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.

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. 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. 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.

Sociala medier innebär både stora hot och möjligheter. Möjligheterna är större än någonsin för organisationer att integrera med sina intressenter och utifrån det bygga starka relationer. Samtidigt innebär den snabba spridning av information som kanalerna innebär ett hot för organisationer. Att rykten eller kritik uppstår och växer sig starka i sociala medier är en stor fara och utmaning för organisationer världen över. Ryktesspridning och konflikter kan motverkas genom att organisationen kommunicerar öppet och trovärdigt. I studien studeras hur företag arbetar med frågor, kritik och feedback genom dialog i sociala medier. Syftet med studien är att beskriva hur utvalda svenska företag arbetar med frågor, kritik och feedback genom dialog i sociala medier för att stärka sina kundrelationer. Studien besvarar följande frågeställningar: • Hur beskriver de utvalda företagen sitt arbete med frågor, kritik och feedback genom dialog i sociala medier? • Hur ser innehållet ut i företagens arbete med frågor, kritik och feedback genom dialog i sociala medier? Frågeställningarna besvarades med hjälp av en kvalitativ metod. Studien inleddes med att vi genomförda kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer med representanter för de utvalda svenska företagen Com Hem, TeliaSonera, Trygg-Hansa och Ving. I intervjuerna fick respondenterna möjlighet att beskriva företagets arbete med frågor, kritik och feedback. Därefter studerades innehållet i företagens kommunikation i sociala medier genom att vi genomförde kvalitativa innehållsanalyser i Twitter, Facebook och bloggosfären. Studiens resultat visar att sociala medier har blivit en etablerad kanal för företagens arbete med frågor, kritik och feedback. Företagen arbetar kontinuerligt med att besvara frågor, kritik och feedback, vilket ligger i linje med hur konflikter och osäkerhet hos intressenter bör hanteras. Det förekommer både likheter och skillnader mellan företagens arbete. Genomgående är arbetet inte är ett utryck av spontana infall utan grundar sig i en strategi. Företagen anpassar sig till omständigheterna i sociala medier och använder sig av personliga budskap. Överlag visar företagen på en förståelse för sociala mediers förutsättningar och utnyttjar möjligheterna till dialog. Hur aktiva företagen är i arbetet med frågor, kritik och feedback skiljer sig till viss del dem emellan. Det finns även skillnader i hur arbetet ser ut mellan de olika sociala medierna. Tonen i dialogen som företagen deltar i på Facebook och Twitter är mestadels positiv. I bloggosfären är företagens arbete framförallt inriktat på att kommunicera med missnöjda kunder. Ett problem med arbetet i sociala medier är att det är svårt att utvärdera om det faktiskt påverkar relationen företag och kunder.

Employer Branding är ett managementkoncept vars primära syfte är att attrahera och behålla personal. Nyinstitutionell teori redogör däremot för att organisationers motiv att översätta samt tillämpa ett managementrecept så som Employer Branding är att framstå som socialt legitima och bra arbetsplatser. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur Employer Branding implementerats vid ett kontor inom Swedbank AB och vad det betyder i praktiken. Med nyinstitutionell teori som referensram kommer studien undersöka hur Swedbank AB har översatt, tillämpat och kommunicerat konceptet. För att besvara syftet har kvalitativ metod använts genom tre semi-strukturerade intervjuer utifrån ett selektivt urval. Information erhölls även från Swedbank AB:s hemsida. Analysen grundades utifrån etnografisk kvalitativ metod med deduktiv ansats där teoretiska begrepp har översatts till koder. Av resultatet framkom det att banken arbetar med en strategisk omdömeshantering via införandet av nya värdeord, ledarskapskriterier, en lokal prägel, samhällsengagemang, jämställdhetsarbete och ett relationellt förhållningssätt. Översättningen av receptet kan dock vara problematisk att implementera för Swedbank, då personalsatsningar tenderar att vara ekonomiskt konjunkturberoende. Banken hanterar detta genom en löskoppling mellan storytelling som förmedlar hur banken vill framstå och hur arbetet bedrivs i praktiken. Utifrån att betrakta medarbetarna som potentiella externa ambassadörer skulle banken med en mer inkluderande storytelling åstadkomma större förståelse och acceptans för sitt beslutsfattande. Organisationsrecept såsom Employer Branding verkar utifrån studiens samlade analys fungera bäst under goda ekonomiska förutsättningar. / Employer Branding is a management concept which primary purpose is to attract and keep employees. In contrast, neoinstitutional theory explains that organizations motives to translate and apply management recipes such as Employer Branding, is to appear as socially legitimate and good places to work. The study aims to examine how the management concept Employer Branding is implemented at an office of Swedbank AB and what it means in practice. With neoinstitutional theory as a framework, the study will examine how Swedbank AB has translated, implemented and communicated the concept. To answer the question, a qualitative method has been used by three semi-structured interviews based on a selective sample. Information was also provided by Swedbank AB's website. The analysis was based on an ethnographic qualitative deductive approach in which theoretical concepts have been translated into codes. The results show that the bank is working with strategic reputational management through the introduction of new core values, leadership criteria, a local character, corporate social responsibility, equality work and a relational approach. The translation of the concept can be problematic to implement within the bank, because staff actions appear to be economically dependent. The bank handles this by a decoupling between storytelling that conveys how the bank would like to appear and how the work is conducted in practice. Based on considering employees as external ambassadors, the bank could provide greater understanding and acceptance with a more inclusive storytelling concerning its decision-making. Organization recipes such as Employer Branding seems from the study's overall analysis, work best under good economic conditions.

