Authors:Chelsea L. Woods Pages: 9 - 21 Abstract: Issues and crises often have multiple frames constructed by organizations and the media. While organizations may try to shape the narrative to their benefit, their ability to do so is often limited. The #AskSeaWorld crisis illustrates this challenge as the online question-and-answer session gone awry generated competing frames from SeaWorld, PETA, and the media. Using a framework of issues management, crisis framing, and message convergence and drawing from organizational documents, media reports, and an interview with PETA, this paper examines the different frames that emerged from the crisis and the extent to which they converged. The findings position SeaWorld as an organization that “protests too much” (Ashforth and Gibbs, Org Sci 1(2):177–194, 1990) and invited a digital crisis by publicly responding to value challenges (Hirsch and Andrews, Leadership and organizational culture, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1984). This study also illustrates how a hashtag-based campaign attracts critical publics, such as activists, who can challenge organizational reputations using social media, which may be amplified by media reports. Because many of the media reports reflected content relayed by activists, rather than SeaWorld, this convergence lent legitimacy to activists’ claims, heightening SeaWorld’s legitimacy challenges. PubDate: 2018-02-01 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0039-y Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Yijing Wang; Louisa Wanjek Abstract: This study intends to clarify the psychological mechanism that explains the crisis responsibility and corporate reputation link, aiming at gaining knowledge on individuals’ perception formations in and reactions to a crisis. We extended the situational crisis communication theory through identifying the moderation effects of personal relevance and person–company fit in this relationship. The VW emissions scandal was investigated with respect to its impact on post-crisis reputation and negative word-of-mouth. A sample of 721 German respondents was analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that personal relevance strengthens the positive relationship between crisis responsibility and anger. Next to this, person–company fit weakens the impact of crisis responsibility on anger, as well as on sympathy. The results suggest that more attention needs to be drawn on the personal perspective in crisis communication, while different response strategies should be developed with respect to distinct stakeholder groups for protecting corporate reputation in the crisis context. PubDate: 2018-02-16 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-018-0045-8
Authors:M. Sridhar; Ajay Mehta Abstract: The study has been undertaken with following aims; first, to establish the plausibility of a positive relationship between service innovation and corporate reputation and their effect together on cross-buying intention of customers of telecommunication industry in India. Second, empirically examine the mediating and moderating effect of corporate reputation between service innovation and cross-buying intention. The descriptive approach was applied and tested by adopting a survey method where the sample units comprised of customers from various telecommunication service providers. Convenience sampling method was used based on which 256 customers of major service providers in southern part of India were approached for their opinion on the constructs. Smart—partial least square (hereinafter PLS) software tool was used to test the conceptual framework. On analyzing the result, it was observed that corporate reputation explained the relationship between service innovation and cross-buying intention; further corporate reputation also strengthens the effect of service innovation on cross-buying intention. The survey results indicate that decision makers/managers of telecommunication service firms need to understand that building reputation is one of the key aspects that would strengthen their initiatives of bringing service innovation frequently, as well as make their customers to cross-buy other services. The study fills the gap by analyzing the combined effect of service innovation and corporate reputation and cross-buying intention. Further, the study estimates the mediating and the moderating effect of corporate reputation between service innovation and cross-buying intention in telecommunication service settings which was not attempted earlier. PubDate: 2018-02-02 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-018-0044-9
Authors:Xiaoqun Zhang Abstract: This study developed a new composite measure of media reputation combining media favorability, media visibility, and recency. It showed that this new measure had superiority over the measure of media favorability in predicting corporate reputation, and local newspapers were a better news source to measure media reputation than elite newspapers. This study was based on the content analysis of 2817 news articles from two elite newspapers and many local newspapers in the United States. PubDate: 2018-01-26 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-018-0043-x
Authors:Nihat Erdoğmuş; Emel Esen Abstract: CEOs are high-profile figureheads who have a critical role in their organization. Because of their high impact on firm performance and brands, stakeholders and the public follow them. The main purpose of this study is to explore pioneering Turk CEOs’ construction of the CEO brand. The study focuses on the determinants and process of CEO branding and relies on content analysis of four CEOs’ biographies using purposeful sampling. The comparative case study method was conducted using a grounded approach. As a result of the study, CEOs’ career background, leadership in change, impression management, and firm brand became the determinants for the CEO brand building process. In this process, career background provides an advantage to leadership in change, and impression management mediates the relationship between leadership in change (performance) and CEO branding. PubDate: 2017-12-08 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0042-3
