Segmenting stakeholders in terms of Corporate Responsibility: Implications for Reputation Management

Abstract

Corporate Responsibility is a concept that is receiving increasing attention in the Corporate Reputation literature. Many researchers have sought to link high levels of Corporate Responsibility with good Corporate Reputations. Yet, the link between these two concepts is not clear and managers do not have much guidance on how they could embrace Corporate Responsibility to enhance Corporate Reputation. One potential reason for the current confusion is that stakeholders have, for the most part, been considered as being homogenous in terms of their expectations of Corporate Responsibility, which means reputational impact is difficult to define. This paper challenges the notion that Corporate Responsibility is an homogenous construct. A latent class model is used to provide evidence that customers and employees of a financial service organisation can be segmented into three groups. This suggests that these groups have different expectations of Corporate Responsibility and as such positive reputation is likely to be driven by meeting these different sets of expectations. The understanding of how Corporate Responsibility impacts on Corporate Reputation is heightened and further implications for the management of reputation and directions for future research are discussed.