Corporate reputation - that is, reputation focused from a business point of view - appeared for the first time in 1958, when Pierre Martineau) discussed the concept of "corporate image" instead of "brand image".[6]​ However, it is in recent decades that corporate reputation has gained special interest for both the academic and business world.[2]​.

In the 1990s we observed an increase in interest in the concept, in part due to the change in the scientific research program on reputation:[1]​ while in 1960-1990 it focused on reputation-advertising (the effects of credibility), from 1990 it focused on reputation-value, demonstrating the value of reputation in the market, and thus allowing a more precise and credible measurement.

In 2002, Steven Wartick")[7]​ identified three basic shortcomings in the research situation in the field of corporate reputation:

Charles Fombrun"), founder and president of the Reputation Institute, became one of the main international exponents who addressed the concept with the publication of the article Reputation: Realizing Value from Corporate Image in 1996 and Fame and Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations in 2004, together with the professor at the Rotterdam School of Management, Cees Van Riel. Fombrun, with the support of the Spanish association Foro de Reputación Corporate, driven by large companies and led by Ángel Alloza,[8] improved its reputation measurement tool called Reputation Quotient (RQ) in 2004, and created the RepTrak model. The tool was presented to the academic and professional community in 2005 in Madrid and internationally in 2006 in New York at the International Conference on Corporate Reputation, Brand, Identity and Competitiveness. seven dimensions: the offer of products and services, leadership, financial performance, work, citizenship, innovation and good governance.[9]​.

In Spain, Antonio López, honorary president of Dircom España, was the professional in charge of propagating the concept through the publication of his article Business communication published by TELOS magazine in 1998 and for supporting the creation of the Corporate Reputation Forum in 2002, to professionalize the management of corporate reputation and other intangibles.[10]​ In 2011, the Corporate Reputation Forum merged with the Institute of Analysis of the Intangibles by creating the think tank Corporate Excellence – Center for Reputation Leadership, a business foundation specialized in reputation led by Ángel Alloza") and which has more than half of the Ibex 35 companies on its board and as collaborating companies.[11]​.

Reputation metrics are used to measure the impact that reputation has on the company's value. To correctly manage intangible resources, reputation metrics capable of measuring economic return must be developed. To achieve this, traditional financial indicators are complemented with reputation metrics that are included in the organizations' dashboard, helping to create a reputational cushion that reduces the negative impact in the event of a crisis. According to the Global Financial Tracker 2019 study, 52% of global business value is intangible and almost 80% remains hidden.[12]​.

This contrasts with the fact that one of the key points of the rise of corporate reputation in companies is the generation of financial value from intangible assets. In the case of reputation, there are a large number of metrics, scales and indices to evaluate it. Professors Carreras and Alloza[1] differentiate between metrics that seek to objectively establish the reputation of an organization—which come from audits or assessments by informed audiences such as financial analysts, managers or specialized journalists—and metrics that reflect the subjective point of view of interest groups.

There are also other scales, such as perceived external prestige, corporate credibility or the institutional distrust scale. Therefore, objective reputation metrics and subjective evaluation metrics can be established based on the interest groups, where rational metrics (indirect) and emotional metrics (direct) are distinguished.[1]​.

Different investigations point to reputation as one of the most relevant non-financial intangible resources due to its direct impact on the business. According to RepTrak Spain 2017,[13] improving reputation by five points increases purchase intention by 6.4% and recommendation intention by 6.1%. Furthermore, organizations perceive reputational risk as the most important element for business resilience.[14]​.

There are many studies that support that consumers have a more positive and favorable opinion of those organizations involved in a social cause. In fact, 43.5% of the weight of reputation – 40.9% on a global scale – is related to CSR and responsible business issues, such as corporate citizenship, good governance and quality of the work environment.[15]​[16]​.

In the new economic cycle of the "economy of intangibles and corporate reputation", reputation is the best exponent of the intangible asset of greatest strategic value with clear deficits in understanding, measurement and management.[1]​.

Contenido

Según Ángel Alloza, los tres factores que influyen en la reputación y que, a su vez, influyen en la misma son los siguientes:.

Authenticity

Authenticity is an attribute closely linked to reputation. Authenticity has become an objective for brand leadership, as predicted in the 2007 report The Authentic Enterprise by the organization Page"),[17]​ which stated that companies and organizations increasingly want to be considered "authentic."

To be authentic there has to be a correlation between what the brand says about itself, what it demonstrates and what others say about it. The space between authenticity and reputation is what is called authenticity gap; Therefore, this distance between the public's expectations and the brand's real experiences must be proactively managed.[11]​.

Legitimacy

Legitimacy is a fundamental factor to operate in the market. As Carreras and Alloza assure, legitimation theory offers a coherent conceptual framework about the variety of social support of an organization. Legitimation arouses in audiences an attitude of active support or passive consent. The contributions of legitimacy to corporate reputation are structured into: nature of social support, sources of value and complexity of social support.[1]​.

Trust

As indicated by the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, today's society has very low levels of trust — more than 71% of the global population does not trust its institutions — and is navigating the post-truth era — 63% of the world's population is unable to distinguish between true and false news. platforms, in which the sender is even anonymous. In fact, 59% of the population believes that it is increasingly difficult to know if a news story comes from a respected media or not.[18]​.

In recent years, different figures have emerged to manage intangible assets and resources, such as reputation: the director, the Chief Reputation Officer (CRO), the brand director, the director of public affairs, corporate affairs or the director of sustainability are some of them. Communication. Among the functions of the CCO, his closeness as a counselor and strategic advisor to the CEO and his ability to read the social context to extract strategic insights in a reputational and contextual key stand out.

The CCO is responsible for communications with all stakeholders, such as employees, customers, shareholders, media, influential members of the business community, and the general public.

