Corporate Social Performance and Corporate Reputation: Two Interwoven Perspectives
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Volume 10 Number 1
Corporate Social Performance and Corporate Reputation: Two Interwoven Perspectives Esther de Quevedo-Puente Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas, Facultad de CC.EE. y Empresariales, Burgos, Spain Juan Manuel de la Fuente-Sabaté Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas, Facultad de CC.EE. y Empresariales, Burgos, Spain Juan Bautista Delgado-García Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas, Facultad de CC.EE. y Empresariales, Burgos, Spain
ABSTRACT
The conceptual closeness between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate reputation (CR) and their convergence toward a common stakeholder framework has resulted in a concurrence of empirical analysis that has muddled the two lines of research. This paper tries to clear up the interrelation between CSP and CR. These concepts are linked by firm legitimation, a process that translates past performance into an expectation for the future. Legitimation transforms CSP, an objective flow variable, into CR, a perceptual stock variable. Corporate Reputation Review (2007) 10, 60–72. doi:10.1057/palgrave.crr.1550038 KEYWORDS: corporate reputation; corporate
social performance; legitimation process; convergence; stakeholders INTRODUCTION
Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 60–72 © 2007 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, 1363-3589 $30.00
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Research on corporate social performance (CSP) and on corporate reputation (CR) has developed along parallel theoretical lines, with both concepts broadening theoretically
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to include all stakeholder relations. Moreover, in some cases empirical analyzes from both perspectives have employed the same variables, data and methods, reaching fundamentally identical results although with different interpretations. This convergence makes the contributions of the two approaches mutually enriching, but sometimes muddling. This paper tries to point out differences and links that may clear up the interrelation between the two lines of research. The main difference is that reputation is largely informational and perceptual, whereas the concept of CSP attempts to account objectively for the firm’s actions and attitudes. Another divergence arises from the different nature of the underlying theoretical frameworks: while the economic framework underlying research on reputation has an instrumental justification, the social framework underlying research on CSP emerges from a normative approach. Both concepts are linked by a legitimation process that translates past actions (CSP) into
de Quevedo-Puente, de la Fuente-Sabaté and Delgado-García
expectations for the future (CR). CSP is the legitimate behavior of the firm with every stakeholder by the standards of the institutional context in each moment of time. Homogenous CSPs in successive periods in changing institutional contexts consolidate CR, because economic agents translate the firm’s past performance into expectations concerning future performance. THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: CSP
CSP models have cha
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