Scales for Measuring Corporate Reputation

Managers, academics, and stakeholders often need to compare and contrast corporate reputations across companies and/or over time. Yet corporate reputation is a socially constructed, intangible asset. Thus, not surprisingly, managers, academics, and other stakeholders face several challenges when measuring corporate reputations.

Researchers have developed several effective ways to measure corporate reputation using scales. Scales are measurement instruments given to a sample of respondents who represent a population of interest, for example, different stakeholder groups. The purpose of the scale is to measure this focal sample’s opinion, perceptions, or attitudes. Specifically, scales consist of multiple items with multiple possible responses to each item. This enables researchers to capture complex attitudes and opinions reliably and validly.

Defining corporate reputation is the first and critical step before deciding how it ...