Research background: The difference of war and peace can help gain an under-standing of the differences in the management of a company's reputation in terms of its stability as compared to the state of a reputation crisis. The question of practical confirmation, which is left open, is whether there is a positive correlation between the anti-crisis activity of the reputation management system and its stability in a long-term perspective, or whether these two factors are inversely related. Purpose of the article: This research is essentially aimed at studying the impact of innovation activity, media activity, and corporate social responsibility on reputational stability as well as on anti-crisis reputational sustainability. Methods: Indicators of innovation activity, media activity, corporate social responsibility, reputational stability, and anti-crisis reputational sustainability were collected in a sample of the most frequently mentioned in the media leading companies of the Ukrainian economy (N = 315), using an online survey done among 110 industry experts within the framework of the Reputation ACTIVists All-Ukrainian Ranking of Corporate Reputation Management Quality over February-March'2019 period. Structural equation modeling (SEM) in using the maximum likelihood estimation method was applied to examine the associations between above-mentioned indicators, according to the aim of the study. Findings & Value added: The results of our study revealed: 1) the existence of a significant correlation between CSR and reputational stability; 2) innovative and media activity are the most significant variables to provide anti-crisis sustainability; 3) CSR is less important for ensuring anti-crisis sustainability than for maintaining reputational stability; 4) anti-crisis sustainability is significantly more dependent on media activity than reputational stability is. By better understanding the roles of innovation activity, media activity, and corporate social responsibility, the company’s management in Ukraine can leverage the results of the study to improve reputation management performance, differentiating approaches in circumstances of a crisis and stability.
Engaging stakeholders in reputation management processes in the digital economy, including through the use of their activity on the Internet and social networks, is a way to reduce the irrational reputation-support activity of the company’s management and staff. Given the empirical research data (sociological survey) on the Ukrainian food processing companies, the article analyzes stakeholder engagement to replace traditional activities of the company’s management and personnel in the reputation management system. As a result, the author’s hypothesis was proved that the natural development (increasing the maturity level) of the Reputation Management System (RMS) takes place towards a gradual transfer of reputation management functions from managers to enterprise stakeholders, that is, the traditional reputation activity of the company’s management and personnel is being replaced by stakeholder engagement. It is also proved that the level of development of the reputation management organizational system (organizational preconditions) should be high, but aimed not so much at ensuring the activity of the enterprise management and personnel to maintain its reputation, but rather at the involving stakeholders’ delegated to manage the company reputation.It was found that the prioritizing stakeholder engagement over traditional reputation management activities at the Ukrainian food processing companies is in its infancy. The target state of the reputation management system, where stakeholder engagement is a priority over management activities, was found only in two enterprises out of 18 studied; in 11 of them, these two parameters are balanced, and in remaining five, traditional activity outwalks engagement. The results of the study of the organizational prerequisites for reputation management among enterprises preferring stakeholder engagement show that they have the following seven elements: 1) internal experts in filling and supporting the corporate website and the enterprise pages and brands on social networks; 2) corporate media editorial/text writers among enterprise staff members; 3) a specialized PR unit (reputation management department); 4) the reputa¬tion management business process is regulated; 5) the functional responsibilities of the reputation management participants are integrated with the job descriptions of the relevant employees; 6) a documented formalized PR strategy and operational plans for PR work in various time horizons; 7) a documented formalized plan of anti-crisis PR activities. The above elements make it possible to provide recommendations on the reputation management planning for enterprises seeking to take stakeholder engagement advantages in reputation management.
The paper is devoted to the development of fundamental bases of the reputation management of enterprises and elaboration of its methodological and methodical support. There was offered to use "antifragility" conception in the reputation management of an enterprise that allows to activate the cooperation with key stakeholders and to trace the effectiveness of managerial arrangements. At that reputation antifragility that is the ability to its self-support is a criterion of effectiveness of the reputation management of an enterprise. The projection of Taleb's conception on the reputation management of enterprises provides the management balance (as a purposeful formation of an enterprise reputation) and self-management balance (as a spontaneous formation of an enterprise reputation) at the conceptual level. At that in the aspect of the economic approach, "antifragility of an enterprise reputation" is not equal to the notion "anticrisis enterprise management", where the last one reproduces the process of counteraction to crisis phenomena. The features of reputation antifragility are considered as: stability as a closest synonym of antifragility; while assessing a reputation, it is necessary to take into account its ability to resist rare destructive events; anticrisis (crisis) reputation management as a necessary but not enough method of providing antifragility of an enterprise reputation; informational transparency and its necessity to form an antifragile enterprise reputation. The research results demonstrate that the management decentralization, limitation of the direct managerial impact is a necessary condition to provide reputation "antifragility" that is its ability of self-restoration, strengthening and self-increment as a result of the conscious use of stressors. The way of the solution of the methodological problem of the natural "management deficit" in complicated multi-vector systems in the context of the theory of the reputation management is the model of the reputation management decentralization by transferring the part of functions from managers to stakeholders.
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