Concept Of Reputation Research Articles

Reputation and ethical behaviour in a crisis: predicting survival

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the interrelation of reputation with corporate performance in a crisis and consider the factors that make up the balance between strong recovery, bare survival and failure. The emphasis is on corporate communication and corporate governance.Design/methodology/approachThe current debate on reputation and the validity of the term reputation management is reviewed and cases studies from Australia and the UK are examined.FindingsThe paper finds that, in the case studies, poor management, unethical practices, a lack of engagement with customers and other stakeholders, indifferent or aggressive performances by CEOs and lack of preparedness for crisis communication severely or terminally affected the organisations. It identifies a new reputational factor of predictability and considers why some organisations survive a crisis that has strong negative ethical dimensions while others fail.Originality/valueThis paper scrutinises existing concepts of reputation and reputation management and finds that they are not able to predict recovery, survival or failure of organisations. A new definition of reputation is put forward and the factor of predictability is emphasised in proposals for new applied theory.

Ranking factors in peer-to-peer overlay networks

A large number of peer processes are distributed in a peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay network. It is difficult, maybe impossible for a peer to perceive the membership and location of every resource object due to the scalability and openness of a P2P network. In this article, we discuss a fully distributed P2P system where there is no centralized controller. Each peer has to obtain service information from its acquaintance peers and also send its service information to the acquaintance peers. An acquaintance peer of a peer p is a peer about whose service the peer p knows and with which the peer p can directly communicate in an overlay network. Some acquaintance peer might hold obsolete service information and might be faulty. Each peer has to find a more trustworthy one among acquaintance peers. There are many discussions on how to detect peers that hold a target object. However, a peer cannot manipulate an object without being granted access rights (permissions). In addition to detecting what peers hold a target object, we have to find peers granted access rights to manipulate the target object. The trustworthiness of each acquaintance is defined in terms of the satisfiability and ranking factor in this article. The satisfiability of an acquaintance peer shows how much each peer can trust the acquaintance peer through direct communication to not only detect target objects but also obtain their access rights. On the other hand, the ranking factor of an acquaintance peer indicates how much the acquaintance peer is trusted only by trustworthy acquaintance peers which is different from the traditional reputation concept. We evaluate how the trustworthiness of an acquaintance peer is changed through interactions among peers in a detection algorithm.

An Integrative Approach to University Visual Identity and Reputation

This study focuses on the concepts of university identity and university reputation as they relate to a large private university in the Northeast United States. In the first part of the study, the concept of university identity was investigated. We used methodology to find the most distinctive visual identities of the university among students. In the follow-up study, the authors explored the concept of university reputation, using survey methodology. The implications of the study on the practice of branding – specifically, branding a university – are discussed.

SERVICE ORIENTED COOPERATION AMONG TRUSTWORTHY PEERS

Various types of applications make access to objects distributed in peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay networks. Even if the locations of target objects are discovered by some look-up algorithm such as flooding and distributed hash table (DHT), applications cannot manipulate the target objects without access rights. It is critical to perceive which peer can manipulate an object in which method, i.e. only a peer authorized with an access right is allowed to manipulate an object. Hence, an application has to find peers which can manipulate a target object rather than detect the location of the target object. Due to the scalability, variety, and autonomy of peers, it is difficult, may be impossible to maintain a centralized directory showing in which peer each object is distributed. An acquaintance peer of a peer p is a peer whose service the peer p knows and with which the peer p can directly communicate. We discuss types of acquaintance relations of peers with respect to what objects each peer holds, is allowed to manipulate, and can grant access rights on. Acquaintance peers of a peer may notify the peer of different information on target peers due to communication and propagation delay. Here, it is critical to discuss how much a peer trusts each acquaintance peer. We first define the satisfiability of an acquaintance peer, i.e. how much a peer is satisfied by issuing an access request to the acquaintance peer. For example, if a peer p locally manipulates a target object o and obtains a response, p is mostly satisfied. On the other hand, if the peer p has to ask another peer to manipulate the object o, the peer p is less satisfied. We define the trustworthiness and ranking factor of an acquaintance peer obtained by accumulating the satisfiability of each interaction with the acquaintance peer. Differently from traditional reputation concepts, trustworthiness information only from trustworthy acquaintance peers can be used to obtain the ranking factor. The trustworthiness of an acquaintance peer shows how much a peer can trusts the acquaintance peer while the ranking factor of an acquaintance peer shows how much the acquaintance peer is trusted by other trustworthy acquaintance peers. Then, we evaluate the trustworthiness and ranking factor in presence of faulty peers.

