3 results
16 - Reputation and Corporate Sustainability
- from Part III - Corporate Sustainability: Processes
- Edited by Andreas Rasche, Copenhagen Business School, Mette Morsing, Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), UN GlobalCompact, United Nations, Jeremy Moon, Copenhagen Business School, Arno Kourula, Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam
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- Book:
- Corporate Sustainability
- Published online:
- 09 March 2023
- Print publication:
- 30 March 2023, pp 315-333
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Summary
In this chapter, we examine the relationship between corporate sustainability and reputation. We show that sustainability in business moved centre stage in the reputation landscape and is a critical component that influences the overall reputation of a company. We start by introducing key terms, and by defining reputation alongside other related constructs such as identity, image and legitimacy. We then discuss Corporate Sustainability (CS) as an important part of a company’s reputation, and illustrate different ways in which companies engage in CS to enhance and protect their reputation. Specifically, we distinguish between walking and talking CS. Based on an overview of the involved risks and rewards, we advocate that companies ‘walk the talk’ and transparently communicate about and report on their commitments to, and progress on, substantial CS activities such as reducing their carbon emissions and enhancing worker welfare.
Chapter 13 - CSR and Reputation: Too Much of a Good Thing?
- from PART III - COMMUNICATION AND CSR
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- By Christopher Wickert, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Joep Cornelissen, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
- Edited by Andreas Rasche, Copenhagen Business School, Mette Morsing, Copenhagen Business School, Jeremy Moon, Copenhagen Business School
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- Book:
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Published online:
- 28 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 23 March 2017, pp 328-349
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Summary
Learning Objectives
• Learn why corporate reputation represents an important intangible asset and how to distinguish reputation from related constructs such as identity, image and legitimacy.
• Gain an understanding of how companies across industries manage their reputation in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR).
• Gain an appreciation of how efforts to manage a reputation for CSR may be a double-edged sword; it may strengthen a company's reputation with stakeholders, yet it may also create increasing expectations about good conduct.
• Be able to critically reflect on, and analyse, more symbolic and rhetorical versus substantive and material approaches that companies take to manage their CSR reputation, that may create both opportunities and risks.
Introduction
When deciding to buy a product, what do people usually think of? Probably the price, the quality of the product, and maybe also whether they like the brand. Or would consumers also consider how well this company treats its employees, how ethical it is, and whether it shows environmental responsibility? As a matter of fact, most of us would probably relate to the former set of reasons (price and quality of the product and the brand). But, according to a recent study by the Reputation Institute (2015), people's willingness to buy, recommend, work for and invest in a company is driven about 60 per cent by their perception of the company – in other words by its reputation – and only about 40 per cent is driven by how people perceive the product itself or the price alone. Many firms, in particular global brands such as H&M, IKEA, Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Apple and the like often consider brand reputation their most important asset, besides other resources such as financial or human capital. For instance, H&M's reputation for being a fashionable but low-priced clothing brand has enabled the company to outperform its rivals for many years. Coca-Cola's reputation for being the global beverage of good taste and reliable quality has allowed the company to sustain its market share in the face of fierce competition.
20 - Sensemaking in strategy as practice: a phenomenon or a perspective?
- from Part III - Theoretical Resources: Organization and Management Theories
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- By Joep Cornelissen, VU University Amsterdam, Henri Schildt, Aalto University, Helsinki
- Edited by Damon Golsorkhi, Linda Rouleau, David Seidl, Universität Zürich, Eero Vaara
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- Book:
- Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice
- Published online:
- 05 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 03 September 2015, pp 345-364
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Summary
Given the broad interest of strategy-as-practice scholars in the situated emergence of strategy from the actual actions, choices, cognitions, language and emotions of actors within organizations, it is inevitable that the literature has intersected with the sensemaking literature that has emerged around Karl Weick's work. Sensemaking has long been the dominant theoretical approach to meaning and interpretation in mainstream organization studies, including topics such as decision-making (Maitlis 2005), behaviours during crises (Weick 1993) and organizational change (Gioia et al. 1994). Sensemaking in fact provides a range of resources for theorizing, as it is less of a theory than a broad umbrella construct encompassing and synthesizing a range of observations and approaches from social theory, sociology and social psychology (Weick 1979).
In recent years, the concept of sensemaking has been regularly invoked and used as part of SAP research in empirical and theoretical work alike. Indeed, sensemaking has become such a central plank in the study of strategy practice that it is frequently mentioned as a theoretical foundation of the field (Balogun et al. 2014). In this chapter we review the various ways in which sensemaking is used in SAP research and elaborate its future potential to advance how we understand and research strategy practices, praxis and practitioners.
Our review of past strategy-as-practice research suggests that sensemaking was, and continues to be, used in a largely perfunctory manner alongside other theoretical sources, such as structuration and practice theory in SAP research, although the appropriation of the sensemaking literature has grown in prominence in recent years. We also find that the use of sensemaking is more varied than that of most other concepts – and is thus defined in somewhat different ways across SAP studies. In the broadest sense, scholars use the term ‘sensemaking’ to refer to a category of empirically observable practices, mostly relating to instances of individual thought and group conversations relating to strategy (Balogun et al. 2014). In other cases, scholars appropriate the sensemaking literature more explicitly to capture the interplay of interpretations and action as enactment (see Porac, Thomas and Baden-Fuller 1989).