Overview by Ketchum CEO Ray Kotcher

Academics and practitioners specializing in corporate reputation offer insights on the topic of "Thinking Through Reputation Management"

Viewpoints II

Three professionals involved in high-profile corporate reputation campaigns share their points of view on "Reputation Management in Action"

Roundtable

Senior Ketchum counselors from around the globe answer the question "What is the most important lesson you've learned about helping corporations protect or improve their reputations?"

Reflections on Reputation

Marketing directors, independent reputation consultants and Ketchum counselors give thoughts on managing corporate reputation

Q&A

Co-editors of the book Reputation Capital: Building and Maintaining Trust in the 21st Century discuss the book's key takeaways for corporate communicators

Street Smarts

Five findings that point to the heightened need for reputation management

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market

Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb, Ph.D.
Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation

Markets and individual stocks rise and fall, driven in large part by reputation. The reputation of a company is determined by testimonial belief, but those beliefs may be either true or false. Thus, reputation can be unreliable.

For companies considering reputation management, this suggests four strategic propositions:

To avoid a bad, reliable reputation, don't do anything bad. If bad behavior pays, pursue a good, unreliable reputation.
To overcome an unreliable bad reputation, continue to behave well, facilitate the flow of market information, and amplify this information with marketing.
To establish a good, reliable reputation, do what you say and say what you do.
Maximize the benefits of a good, unreliable reputation, but beware the market.

Companies can (and do) choose either one of these. For a company seeking to profit by its reputation, the most important question to face is this: How imperfect is the market?

In competitive media markets, business journalism will be more invasive, and untrue beliefs about a company — unreliable reputations — will more quickly be exposed. And the markets will respond accordingly.

The market will catch up with companies that have unreliable good reputations. Just when this will happen depends on market structure and the flow of information. For instance, the better the flow of information among businesses, within a business, and between a business and noncorporate players, the sooner that information will have an impact on market performance.

For corporate communicators, understanding this flow is essential, particularly when noncorporate players include the media. In competitive media markets, business journalism will be more invasive, and untrue beliefs about a company — unreliable reputations — will more quickly be exposed. And the markets will respond accordingly.

The proposition that reputation ultimately matters less than behavior is one reason to love the markets — even if it takes a while to shed light on that behavior.

Dr. Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb is a research fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation. His research concerns the interaction of business, politics, and technology in the mass media. He is particularly interested in the historical development of media corporations as well as the relationship between communications and corporate strategy. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge in 2008.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market

Perspectives Staff