Corporate Reputation Management Decisions: Customer’s Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.24.5.3920Keywords:
corporate reputation, corporate reputation management, stakeholder groups, consumer perspective, communicationAbstract
When corporate reputation is analyzed from the perspective of relationship equity and communication, the analysis frequently appeals to expectations and experience of customers as the most important group of stakeholders. Yet in practice there are no methodologies of corporate reputation management of this kind that could be easily adapted and would capture the impact of reputation management decisions for sustainable customer confidence in the organization. Therefore, the research problem is structured as a question, i.e. what is the impact of corporate reputation on customer’s confidence in the organization?
The proposed hypothetic model of corporate reputation management embeds customer-characteristic factors of corporate reputation perception, qualities that are inherent in the efficient management of integrated communication and reputation, and consequences of corporate reputation management in relationship to specific changes of customer behavior. The model illustrates the following assumption. The positive experience of a customer that was obtained by means of the perceived economic and social value during the development of relationship, conditions the basic outcome of positive corporate reputation, i.e. consumer advocacy which becomes evident through: increasing customer loyalty to the organization; public representation, i.e. declared confidence of the customers and their commitments in respect of the organization; increasing need for cooperation, i.e. the wish of customers to share information, participate in conflict solving and seek for mutually favorable possibilities of relationship with the organization.
The information, acquired during the empirical research, yields the conclusion that all customer perception-based reputation factors, i.e. quality of goods and services, emotional appeal, vision, leadership and social responsibility, have to be strengthened in communication practices.