Authors:Lan Ye; Eyun-Jung Ki Abstract: Studies on organizational crisis communication via social media have mainly focused on the effects of messages from one source, organizations. Little is known about the interaction effects of multiple messages from multiple sources through social media on audiences’ perceptions of organizational reputation. Guided by the Message Convergence Framework, this study used a 2 × 2, between-subjects experiment (N = 165) to explore the impact of crisis communication strategies and message convergence on Facebook on audiences’ perceived organizational reputation in a preventable crisis. The results suggest that organizational reputation was affected by the consistency between the organization’s Facebook posts and followers’ comments, and the effects were moderated by the perceived credibility of the comments by Facebook followers. The results also revealed that unlike pre-existing positive attitudes toward an organization, which were negatively affected by inconsistent information on Facebook, pre-existing negative attitudes did not change significantly because of the information on Facebook. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are then discussed. PubDate: 2017-11-20 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0040-5
Authors:Salman Khan; Jacques Digout Abstract: Corporate reputation (CR) sciences have made way into c-level management quite rapidly in the past two decades. During the same period, numerous CR measurement techniques also emerged. This study evaluates the effectiveness and appropriateness of available models for thoroughly reporting an organization’s CR. By highlighting and rationalizing the central features of the ‘reputation’ construct, the usefulness of notable measurement approaches for thoroughly reporting CR is critiqued. The analysis reveals that most techniques deviate from theory, and in several ways fall short of incorporating online aspects of corporate (e-) reputation formation. A corporate reputation reporting framework is modeled and directed towards large-scale applicability across contexts. The proposed framework robustly integrates a variety of CR features, facilitating the creation of comprehensive CR reports and delivers insights into the urgency of adapting to digital aspects of reputation formation and management. PubDate: 2017-11-09 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0041-4
Authors:Craig E. Carroll Abstract: This essay provides the background story on the role that Corporate Reputation Review and its conference, Corporate Reputation, Identity, and Competitiveness played in my research and thinking on corporate reputation as a scholarly endeavor. In particular, this essay discusses the 3rd conference, (including access to the papers, presentations, and speakers), offline discussions with attendees, and the meeting of the minds between Fombrun, van Riel, and Max McCombs, one of the co-authors of the original study on agenda-setting theory. A brief description of the pivotal projects and outcomes of that meeting are discussed. PubDate: 2017-10-26 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0038-z
Authors:Naomi A. Gardberg Abstract: In this paper I examined whether corporate reputation was a fad or fashion in organization science research. If corporate reputation was a fad, then we would see a sharp increase and subsequent sharp decrease in research. I performed a content analysis exploring the way in which authors described their work in leading management and business and society journals. I focused on four corporate associations (corporate celebrity, corporate identity, corporate image, and corporate reputation) to operationalize a fashion to which corporate reputation research may belong. Following prior research on fads and fashions on organization management research, I counted the incidence of these four constructs in article titles, abstracts and key words from 1997 through 2016. I observed a steady increase in the number of articles about corporate celebrity, corporate identity, corporate image, and corporate reputation over twenty years rejecting the old assertions that research about corporate reputation and related corporate associations was a fad. The number of articles on corporate reputation equaled the number of articles about the other three corporate associations. I found no evidence of a fashion; however, as more time passes scholars may find that research on corporate reputation and related constructs comprised a fashion. Surprisingly I observed that the number of articles on corporate reputation published in the two business and society journals was twice the number of articles published in the six general management journals. In conclusion, I find evidence that corporate reputation research has become a phenomenon especially in the business & society and ethics field. PubDate: 2017-10-06 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0033-4
Authors:Klaus-Peter Wiedmann Abstract: First of all, I want to say thank you to Charles Fombrun and Cees van Riel for establishing a great community of researchers and practitioners who have a stake in reputation management. I definitely have great memories as regards the first years of the “Reputation Institute Initiative” and especially my first attempts to present results of my work on international reputation conferences. The massive image problems into which the German automobile industry has, in particular, recently been maneuvered, however, have encouraged me not to look back, but to give some stimulus for further research, based on a critical assessment of the state of art of reputation management in Germany. Perhaps the following very provocative propositions may contribute to revitalize the lively discussion which was characteristic of the first years of the “Reputation Institute community” and also found its expression the first issue of the Corporate Reputation Review (CRR). PubDate: 2017-10-03 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0028-1
Authors:Klement Podnar; Urša Golob Abstract: This paper discusses the ongoing quest to define corporate reputation in the literature. It shows that while some attempts to define this concept have been quite fruitful, they have failed to present a basis for further studies in this area. The paper argues that an additional investigation into the relationships between the three main concepts of identity, image, and reputation might help scholars evaluate and elaborate on the existing definitions. In doing so, it builds on a model introduced in the corporate reputation literature by Whetten (Corporate Reputation Review 1:26–34, 1997) to deal with these relationships. PubDate: 2017-09-28 DOI: 10.1057/s41299-017-0027-2
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
[2349 journals]
