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Measuring Corporate Reputation in B2B Markets: The Corporate Personality Adapted Scale
Título Documento
SSRN
Ano (publicação definitiva)
2014
Língua
Inglês
País
Estados Unidos da América
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Abstract/Resumo
Abstract:
In B2B markets, a wrong decision when it comes to the choice of a business partner may harm the company’s ability to survive and thrive into the future. Stakeholder involvement in organizations and the complex set of interactions between stakeholders and the organization, expressed in formal and informal relationships and characterized by a wide array of experiences, impressions, facts, perceptions, beliefs and knowledge, all of these contribute in different measures to organizational reputation.
This study intends to assess corporate reputation both from the perspective of internal stakeholders and that of its key external constituencies. This is attempted this paper by drawing from the work of Davies et al. (2001) and their development of a corporate personality scale with the purpose of measuring reputation, a scale that has been extensively cited in numerous studies that have been conducted since its publication.
The corporate character scale has therefore been applied frequently ever since this seminal work was published in widely varying academic and business contexts. Moreover, Davies' scale has over the years been frequently used in B2C contexts and it has therefore become necessary to adapt it to a B2B setting, a clear objective of the current research.
The investigation was conducted at Brisa Innovation and Technology (BIT), a Portuguese company operating in an open innovation network environment. The aim of the research was to ascertain the viability of adding a new dimension to the aforementioned corporate character, also called the corporate personality scale. The introduction of new items and their addition to the scale as it currently stands was made possible as a result of the analysis that was performed on the interviews that were conducted with BIT employees, customers and business partners, and also by using the items that were identified by Berens and Van Riel (2004) that relate to the corporate credibility scale. Thus, this study also aims to reconcile these two alternative corporate reputation measures: the corporate personality and the corporate credibility scales.
The study allowed for a step forward to be taken towards the assessment of the viability of using Davies et al.'s (2001) model, initially conceived and applied in B2C contexts for the purposes of measuring reputation in B2B markets. It aims to do so by proposing a new dimension, "Commitment" to the current framework, which has been proven to be statistically robust and reliable and may be incorporated into the corporate personality scale, for the particular scrutiny of B2B market settings that deal with reputational measurement issues and objectives. The added dimension of "Commitment" has also been revealed to be an important predictor of stakeholder satisfaction.
Agradecimentos/Acknowledgements
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Palavras-chave
Keywords: reputation, corporate personality, corporate credibility, management, branding, business to business, open innovation