Date: 1st of June 2022 Level: Master’s thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr  Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalens University  Authors: Filip Nilsson & Andrej Matic (92/08/25) (95/08/10) Title: Managing reputational damage with relationship marketing - A qualitative study on how relationship marketing can help organizations with reputational repair   Supervisor: Stylianos Papaioannou Keywords: Reputational damage, reputational management, reputational repair, reputational adversity, relationship marketing.  Research question: How can relationship marketing repair a company's reputation after a reputational damage incident? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze and gain knowledge on the effects that reputational damage has on a company and the different internal organizational changes that occur. Followed by the different learning outcomes to restore their corporate reputation after experiencing reputational damage. Furthermore, this study aims to assess and contribute to the existing academic knowledge on reputational management.  Method: A qualitative research method was chosen for this paper where the empirical gathering had its starting point in interviews with three companies that have experienced reputational damage. An analysis model was created to bring light on different key factors and this was then used to analyze the gathered empirical information with the chosen theories. Conclusion: The result of the study shows clear correlations between the research question, the gathered data and the chosen theories. After analyzing the different theoretical concepts and conducting three interviews with three different companies the authors could see clear connections and draw the conclusion that all three companies showed great benefits from the use of relationship marketing in their general strategies. This helped them build strong and solid relationships that showed to be tested when the actual reputational damage occurred.

We investigate the problem of establishing trust in service-oriented environments. We focus on providing a reputation framework that would enable trust-based interactions with and amongst Web services. We define methods for the creation of reputation information, its collection, and assessment that are robust in the face of a variety of attacks. Our framework (denoted RATEWeb) supports a cooperative model in which Web services share their experiences of the service providers with their peers through feedback ratings. The different ratings are aggregated to derive a service provider's reputation. This in turn is used to evaluate trust. For situations where rater feedbacks are scarce, we use statistical forecasting (particularly, a Hidden Markov Model) to ascertain trust. The approaches and techniques developed under the RATEWeb framework facilitate the optimal selection and/or composition of Web services based on service reputations. We conduct an extensive performance study (analytical and experimental) to assess the fairness and accuracy of the proposed techniques. / Ph. D.

The growing popularity of multi-agent based approaches towards the formation and operation of virtual organizations (VO) present over the Internet, offer both opportunities and risks. One of the risks involved in such community is in the identification of trustworthy agent partners for transaction. In this paper we aim to describe our trust model which would contribute in measuring trust in the interacting agents. Named as TruMet, the trust metric model works on the basis of the parameters that we have identified as relevant to the features of the community. The model primarily analyses trust value on the basis of the agent¿s reputation, as provided by the agent itself, and the agent¿s aggregate rating as provided by the witness agents. The final computation of the trust value is given by a weighted average of these two components. While computing the aggregate rating, a weight based method has been adopted to discount the contribution of possibly un-fair ratings by the witness agents.

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I find that a bad reputation is not necessarily bad for business. I argue that a bad corporate reputation is less likely to hurt sales of tangible goods than intangible services, because assessing quality for the latter is inherently difficult and customers often rely on seller reputation to choose providers. I also argue that a necessary product is less likely to be adversely impacted than a discretionary one because in many cases the customers cannot avoid purchase of the product. I find that product necessity strongly affects consumer opinions and behavior. I argue that consumers “like” firms that offer products they want more than firms that offer products they need but that these opinions do not necessarily drive purchase behavior. I partition firms included in a well-established, corporate reputational survey into those that offer basic needs, perceived necessities and discretionary products. I find that consumers rate firms that offer discretionary products higher than firms that offer necessary products. Despite this tendency, firms that offer discretionary products and necessary products have similar profitability. Lastly, while consumers dislike price increases, they are more likely to repurchase basic needs than perceived necessities or discretionary products, arguably because they have no choice for the former. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

