The SAGE Encyclopedia of Corporate Reputation

What creates corporate reputations and how should organizations respond? Corporate reputation is a growing research field in disciplines as diverse as communication, management, marketing, industrial and organizational psychology, and sociology. As a formal area of academic study, it is relatively young with roots in the 1980s and the emergence of specialized reputation rankings for industries, products/services, and performance dimensions and for regions. Such rankings resulted in competition between organizations and the alignment of organizational activities to qualify and improve standings in the rankings. In addition, today’s changing stakeholder expectations, the growth of advocacy, demand for more disclosures and greater transparency, and globalized, mediatized environments create new challenges, pitfalls, and opportunities for organizations. Successfully engaging, dealing with, and working through reputational challenges requires an understanding of options and tools for organizational decision-making and stakeholder engagement. For the first time, the vast and important field of corporate reputation is explored in the format of an encyclopedic reference. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Corporate Reputation comprehensively overviews concepts and techniques for identifying, building, measuring, monitoring, evaluating, maintaining, valuing, living up to and/or changing corporate reputations. Key features include: • 300 signed entries are organized in A-to-Z fashion in 2 volumes available in a choice of electronic or print formats • Entries conclude with Cross-References and Further Readings to guide students to in-depth resources. • Although organized A-to-Z, a thematic “Reader’s Guide” in the front matter groups related entries by broad areas • A Chronology provides historical perspective on the development of corporate reputation as a discrete field of study. • A Resource Guide in the back matter lists classic books, key journals, associations, websites, and selected degree programs of relevance to corporate reputation. • A General Bibliography will be accompanied by visual maps noting the relationships between the various disciplines touching upon corporate reputation studies. • The work concludes with a comprehensive Index, which–in the electronic version–combines with the Reader’s Guide and Cross-References to provide thorough search-and-browse capabilities