Looking Back: Reputation Research Published in the Journal of Management

Abstract

This issue of the Journal of Management includes a series of three articles on reputation. “Reconsidering the Reputation–Performance Relationship: A Resource-Based View” was written by Brian Boyd, Donald Bergh, and David Ketchen (2010). Boyd et al. reanalyzed the data from 107 business schools in the United States (used in a study by Rindova, Williamson, Petkova, & Sever, 2005) to develop and test a resource-based view of reputation and performance. Violina Rindova, Ian Williamson, and Antoaneta Petkova became aware of this in press article and submitted a proposal to follow up Boyd et al.’s article with their article “Reputation as an Intangible Asset: Reflections on Theory and Methods in Two Empirical Studies of Business School Reputations.” In the spirit of completing the discussion, I asked Boyd et al. to write a response (Bergh, Ketchen, Boyd, & Bergh, 2010), which resulted in the three articles appearing in this issue. These three articles led me to reflect on the wide range of reputation research published in the Journal of Management. What follows is a summary of reputation research spanning 27 years and looking forward into 2011.