Identities are present in the interactions between individuals and organizations. Online shopping requires credit card information, while e-government services require social security or passport numbers. The involvement of identities, however, makes them susceptible to theft and misuse. The most prominent approach for maintaining the privacy of individuals is the enforcement of privacy policies that regulate the flow and use of identity information. This approach suffers two drawbacks that severely limit its effectiveness. First, recent research in data-mining facilitates the fusion of partial identities into complete identities. That holds true even if the attributes examined are not, normally considered, to be identifying. Second, policies are prone to human error, allowing for identity information to be released accidentally. This thesis presents a system that enables an individual to interact with organizations, without allowing these organizations to link the interactions of that individual together. The system does not release individuals' identities to organizations. Instead, certified artificial identities are used to guarantee that individuals possess the required attributes to successfully participate in the interactions. The system limits the fusion of partial identities and minimizes the effects of human error. The concept of using certified artificial identities has been extensively researched. The system, however, tackles several unaddressed scenarios. The system works not only for interactions that involve an individual and an organization, but also for interactions that involve a set of individuals connected by structured relations. The individuals should prove the existence of relations among them to organizations, yet organizations cannot profile the actions of these individuals. Further, the system allows organizations to be anonymous, while proving their attributes to individuals. Reputation-based trust is incorporated to help individuals make informed decisions whether to deal with a particular organization. The system is used to design applications in e-commerce, access control, reputation management, and cloud computing. The thesis describes the applications in detail. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-07 11:17:37.68

The main aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of stakeholders regarding reputation in schools in Fezile Dabi district. A qualitative approach was used. Multiple sources of data collection included semi-structured interviews, documents and visual data in the form of photographs. A literature review revealed that reputation management is imperative for schools to survive and continue existing. Determination of factors that contribute to good reputation and those causing bad reputation is important before school managers can embark on reputation management. Reputable schools attract more learners and resources because of the culture of learning and teaching in these schools. Four sites were purposefully selected and twenty internal and external stakeholders participated. The research sites were made up of two primary and two secondary schools all Quintile 1 and 2 schools. The study revealed that factors contributing to good reputation in the participating schools included: effective teaching, emotional appeal, clean physical surroundings, good leadership and management, involvement of parents and effective financial management. It was found that all participating schools had good academic results and received awards in sport and music, involvement in extra-curricular activities was regarded as a norm in these schools, thus they were boasting of high enrolment of learners. There were however, causal factors to bad reputation such as external factors- lack of leadership and management at district level and lack of skills regarding dealing with media. Internal factors included misbehaviour of learners and ineffective management. School managers in these schools were not creative and innovative in the use of strategies to strengthen reputation in their schools. The focus was only on effective teaching and extra-curricular activities. No new strategies were adopted by school managers to adapt to the changing school environment to ensure continued reputable schools. / Thesis (MEd (Education Management))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

The aim of this study is to understand the importance of public relations activity in non-profit organisations. The study emphasizes the bearing public relations activities can have on non-profit organisations in the contemporary world. This is especially true in an over communicated society where the vast majority of organisations compete to gain access to the scare media resources to put their message across to their potential clients, supporters and customers. Non-profit organisations generally have to depend on the donor agencies and therefore fail to attract a sizeable public relations budget. On the one hand, these organisations lack the resources to launch a successful public relations campaign and on the other the lack of knowledge and interest among general staff members makes it even harder for a public relations campaign to be developed or successfully launched. In this study, I used both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to collect and analyse data. The data were collected from two non-profit organisations based in New Zealand working in the area of child welfare. The primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires. A single semi-structured interview was conducted with each team leader of the two selected organisations. However, this was like skimming the surface and in-depth interviews would have helped me to collect richer data. On the other hand the data collected was sufficient for this research and it helped me to create a holistic understanding of the topic. The findings of the research highlight that most non-profit organisations working in the area of child welfare find it hard to market themselves due to a lack of funds and employee involvement. Although the findings from the study are significant; caution is necessary in applying the results to other scenarios and in making generalizations. One of the key findings from this research is that both organisations did not use public relations as a strategy. Most decision related to public relations was made on random basis and no long term strategic plan was made to adopt public relations as a core strategy to build creditability among their stakeholders.