Corporate Reputation: The Definitional Landscape

While interest in the concept of corporate reputation has gained momentum in the last few years, a precise and commonly agreed upon definition is still lacking. This paper reviews the many definitions of corporate reputation present in the recent literature and categorizes these definitions based on their similarities and differences. The purpose of the study is to review, analyze and evaluate prior definitional statements of corporate reputation. The analysis led us to conclude that the cluster of meaning that looks most promising for future definitional work uses the language of assessment and specific terms such as judgment, estimation, evaluation or gauge. Based on this review work and a lexicological analysis of the concept of reputation, we propose a new definitional statement that we think adds theoretical clarity to this area of study. The statement defines corporate reputation more explicitly and narrowly and distinguishes this concept from corporate identity, corporate image and corporate reputation capital. It is our hope that this study and the resulting definition will provoke further scholarship devoted to developing one voice when it comes to corporate reputation as a concept.

Business and Social Reputation: Exploring the Concept and Main Dimensions of Corporate Reputation

Different theoretical approaches highlight the growing relevance of corporate reputation as strategic factor. Among these approaches the arguments of the Resource-Based View are special worthwhile (Grant, 1991, California Management Review 33(3), 114–135; Barney, 1999, Sloan Management Review Spring, 137–145). Nevertheless, this topic poses several methodological problems (Barney et al., 2001), as the unavailability to identify and measure this organizational factor, that is “socially complex” and intangible in its nature. In this work, using the findings of our empirical research on Spanish biotechnology firms, we carry out an identification and measurement of corporate reputation, highlighting its two key components: “business reputation” and “social reputation”.

Using a functional ontology of reputation to interoperate different agent reputation models

This paper presents a Functional Ontology of Reputation that could be used as a common shared reputation knowledge by agents. Although there is a huge work on agent reputation, each research defines its own basic concepts. Sometimes different meanings are associated to the same term and in other occasions the same meaning is related to different terms. We claim that the reputation knowledge structured as an ontology could be used to enable the semantic integration level involved in the interoperation of software agents using different reputation models. We have illustrated this idea by showing a semantic mapping for the reputation concepts used in three distinct reputation models. That mapping shows how this ontology could act as a common global ontology that supports the semantic integration among these models.

Corporate reputation: disentangling the effects on financial performance

Purpose – Theory has made many assumptions about the consequences of a “good” corporate reputation. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the effect of a positive corporate reputation on the firm's future financial performance by means of a more differentiated concept of reputation than the one commonly used in literature.

The role of company reputation in business simulations

The literature on simulation and gaming has done very little to address emerging concepts such as relationship marketing, brand equity, and company reputation. This article is the first of a two-part series relating these to each other and business simulations. This article begins by casting company reputation in the context of an emerging business paradigm in which companies seek to harness the long-term value of reputation and relationships to lower transaction costs with key stakeholders. It presents a model for incorporating the concept of company reputation into a total enterprise simulation. It builds on an empirically derived model of company reputation in which various company characteristics are linked to two underlying dimensions of reputation: sympathy and competence. The article suggests how the various components of company reputation might be operationalized in a simulation game. It then discusses how they might be used to both help determine and evaluate student performance.

Using a Functional Ontology Of Reputation to interoperate different agent reputation models

Abstract This paper presents a Functional Ontology of Reputation that could be used as a common shared reputation knowledge by agents. Although there is a huge work on agent reputation, each research defines its own basic concepts. Sometimes different meanings are associated to the same term and in other occasions the same meaning is related to different terms. We claim that the reputation knowledge structured as an ontology could be used to enable the semantic integration level involved in the interoperation of software agents using different reputation models. We have illustrated this idea by showing a semantic mapping for the reputation concepts used in three distinct reputation models. That mapping shows how this ontology could act as a common global ontology that supports the semantic integration among these models.