Corporate reputation - that is, reputation focused from a business point of view - appeared for the first time in 1958, when Pierre Martineau) discussed the concept of "corporate image" instead of "brand image".[6]​ However, it is in recent decades that corporate reputation has gained special interest for both the academic and business world.[2]​.

In the 1990s we observed an increase in interest in the concept, in part due to the change in the scientific research program on reputation:[1]​ while in 1960-1990 it focused on reputation-advertising (the effects of credibility), from 1990 it focused on reputation-value, demonstrating the value of reputation in the market, and thus allowing a more precise and credible measurement.

In 2002, Steven Wartick")[7]​ identified three basic shortcomings in the research situation in the field of corporate reputation:

Charles Fombrun"), founder and president of the Reputation Institute, became one of the main international exponents who addressed the concept with the publication of the article Reputation: Realizing Value from Corporate Image in 1996 and Fame and Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations in 2004, together with the professor at the Rotterdam School of Management, Cees Van Riel. Fombrun, with the support of the Spanish association Foro de Reputación Corporate, driven by large companies and led by Ángel Alloza,[8] improved its reputation measurement tool called Reputation Quotient (RQ) in 2004, and created the RepTrak model. The tool was presented to the academic and professional community in 2005 in Madrid and internationally in 2006 in New York at the International Conference on Corporate Reputation, Brand, Identity and Competitiveness. seven dimensions: the offer of products and services, leadership, financial performance, work, citizenship, innovation and good governance.[9]​.

In Spain, Antonio López, honorary president of Dircom España, was the professional in charge of propagating the concept through the publication of his article Business communication published by TELOS magazine in 1998 and for supporting the creation of the Corporate Reputation Forum in 2002, to professionalize the management of corporate reputation and other intangibles.[10]​ In 2011, the Corporate Reputation Forum merged with the Institute of Analysis of the Intangibles by creating the think tank Corporate Excellence – Center for Reputation Leadership, a business foundation specialized in reputation led by Ángel Alloza") and which has more than half of the Ibex 35 companies on its board and as collaborating companies.[11]​.

Reputation metrics are used to measure the impact that reputation has on the company's value. To correctly manage intangible resources, reputation metrics capable of measuring economic return must be developed. To achieve this, traditional financial indicators are complemented with reputation metrics that are included in the organizations' dashboard, helping to create a reputational cushion that reduces the negative impact in the event of a crisis. According to the Global Financial Tracker 2019 study, 52% of global business value is intangible and almost 80% remains hidden.[12]​.

This contrasts with the fact that one of the key points of the rise of corporate reputation in companies is the generation of financial value from intangible assets. In the case of reputation, there are a large number of metrics, scales and indices to evaluate it. Professors Carreras and Alloza[1] differentiate between metrics that seek to objectively establish the reputation of an organization—which come from audits or assessments by informed audiences such as financial analysts, managers or specialized journalists—and metrics that reflect the subjective point of view of interest groups.

There are also other scales, such as perceived external prestige, corporate credibility or the institutional distrust scale. Therefore, objective reputation metrics and subjective evaluation metrics can be established based on the interest groups, where rational metrics (indirect) and emotional metrics (direct) are distinguished.[1]​.

Different investigations point to reputation as one of the most relevant non-financial intangible resources due to its direct impact on the business. According to RepTrak Spain 2017,[13] improving reputation by five points increases purchase intention by 6.4% and recommendation intention by 6.1%. Furthermore, organizations perceive reputational risk as the most important element for business resilience.[14]​.

There are many studies that support that consumers have a more positive and favorable opinion of those organizations involved in a social cause. In fact, 43.5% of the weight of reputation – 40.9% on a global scale – is related to CSR and responsible business issues, such as corporate citizenship, good governance and quality of the work environment.[15]​[16]​.

In the new economic cycle of the "economy of intangibles and corporate reputation", reputation is the best exponent of the intangible asset of greatest strategic value with clear deficits in understanding, measurement and management.[1]​.

Contenido

Según Ángel Alloza, los tres factores que influyen en la reputación y que, a su vez, influyen en la misma son los siguientes:.

Authenticity

Authenticity is an attribute closely linked to reputation. Authenticity has become an objective for brand leadership, as predicted in the 2007 report The Authentic Enterprise by the organization Page"),[17]​ which stated that companies and organizations increasingly want to be considered "authentic."

To be authentic there has to be a correlation between what the brand says about itself, what it demonstrates and what others say about it. The space between authenticity and reputation is what is called authenticity gap; Therefore, this distance between the public's expectations and the brand's real experiences must be proactively managed.[11]​.

Legitimacy

Legitimacy is a fundamental factor to operate in the market. As Carreras and Alloza assure, legitimation theory offers a coherent conceptual framework about the variety of social support of an organization. Legitimation arouses in audiences an attitude of active support or passive consent. The contributions of legitimacy to corporate reputation are structured into: nature of social support, sources of value and complexity of social support.[1]​.

Trust

As indicated by the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, today's society has very low levels of trust — more than 71% of the global population does not trust its institutions — and is navigating the post-truth era — 63% of the world's population is unable to distinguish between true and false news. platforms, in which the sender is even anonymous. In fact, 59% of the population believes that it is increasingly difficult to know if a news story comes from a respected media or not.[18]​.

In recent years, different figures have emerged to manage intangible assets and resources, such as reputation: the director, the Chief Reputation Officer (CRO), the brand director, the director of public affairs, corporate affairs or the director of sustainability are some of them. Communication. Among the functions of the CCO, his closeness as a counselor and strategic advisor to the CEO and his ability to read the social context to extract strategic insights in a reputational and contextual key stand out.

The CCO is responsible for communications with all stakeholders, such as employees, customers, shareholders, media, influential members of the business community, and the general public.