ABSTRACT
Corporate reputation is one of the most valuable intangible assets, and it is extremely hard to imitate by competitors. An effective reputation management concept therefore helps firms to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. However, there is still a lack of valid empirical studies proving the impact of reputation on stakeholder behavior. Before we present empirical evidence of reputation's impact on three selected stakeholder groups namely customers, investors, and potential employees we introduce definitions of reputation and describe our measurement approach. Although there is a consensus on the importance of corporate reputation, the academic literature on the subject fails to provide a precise, commonly accepted definition. For Fombrun, reputation is the stakeholder's overall estimation of a company expressed by affective reactions. The author excludes cognitive processes in his definition. The increasing interest in corporate reputation by practitioners and academics alike has led to the emergence of numerous measurement tools for that concept.