Managing corporate respectability

PurposeWith growing literature on corporate reputation, different perspectives are being reported on the concept of corporate reputation. These stem from different sets of issues to be managed, and various disciplinary competencies brought to bear on them. This paper presents a review of these efforts.Design/methodology/approachAdditionally, a new methodological basis for understanding perceptions of corporate reputation is presented. This paper introduces social judgement theory as a potentially useful theoretical and methodological basis for understanding perceptions of corporate respectability.FindingsThough it is generally recognized that subjectivity plays an important role in the assessment of reputation, that people rely on naïve theories of judgement to make such assessments, and that subjective or clinical judgements are generally not accurate, investigations of the process by which corporate respectability is assessed are not generally reported. However, a computerized procedure facilitates identification, measurement and reporting of judgemental sources of assessment of corporate respectability.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides an account of an empirical study as an example of how the procedure described here can be used for both research and practical application in formulating corporate reputation policy.Practical implicationsThe procedure described here can be used for both research and practical application in formulating corporate reputation policy. The approach presents an alternative approach to the assessment of corporate respectability.Originality/valueThe description of policies in terms of parameters of the judgement process provides an operational definition of the decision makers’ cognitive sets about the domain of corporate respectability. This information would prove invaluable in developing and implementing a judgement‐based decision support system for the benefit of managers of public relations, corporate communications, and corporate reputation.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a Model of 'Extended' Corporate Governance: An Explanation Based on the Economic Theories of Social Contract, Reputation and Reciprocal Conformism

This paper first sets a definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an extended model of corporate governance and then accounts for a voluntary approach to CSR, meant as voluntary compliance with CSR strategic management standards, in terms of an economic theory of self-regulation based on the concepts of social contract, reputation and reciprocal conformism. The paper argues that extended fiduciary duties toward all the firm's stakeholders are needed because of the same neo-institutional analysis of the firm that justifies it as a unified system of governance of economic transactions based on authority relations and residual rights of control. The key concept here is that of abuse of firm's authority vis-a-vis the stakeholders who hold incomplete contracts with the firm. Extended fiduciary duties are singled out from the model of a Social Contract amongst the firm's stakeholders. This provide for a clear cut and calculable criterion of strategic management no less able to set a bottom-line to the firm management than the profit maximisation principle, while being able of answering legitimate claims of fair treatment from all the firm's stakeholders. Such a task is accomplished by an application of the theory of bargaining games to the Social Contract of the firm, which employs the Nash-Harsanyi bargaining solution as a normative criterion for strategic management and corporate governance, providing an answer to the deficit of uniqueness problem raised by Michael Jensen (2001) against the notion of stakeholders value. Then, the paper distinguishes two models of self regulation (the discretionary one, and the explicit-norms-cum-self-enforcement one) and argues that while incomplete contracts and imperfect knowledge debar form resorting to reputation effects in order to support discretional self-regulation, on the contrary an explicit standard for CSR strategic management, based on general and abstract business ethics principles and precautionary protocols and rules of behaviour - both publicly shared by stakeholders and firms through social dialog - make possible to put again at work the reputation mechanism inducing endogenous incentives of compliance with a voluntary standard. The paper here suggests how (by both fuzzy logic and default reasoning) a CSR Strategic Management Standard may work as a cognitive gap filling tool with respect to the firm's commitments and the stakeholders' expectations in presence of incomplete information. Moreover recent developments in the theory of conformist non-purely-self-interested preferences add motivational force to the basic result about self-enforcement of a CSR management standard. Hence, conformist preferences solve the problem of optimal mixed strategies that otherwise could enable the firm inducing the stakeholders to trust it without really conforming to a CSR standard. This result is given a formal proof in sec.11. The paper concludes with a collusion-proof design of intermediate social bodies (civil society institutions) that may answer the demand for assurance and external verifiability of CSR standards compliance by independent third.

Transaction costs, relational contracting and public private partnerships: a case study of UK defence

This paper is concerned with the economics of public private partnerships (PPPs)/private finance initiative (PFIs) and in particular the role of transaction costs and the importance of trust in relational contracting. The discussion is illustrated by reference to the UK defence sector. The paper begins by discussing the nature of PPPs/PFIs before moving on to consider how the economics of contracting literature can shed light on their strengths and weaknesses. The transaction cost literature is reviewed alongside a resource-based perspective of procurement decisions. The concepts of trust and reputation are then considered in the context of minimising procurement transaction costs. The theoretical framework developed is then applied and illustrated through a case study of UK defence contracting, in an attempt to assess whether the use of PPPs will necessarily lead to improved economic efficiency. The case study highlights both the scope of PPPs/PFIs and their potential transaction costs in defence procurement, with the normal perils in terms of contracting given information asymmetry, asset specificity and the resulting scope for opportunistic behaviour.

