Chapter 1. Organizational Reputation: Defining the Indefinable
Description
All organizations have their identities – the same way as people have DNAs. These identities affect how the organization appears to all different publics the organization interacts with – consumers, investors, suppliers, employees, and others. However, in the same way, as people are not judged simply based on their DNA, the perceptions of organizations may differ from their internal identities. This perception is known as the organizational image. The image is strongly affected by the relationships between the organization and various publics – consumers’ perceptions of an organization are shaped based on their shopping experience, but employees’ perceptions are affected by their work experience. Thus, the context in which identity is perceived by various publics and translated into an image is shaped by the organization-public relationship. When we add it all up – identity, image, and relationships across various publics the organization deals with – we arrive at reputation. As a result, we define reputation as a long-term belief that sums up the images about the organization from various publics based on their relationships with the organization.



