal intensity in cause-related marketing. American Marketing Association (AMA) 2017 Winter Conference: Better Marketing for a Better World, 2017, Orlando, U.S.
Antonetti, P. and Maklan, S. and Crisafulli, Benedetta (2017) "Too Good To Be True". Revisiting downward social comparisons in service recovery. QUIS - 15th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management, 2017, Porto, Portugal
Crisafulli, Benedetta and Singh, J. (2016) Too little, too late? The effect of time and money on consumer responses to online service failures. 2017 Frontiers in Service Conference, 2016, New York, U.S.

Business and community

Media

I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

brand crises
influencer marketing
marketing in periods of crisis
complaint handling

Outreach

Should you use social media influencers in crisis comms?, Warc.com news, 14 August 2020

'Surprising don'ts for cause related marketing' by Marketing Dive

Intense guilt appeals turn off consumers, by AdWeek

Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) Insights studio series, interview in August 2020

Managing online service failures, on Economia magazine by the ICAEW

Services

Consultancies and expert advice

Public Engagement project with NHS Hospital Trust in South-East England since 2017
Consultancies and expert advice

InterCarabao project on influencer marketing