Reputation and value creation in search shops

We look at reputation effects in firms which create value by finding valuable objects, which we label search shops. The paper examines and validates different measures of value creation and reputation in search shops and finds partial support for our hypothesis that higher reputation is associated with higher value creation. The negative findings are instructive as they suggest that future studies of search shops, such as petroleum exploration units, must take care when using simple counts of success to measure value created. The paper provides empirical data on three key success factors in search shops and concludes with tactics for increasing a search shop's reputation.