Corporate Reputation Management: A Corporate Communication and Public Relations Perspective

Corporate reputation is a topic of conversation among boards in every major corporation, and something that organizations ignore to their own peril. By corporate, we mean organization-level communication on behalf of companies, government entities, and non-profit organizations. Corporate communication is a broadly used term of organization-level communications that encompasses public relations, public affairs, employee communications, and other functional disciplines, to name just a few. Despite the critical mass of studies from 20 years of advances in corporate reputation studies, the field is still relatively in its infancy. The term reputation remains one with no consistent definition and it continues to be defined largely through tactics (e.g., corporate social responsibility programs, corporate advertising, crisis management) and through measurements (e.g., image research) rather than as part of business strategy. This book has two primary goals: 1) to demonstrate how the corporate communication/public relations perspective and set of skills are essential to the management of corporate reputation; 2) to be a resource guide for the senior communications officer often charged with corporate reputation management, either alone or in concert with other functions in the company. We hope the volume will become a platform for developments and discussions in the field and an authoritative reference resource for communication officers charged with corporate reputation management.