The electric power grid forms the foundation for several other critical infrastructures of national importance such as public health, transportation and telecommunication systems, to thrive. The current power grid runs on the century-old technology and faces serious challenges of the 21st century - Ever-increasing demand and the need to provide a sustainable way to meet the growing demand, increased requirement of resilience against man-made and natural disasters, ability to defend against cyber attacks, increasing demand for reliable power, requirement to integrate with alternate energy generation and storage technologies. Several countries, including the United States, have realized the immediate need to modernize the grid and to pursue the goal of a smart grid. Majority of recent grid modernization efforts are directed towards the distribution systems to be able to meet these new challenges. One of the key enablers of a fully functional Smart Grid are microgrids — subsystems of the grid, utilizing small generation capacities at the distribution system level to increase the overall reliability and power quality of the local grid. It is one of the key directions recommended by national electric delivery technologies roadmap in United States as well as policy makers for electricity delivery in many countries. Microgrids have witnessed serious research activity in the past few years, especially in areas such as multi-agent system (MAS) architectures for microgrid control and auction algorithms for microgrid electricity transaction. However, most of the prior research on electricity transaction in microgrids fails to recognize and represent the true nature of the microgrid electricity market. In this research, a comprehensive microgrid electricity market has been designed, taking into account several unique characteristics of this new market place. This thesis establishes an economic rationale to the vision of wide-scale deployment of microgrids serving residential communities in near future and develops a comprehensive understanding of microgrid electricity market. A novel concept of Community Microgrids is introduced and the market and business models for electricity transaction are proposed and validated based on economic forecasts of key drivers of distributed generation. The most important contribution of this research deals with establishing a need for a trustworthy model framework for microgrid market and introducing the concept of reputation score to market participants. A framework of day-ahead energy market (DAEM) for electricity transaction, incorporating an approach of using the reputation score to incentivize the sellers in the market to be trustworthy, has been designed and implemented in MATLAB with a graphical user interface (GUI). Current implementation demonstrates a market place with two sellers and nine buyers and is easily scalable to support multiple market participants. The proposed microgrid electricity market may spur the deployment of residential microgrids, incorporating distributed generation, thereby making significant contribution to increase the overall reliability and power quality of the local grid. / Master of Science

