An Examination of Issues That Complicate the Concept of Reputation in Business Studies

Abstract

Business studies tend to neglect the psychological and social processes that are basic to understanding reputations, which are collective, social phenomena. Reputations depend on the processes of communication and influence whereby people form and share impressions about matters that interest them, such as individual persons, business enterprises and products, and political parties. Several complications arise in connection with the concept of reputation in business studies. They include: the relationship between market share and reputational space; the way a firm and its products generate multiple reputations; the way reputations change over time; factors affecting the management of reputation, including monitoring risks to reputation, and changes in the ethical and normative evaluations inseparable from reputation. Accepting that reputation is a major influence on company performance (Kay 1995), the purpose of this research is to elaborate and clarify of the concept of reputation in business studies, and to examine the extent to which theory and practice might be imDennis B. Bromley is emeritus professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, in the United Kingdom.