Indices of Corporate Reputation: An Analysis of Media Rankings and Social Monitors' Ratings
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Volume 1 Number 4
Indices of Corporate Reputation: An Analysis of Media Rankings and Social Monitors’ Ratings Charles J. Fombrun New York University, Stern School of Business
ABSTRACT Corporate reputational rankings and ratings are proliferating. This article examines a variety of corporate reputational rankings published by various general media, specialized publications and social monitors. We compare these reputational rankings and ratings in terms of their methodologies, the criteria they rely on to assess companies, and their results. The analysis reinforces the need for a more coherent conceptual framework to assess corporate reputations. INTRODUCTION The initial publication of Fortune magazine’s survey of America’s ‘Most Admired Companies’ in 1983 spawned a veritable industry devoted to profiling corporate reputations. Since 1983, the proliferation of comparable perceptual ratings and rankings of companies has continued unabated. Many are published regularly in major media outlets. Others are featured in books, while still others are distributed privately by social monitors to their constituents. Close inspection suggests that even seemingly comprehensive reputational ratings such as Fortune’s are biased. For one, they tend to focus on larger, public companies, within particular industries or countries (mostly US-based); for another, they tend to sample principally managerial audiences and financial analysts, and so stress financial indicators. This analysis begins by examining the principal sources of corporate reputational data. The article then compares their find-
ings, and identifies the companies and criteria around which they appear to converge. It concludes with some thoughts about the theoretical framework needed to build a valid reputational index. SOURCES OF CORPORATE REPUTATIONAL DATA There are three principal sources of corporate ratings and rankings:
(1) Sponsored research published in various business media (2) research highlighting special interests (3) research conducted and disseminated by social monitors. These are reviewed in turn. MEDIA RATINGS There are five publications that regularly produce reputational ratings of companies by seeking out the assessments of constituents. By far the most visible and frequently cited source of corporate reputational data is Fortune’s annual survey of the world’s ‘Most Admired Companies.’ First published in 1982, Fortune’s rankings only rate US companies (although it includes some domestic subsidiaries of large multinationals, for instance Shell Oil — the US subsidiary of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group). The popularity of the annual survey has encouraged various regional publications to imitate Fortune’s methodology, with proliferating rankings of companies in Europe and Asia, as well as
Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1998, pp. 327–340 # Henry Stewart Publications, 1358–1988
Page 327
Indices of Corporate Reputation
country-specific rankings of companies in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia. Fortune’s methodology is ex
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