Strategisk kommunikation har förändrats i och med sociala medier eftersom att den traditionella kommunikationsprocessen utvecklats. Tidigare har organisationer varit sändare av kommunikation medan målgrupper har varit mottagare och sociala medier har möjliggjort enklare och snabbare interaktion. I sociala medier kan mottagare av budskap bli deltagare i kommunikationsprocesser genom att reagera och kommentera på företags kommunikation. Denna deltagarkultur ställer nya krav på företag i deras kommunikativa strategi. Genom att interagera med målgrupper upprätthålls goda relationer och detta är en viktig anpassning som företag behöver anamma. För att nå ut med strategiska budskap i den höga konkurrensen på sociala medier är det viktigt att skapa engagemang till och mellan målgrupper. Tre svenska livsmedelskedjor, Ica, Coop och Willys, har undersökts i den här studien. Med kvantitativ innehållsanalys mättes och jämfördes innehållskategorier i företagens mest uppmärksammade Facebookinlägg år 2017 med tillhörande kommentarsfält. Kommentarerna som mättes var de mest relevanta, detta för att på bästa sätt karaktärisera företagens målgrupper eller publics engagemang och reaktioner. Resultatet från studien visar att samtliga företag har en bra strategi för att skapa engagemang bland publics. Ica och Willys lyckas skapa störst uppmärksamhet med sina budskap vad gäller antal kommentarer och gilla-markeringar. Samtidigt visar resultatet att samtliga företag i låg utsträckning följer upp publics deltagande. Enkelriktad kommunikation är företagens huvudsakliga kommunikationsstrategi eftersom att de sprider information utan att interagera med sina målgrupper. Resultatet visar att företagen behöver tillämpa en mer interaktiv kommunikativ strategi med publics på Facebook. Företagens inlägg får dock spridning genom att företagen får publics att reagera på och kommentera inläggen, detta visar på en anpassning till Facebook som kommunikationskanal. Resultatet från studien visar att en effektiv strategi för att skapa engagemang är att uppmana publics till interaktion.

With this immensely and immeasurably growing Internet technology, the need for onlinereputation management (ORM) is also growing accordingly. It is increasingly seen as animportant means by firms to create stronger alliance between customers and the firm (Bealand Strauss, 2008). ORM is relatively new which theoretically and empirically very youngphenomenon in which very few researches have been made around the area ever since.Hence, the intention of this research is to fill the knowledge gaps recognized and useEricsson Company to conduct an exploratory qualitative research to give empirical value tothe study.The purpose of this study is to explore how ORM can play role in making strategic businessdecisions through branding and construct a model that shows relationship among ORM,branding and strategic business decision. The relevant research concepts that are discussedin the literature review are linked through logical links depicted in the model.After the model is constructed Ericsson Company was taken as a case and qualitative study was made using an in-depth interview with the company’s expert in this area in Ericssonglobal to see how the concept of ORM, branding and strategic decisions in the model areinterlinked to each other. This research has answers on how this company perform its ORM,how ORM can influence branding, how branding can influence strategic business decisionand in the end how ORM can influence strategic business decision.From the finding of this research, ORM has influence on branding and brand has influenceon strategic business decision. Finally, it can also be concluded that ORM has impact on strategic business decisions through branding.

This study focuses on measuring the corporate reputation of an organisation within the information technology (IT) industry in South Africa. An empirical investigation was conducted to identify the elements that influence corporate reputation. The research design selected was a case study. For purposes of confidentiality, the organisation used in this dissertation will be referred to as The Group. There were three specific objectives to this study; firstly to identify the channels of communication between the organisation’s stakeholders; secondly to identify the specific elements that influence corporate reputation for each stakeholder group, and finally to provide The Group with recommendations to develop an investor-orientated image and reputation within the South African business environment. This research study consisted of four phases: initial qualitative exploratory research, problem finalisation and re-conceptualisation, quantitative data collection and finally analysis reporting. Stakeholders included in this study were The Group’s employees, The Group’s executive board, clients, non-clients, financial analysts, trade and business media, partners and suppliers, public relations houses and the general public. The main conclusions drawn from the study are that the channels of communication internally and externally to the organisation influence corporate reputation. The most important disseminators of information regarding The Group are its employees. Corporate communications, clients and the media also play a vital role in influencing corporate reputation. These stakeholders should be targeted to receive the bulk of the reputation improvement activities so that a change in their perceptions can be filtered through to the stakeholders. Four specific business processes have been identified that have an impact on corporate reputation, namely general business management, financial management, corporate marketing and corporate communications. Recommendations emanating from this study to improve corporate reputation within the IT industry suggest that The Group create a stronger public awareness. Communication initiatives need to assure stakeholders that The Group is performing well although the share price is low. An extensive black economic empowerment (BEE) programme will enhance the corporate reputation. Finally, The Group needs to agree on a set of actionable initiatives across corporate functions, marketplaces and service lines to enhance the corporate reputation. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Communication Management / MCom / Unrestricted