The authors interpreted
corporate reputation (CR) as trust and positive emotions hold by stakeholders
toward companies. In addition, the authors believed that an organization does
not automatically own the trust and positive emotions that stakeholders hold
toward it but can influence them via daily business operation (BO) gradually
and gain its reputation ultimately. The authors also recognized CR as a key
success factor of organizations. The purposes of this article are to verify
whether corporate identity mix (CIM) is an antecedent of CR and to test the correlation
between a strong CR and stakeholder behavior.
The theories and studies the authors acknowledged and applied when conducting the research are as follows: the relationship between CIM and CR (Pitt and Papania, 2007), the two-level study of the corporate
brand and CR (Brown et al, 2006), the
organizational level study of corporate brands (Aaker, 2004), the individual
level study of organizations (Fombrun and van Riel, 2004; Walsh et al, 2009; Money et al, 2010), and the operationalization of CIM on CR at the
individual level (Walsh et al, 2009).
Based upon these theories and studies, the authors further developed a
five-construct research model with four hypotheses.
The four hypotheses are
(Money et al, 2010):
1.
Positive
experiences of CIM contribute to positive corporate brand benefits (CBB).
2.
Positive
CBB contributes to positive perceptions of CR.
3.
Positive
experiences of BO contribute to positive perceptions of CR.
4.
Positive
perceptions of CR contribute to positive consequences of CR.
The results of the
research support the four hypotheses and validate the model. Furthermore, there
are four findings of the research: (1) it is possible to measure the impact of
CIM and BO on CR; (2) the research suggests the relative importance of CIM,
CBB, BO, and CR; (3) the research makes the CIM framework (Melewar and Jenkins,
2002) measurable; and (4) the study confirms and theorizes the individual-level
concepts (Brown et al, 2006).
The implication of
this research is that CR is manageable and measurable. First,
managers/executives may develop a CR watching system. Since every industry has
its own characteristics, managers may weight differently on elements constructing
CR. By scrutinizing the whole system, managers may then know which element
should be improved first or least. Also, through the CR watching system,
managers can also easily acknowledge the exact responsibility of every related
department and improve the personnel promotion system.
Source: BrandManagement; 5th June 2010, Vol. 18, 3, 197-211
