Substantive and Evaluative Media Reputations Among and Within Cognitive Strategic Groups

Abstract

We integrate theory and findings from the strategic groups and reputation literatures to examine the consequences of cognitive strategic group membership and positioning within strategic groups on the media reputations of firms. We extend past discussions of media reputation to examine substantive media reputations based on the attributes that the media focus on when reporting on a firm and evaluative media reputations based on the favorability of this reporting. Overall, we find that differences in substantive media reputations reflect cognitive strategic group structure. Further, we find evidence that the strategic recipes of certain groups result in more favorable evaluative media reputations than other groups. Within a strategic group, we find that core firms conforming closely to the group's strategic recipe have more favorable coverage than firms that are more peripheral members of the group. These results speak to both the consequences of strategic group membership and the likely reputational consequences of conformity to versus differentiation from the core strategies within an industry. We offer several suggestions for future research on reputation and strategic groups.