Organizational Reputation: A Review

Abstract

The idea of organizational reputation is intuitive and simple in its common usage. However, it is surprisingly complex when employed and investigated in management research, as evidenced by the multiple definitions, conceptualizations, and operationalizations that have emerged across studies. The authors see the past decade as a formative phase of the research, characterized by attempts to bring theoretical coherence and rigor to the subject area. In their review of the management literature, the authors focus on this formative period in particular. They attempt to inspire and guide management researchers by clarifying what organizational reputation is. In particular, they identify three dominant conceptualizations, namely, that reputation consists of familiarity with the organization, beliefs about what to expect from the organization in the future, and impressions about the organization’s favorability. The final part of the review is an overview of recent empirical findings in the management literature pertaining to the effects or causes of organizational reputation. The authors conclude by drawing attention to some important directions for future research, including the needs to investigate organizational reputation as multidimensional and dynamic and to model its antecedents and effects as more complex than the unidirectional models typically proposed.