Background: Earlier research within “auditor selection” has found that reputation is a big contributing factor when clients are choosing their CPA (Certified Public Accountant) firm but there is no explanation to why this is. By combining the literature from “auditor selection” to the literature from “auditor reputation” and “corporate reputation” possible explanations can be found. By studying these areas of research two perspectives were distinguished from which the impact of the CPA firm’s reputation on the auditor selection process could be examined. With these perspectives we believe ourselves able to contribute to a deeper understanding of the relevance of reputation in the auditor selection process. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the CPA firm’s reputation on the auditor selection process from an internal and external perspective. Method: By creating an internal and external perspective the study aims to dig deeper into the impact of reputation in an auditor selection process. These perspectives are used to categorise underlying motives for choosing a CPA firm over another. By dividing benefits gained by choosing a particular CPA firm to the external and internal perspective we can examine the the what kind of reputation has an impact on the respondents individual auditor selection process. Because of the difficulty of assessing the quality of the audit upfront the clients are forced to listen to the reputation of the CPA firms to receive desirable attributes according to the internal perspective. The external perspective believes that the CPA firm’s reputation can be used to manipulate the clients external stakeholders to benefit the client. Conclusion: This study shows that reputation is used as a selection criterion more than a determining factor in the auditor selection process. The final decision in not determined by positive reputation but a negative reputation can on the other hand terminate a CPA form from the selection process. Thereby a negative reputation is more impactful than a positive reputation on the auditor selection process. What kind of a reputation affects the client is based on their situation at the time of the selection process and their knowledge in accounting. The CPA firm’s reputation concerning all additional services was more impactful to the auditor selection process than the reputation concerning the audit. The respondents choice of a particular CPA firm were influenced by either the reputation of the CPA firm or earlier experiences of the firm. We found that earlier experiences were more impactful than a CPA firm’s reputation on the selection process. / Bakgrund: Att rykte har stor påverkan på klienters val av revisionsbyrå är något som tidigare forskning har kunnat konstatera. Dock vad detta beror på är inte utrett. Genom att kombinera litteraturen från “auditor selection” med litteraturen från “auditor reputation” och “corporate reputation” kan motiven bakom valet utredas. Genom att studera dessa litteraturområden kan två perspektiv urskiljas utefter vilka ryktets påverkan på valet av revisionsbyrå kan undersökas. Genom detta anser vi oss kunna ge en djupare förståelse till ryktets relevans i sammanhanget val av revisionsbyrå. Syfte: Studien syfte är att undersöka hur revisionsbyråns rykte kan påverkar klientens val av revisionsbyrå utifrån ett internt och ett externt perspektiv. Metod: Genom uppbyggnaden av studiens två idealtyper har ryktets påverkan på valet av revisionsbyrå utretts utifrån det interna och externa perspektivet. Dessa perspektiv används för att förklara bakomliggande motiv för att välja en revisionsbyrå framför en annan. Dessa har studerats genom att delas upp i olika nyttor som respondenterna vill förvärva. Då revisionens kvalitet är svår att utreda på förhand tvingas respondenterna lyssna till revisionsbyråns rykte för att finna dessa nyttor enligt det interna perspektivet. Det externa perspektivet söker istället revisionsbyråers rykte som anses kan påverka klientens externa intressenter till fördel för klienten. Slutsats: Studien visar att rykte är ett urvalskriterium snarare än en faktor som avgör valet. Det slutliga valet av revisionsbyrå baserades sällan på positiva rykten dock kan negativa rykte diskvalificera revisionsbyråer från urvalet. Därav har även ett negativt rykte större påverkan än ett positivt. Vilka rykten respondenterna lyssnade till är, enligt denna studie, beroende på klienternas situation samt deras kunskap inom revision. Revisionsbyråns rykte kring samtliga tilläggstjänster var av större vikt för valet än byråns rykte gällande kvaliteten på dess revisionstjänster. Respondenternas val påverkade antingen av rykte eller tidigare erfarenheter, där tidigare erfarenheter hade större påverkan än rykte.

<p>In today’s business world it is not just about doing business anymore, the need increases for organisations to take intangible resources, like the corporate reputation, into consideration. These corporate reputations have a multitude of positive functions for organisations. However, in times of crises these assets are most fragile and get damaged easily. This study therefore discusses how organisation can restore their corporate reputations after experiencing a crisis.</p><p>For the collection of empirical data three internationally operating organisations have been chosen, each having experienced a non-self-inflicted crisis over the last three years. With the use of semi-structured, telephone interviews, information was collected from these organisations. This was then compared with the theoretical framework with the intention of disclosing possible differences.</p><p>The main conclusions following this research are that the repair process consists out of two important aspects. The first is the preparation cycle; any organisation should set up a response program to facilitate fast reaction. The second cycle is that of the actual response, in which organisations should, based upon the set-up program, determine the unique approach for the situation. Within this second process both direct and indirect influencing factors should be taken into consideration.</p>

<p>There are many views in the concept of corporate reputation and the massive research in the area tends to result in many new definitions. Research has shown that a good corporate reputation has a positive relation to Sustainable Competitive Advantage, financial performance and attraction to competent employees. The many views in the concept make it especially interesting to examine the view on corporate reputation in a perspective of big Swedish corporations. Another interesting area to examine is whether the companies manage their reputation or not. The empirical findings of this essay are based on qualitative interviews to get a deeper understanding in the area of reputation. In the analysis the empirical findings were linked to the theoretical framework chosen for the study and earlier research in the area. Through this study it has been shown that companies are defining reputation as a part of the brand. They also explain reputation as the stakeholders aggregated view of a company. The companies manage their reputation, but as an integrated component in the work of brand and communication. The companies had difficulties in separating the concept of reputation andthe concept of brand.</p>