Corporate Reputation of Family-Owned Businesses: Parent Companies vs. Their Brands

Abstract

The reputation of companies is one of their key success factors. It is therefore necessary to value this intangible asset. In order to detect possible threats quickly, continuous monitoring of corporate reputation plays an important role in this valuation process. Family businesses are an ideal object for reputation management research, as through their brands they integrate tradition and addressability at the same time. The main aim of the paper is to discuss the issue of innovative approaches to the online reputation management. We performed an in-depth analysis of online reputation through an Advanced sentiment analysis on the significant sample of ten largest family-owned businesses in the world. Taking into account all relevant determinants of reputation such as Google as well as major social networks, namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. As there is a noticeable difference between the marketing communication of the parent company and the marketing communication of the brand owned by the company, the findings of the analyses will provide a better insight into the issue of sustainable brand development. By identify good practices, as well as highlighting weaknesses, our research has the ambition to contribute to the shift of knowledge in the field of reputation management.