Stakeholder perspectives of organisational reputation

Good reputation management is becoming increasingly important as organisations and the social environments in which they function become more complex (Caruana, 2000; Fombrun & van Riel, 2003). Organisations are being evaluated by far more demanding standards than in the past, and are increasingly being held responsible for their environmental, social and ethical decisions as well as their economic decisions. Mishandled social, ethical and environmental issues can have dire consequences for corporate reputation. Well-known and well-documented examples include the Royal Dutch/Shell Brent Spar and Nigeria incidents, in which perceived social violations were detrimental to their reputation (see e.g., Dickson & McCulloch, 1996; Livesey, 2001). In 2009 the loss of 30 containers of ammonium nitrate and tons of oil from the Pacific Venturer and the subsequent impact on the corporate reputation of the mother company Swire, demonstrates the ongoing nature of these concerns. The current study investigated how stakeholder heterogeneity impacts on organisational reputation. A sample of 1208 respondents was drawn from six stakeholder groups. Differences in stakeholder perceptions are compared through structural equation modelling.