Reputation Advantage Research Articles

Breaking Bonds?

For decades, Americans have trusted the Republicans over the Democrats to handle national security issues, by a wide margin. Over the Bush presidency, that gap has disappeared. The authors explore the causes and consequences of this loss and suggest several new avenues for research on issue ownership. Findings indicate that Bush's handling of the Iraq war has played a decisive role in diminishing the Republican Party's reputational advantage on national security. This has had significant electoral repercussions both for the president and his copartisans in Congress.

The ‘Catch 22’ of communicating CSR: Findings from a Danish study

This research explored the apparent ‘Catch 22’ of communicating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Although companies are regularly encouraged to engage in CSR, they are simultaneously discouraged to communicate about this engagement. We contribute with two models that may help to explain how companies can best communicate about their CSR initiatives. Based on a reputation survey and two case studies of Danish corporate CSR frontrunners, first we develop an ‘inside‐out approach’ to suggest how managers can manage their CSR activities to achieve favourable CSR reputation in a ‘Catch 22’ context. Employees appear as a key component in building trustworthiness as CSR communication is shown to evolve when taking an ‘inside‐out approach’. Second, we develop a CSR communication model with two CSR communication processes targeting different stakeholder groups: ‘the expert CSR communication process’ and ‘the endorsed CSR communication process’. Integrating these models and processes may help companies strategically capture reputational advantage from their CSR initiatives.

Alphabet Economics: The link between names and reputation

In economics, most coauthored papers have all coauthors in alphabetical order. It is sometimes argued that this conveys advantages to people whose names start with letters that come early in the alphabet. This paper examines whether the alphabetical ranking of names affects someone's reputation. Overall, we find that faculty members with earlier last name initials are more likely to get employment at high standard research departments. Furthermore, we show that the relationship between alphabetical placement and academic success remains significant if we use as an alternative measure of reputation the number of people showing an interest in the papers of a particular academic. This paper also investigates whether the reported alphabetical effect creates differential incentives for coauthoring. It is found that the reputational advantage of first-authorship motivates people to manipulate their names so as to obtain a more beneficial alphabetical position within the majority of articles.

Export Outsourcing: Cost Disadvantage and Reputation Advantage

A new type of outsourcing, export outsourcing, has become increasingly important in recent years. Export outsourcing is the practice in which firms that receive export orders subcontract part or all of order to low-wage countries, playing the dual role of a middleman and a manufacturer. Its major features include the involvement of three parties rather than two, information asymmetry between the three parties, and a reputation payoff to the intermediary firm in the presence of cost disadvantage. Apparent resemblance aside, export outsourcing differs in important aspects from the 'output outsourcing' by large firms, the deepening of vertical specialization, the outsourcing of service jobs, and traditional intermediation. Using Taiwanese firms as an example, the paper shows in detail how export outsourcing is practiced, and discusses the implications for the future and for other economies.

Copyright, Print and Authorship in the Culture Industry

Copyright, Print and Authorship in the Culture Industry

R&D, Marketing, and the Success of Next-Generation Products

This paper studies dynamic competition in markets characterized by the introduction of technologically advanced next-generation products. Firms invest in new product effort in an attempt to attain industry leadership, thus securing high profits and benefiting from advantages relevant for the success of future product generations. The analysis reveals that when the current leader possesses higher research and development (R&D) competence, it tends to investmorein R&D than rivals and to retain its lead position. The leader's investment exhibits an inverse-U pattern as this advantage increases. In contrast, when the leader enjoys an advantage that originates from the persistence of reputation, it investslessthan its followers. Now, followers' investment exhibits an inverse-U pattern as reputation advantage increases. Depending on the extent of leader reputation, industry structure can either exhibit frequent leadership shifts or prolonged incumbent dominance. The basic framework is extended to allow investments in additional marketing variables (e.g., advertising). Interestingly, the leader takes advantage of strong demand for its current product by focusing more on advertising, whereas the follower expends more on R&D. By shedding light on the implications of industry position for investment incentives and market evolution, the analysis provides valuable insights for formulating marketing strategy in fast-paced, high-tech business environments.

The elements of candidate reputation: The effect of record and credibility on optimal spatial location

We build a model of two-candidate elections in which voters judge candidates on the basis of how well their announced campaign positions correspond with their records. Given different records, the candidates will adopt different campaign positions. Two types of reputational advantage are analyzed: proximity of the candidate's record to the median voter's ideal point, and the range of campaign positions that a candidate may adopt and still retain some credibility with the voters.