Academic reputations: The process of formation and decay

Abstract

This study focuses on how college and university reputations are built and may decay. It explores attributes of organizational reputation, especially as reputation is rooted in more basic social utilities such as the provision of opportunity and the meeting of obligations related to institutional mission. Fulfillment of these social expectations, it suggests, assists higher education institutions in attracting resources and weathering disruptions in the organizational environment. Explored, too, are the differential effects of history in the formation of enduring and situational perceptions of organizational reputation, as well as the differential effects of communication modes (interpersonal and mass mediated) for reaching target publics. Finally, institutional strategies that may be used to smooth and reestablish equilibrium when disruptions have occurred are identified and analyzed.