Bridging Uncertainty in Management Consulting: The Mechanisms of Trust and Networked Reputation

This article analyzes the market of management consulting and identifies institutional and transactional uncertainty as its principal features. Based on these uncertainties, we argue that competition in this market takes place on entirely different grounds than in other business sectors. We suggest that the main drivers of competitiveness are neither price nor measurable quality, but rather experience-based trust and a mechanism we label ‘networked reputation.’ An embeddedness perspective is employed to develop the concept of networked reputation as an intermediate mechanism that complements the duality of system versus personal trust and accounts for firm growth. We reinterpret secondary data on the German consulting market, illustrate the significance of these mechanisms, and demonstrate how management consulting is situated in structures of social relations.

The Concept and Measurement of Corporate Reputation: An Application to Spanish Financial Intermediaries

This paper is based on agency theory framework and gives an essential justification to the concept of reputation, adding to its function as an informative signal, that of guarantee of contracts. In addition, this contractual approach leads us to a new definition of corporate reputation, one that not only introduces the perceptions of how the firm behaves towards its stakeholders, but also takes into account the degree of informative transparency with which the firm develops relations with them. Using this new and more complete definition, the authors designed a questionnaire to measure this asset, which was then applied to the Spanish banking sector.

Corporate Reputation

This article identifies four themes that dominate the literature on corporate reputation and attempts to further distinguish the linkages between the concepts of identity, image, and reputation. Four dimensions of corporate identity are characterized. Arationale for comprehensive measurement of the components of reputation is provided, and a preliminary framework for measuring various dimensions of corporate identity, image, and reputation is developed. Finally, reputation-related questions intended to assist various decision-makers in predicting future business performance are posed in order to focus future advances in the usefulness of the construct of corporate reputation.

Comparing Corporate Reputations: League Tables, Quotients, Benchmarks, or Case Studies?

Finding valid and practicable methods of assessment and comparison should help to clarify the concept of corporate reputation and contribute to professional applications in this area. Four approaches to assessing and comparing corporate reputations are outlined: league tables, reputation quotients, benchmarks, and case studies. The first three approaches are interrelated, and face conceptual and practical difficulties. The fourth approach outlines two contrasting methods: the case comparison method and the Quasi-Judicial (QJ) case method.

Belgium: Corporate Reputation in the Eye of the Beholder

This article reviews the preparatory conceptual and empirical work that preceeded the compilation of the nomination list of most visible reputed companies in view of the Euro-RQ assessment in Belgium. Besides a brief exploration of the Belgian business landscape, this contribution provides a summary of the findings deriving from the corporate reputation focus group research conducted in Belgium last year, as well some of the key findings of an additional exploratory assessment conducted in February 2000 regarding the implementation of the corporate reputation concept by the public at large. Further, these outcomes are compared with the views of some 1,000 CEOs on corporate reputation. On the basis of these findings, a series of remarks are formulated as a base for further in-depth discussion and empirical analysis.

Voting, Rationality and Reputation

Why do people vote? This paper presents a solution to the voting paradox in rational choice theory, based on the interaction between two concepts: externalities (James Coleman) and reputation (Einar Overbye). Elaborating on the idea that voting is an investment in one's reputation, I will argue that there are two concepts of reputation: reputation-of-power and reputation-of-trust. The solution to the voting paradox can be found in the reputation-game between social actors holding these two different forms of reputation. During an electoral campaign, powerful opinion leaders can employ their reputation-of-power (power to impose sanctions) in order to get mere voters to vote in a certain way. The aim of the powerful opinion leaders is not to influence the outcome of the election but simply to acquire or maintain their reputation, while mere voters have an interest to vote as told in order to appear trustworthy (reputation-of-trust) to powerful opinion leaders. The act of voting is an unintended consequence of this power game.

Professional Reputation and the Neustadt Formulation

This article was written for a conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The purpose was to acknowledge the impact of Richard E. Neustadt's Presidential Power, first published in 1960. The article explores the concept of professional reputation, so vital to Neustadt's perspective on presidential power. Neustadt's formulation is presented as a series of propositions so as to encourage empirical research. It is then proposed that these propositions be tested with regard to statute making. A locator matrix is offered for designating research topics. Professional reputation continues to have substantial potential for contributing to our understanding of the presidency in the separated system. The original formulation has been with us now for forty years. We are beyond the time, but not the need, for it to have been systematically studied and applied.