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The purpose of this paper is to identify the key antecedents and consequences of bank reputation and whether their relative importance varies across countries.

The sample consists of 900 bank customers, representative of the national populations in the UK (500) and Spain (400), two of the countries in which the weight of the financial system on the gross domestic product is much bigger than that of other European countries. The research hypotheses were tested by conducting a multi-group analysis with covariance-based structural equation modelling.

In contrast with previous studies, it was discovered that the most important cognitive antecedent of banks’ reputation is reliability/financial strength. This study reinforces the prominence of satisfaction as a key emotional aspect of reputation. Differences between the UK and Spain were found in the impact of employer branding and corporate social responsibility. The positive effect of bank reputation on consumer behaviour (loyalty and word of mouth) and the existence of cross-country differences as regards loyalty were also confirmed.

This is a systematic cross-country analysis of corporate reputation which includes not only cognitive antecedents but also emotional determinants that have been repeatedly ignored. This paper sheds light on whether the antecedents and consequences of corporate reputation vary across countries. The choice of the banking sector provides a unique opportunity to observe the determinants and outcomes of corporate reputation following an unstable time in the banking sector.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of studies on antecedents of the corporate reputation of higher education institutions (HEIs) from the perspectives of employees

The approach is an examination of previous literature on antecedents of corporate reputation in HEIs, published between 2010 and 2020.

The findings show that general and specific factors of corporate reputation in HEIs are being employed as strategic tools to survive the competitive nature of the higher education landscape.

Factors of corporate reputation in HEIs from the perspectives of employees are an understudied area with little academic literature available.

Scholarship on reputation in and of organizations has been going on for decades, and it always has separated along level of analysis issues, whereby the separate literatures on individual, group/team/unit, and organization reputation fail to acknowledge each other. This sends the implicit message that reputation is a fundamentally different phenomenon at the three different levels of analysis. We tested the validity of this implicit assumption by conducting a multilevel review of the reputation literature, and drawing conclusions about the “level-specific” or “level-generic” nature of the reputation construct. The review results permitted the conclusion that reputation phenomena are essentially the same at all levels of analysis. Based on this, we frame a future agenda for theory and research on reputation.

Based on impression management theory, the authors ask how marketing activities build organizational reputation and examine the mediating mechanisms of desired impressions, and the moderating impact of national culture. Specifically, and in the context of higher education (HE) institutions, the authors examine the influence of relational marketing and traditional advertising on organizational reputation through the mediation of desired impressions (e.g. quality of learning, career prospects and extracurricular activities) across countries and specify the moderation role of cultural variables.

This study estimates empirical models using a survey data set comprising 1,890 student responses from 10 universities in 8 countries. The authors use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and measurement invariance models, as well as ordinary least squares with robust standard errors to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that marketing activities affect organizational reputation through the mediation of desired impressions in line with our theoretical reasoning. Specifically, the results show that (1) relational marketing has direct and indirect effects on organizational reputation; (2) relational marketing has a higher influence on organizational reputation in countries with lower individualism and lower masculinity scores; (3) quality of learning mediates the relationship between traditional advertising and organizational reputation; (4) quality of learning also mediates the association between relational marketing and organizational reputation; (5) career prospects mediate the relationship between relational marketing and organizational reputation; (6) traditional advertising does not have a direct but only an indirect effect on organizational reputation; and (7) these findings are net of the effect of respondents', universities', and countries' characteristics.

The findings contribute to the body of knowledge on the antecedents of organizational reputation, from an international marketing perspective. The results extend the impression management by integrating constructs that have been studied independently into a cohesive framework that links marketing activities, desired impressions and organizational reputation. With the study, impression management theory provides a framework to study the impact of marketing activities on organizational reputation not only in domestic but also in international markets.

By asking the target market about the importance of different marketing activities, their expectations of the organization and its reputation, HE administrators can employ the model proposed in this study to assess the relevant marketing strategies that will drive desired impressions which in turn will influence reputation.

While there are studies that focus on the impact of several constructs on organizational reputation in an international context, it is striking to observe that extant research is silent on how (via what mediating mechanisms) marketing activities work as an antecedent of organizational reputation. To address this gap, we examine marketing activities as antecedents of organizational reputation in an international, cross-country context, and specify the moderation role of cultural variables.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating role of culture in terms of uncertainty avoidance in the antecedents of customer-based bank reputation in two countries with different cultural patterns.

This study was carried out by surveying 910 bank customers of the main banks in the UK and Spain. The hypotheses employed in this research were developed by contrasting the moderating role of uncertainty avoidance in the relationships between bank reputation and its antecedents, and were then tested through the use of partial least squares modelling.

Significant differences between British and Spanish bank customers were found with regard to the impact of innovation, workplace and leadership on bank reputation. However, the results obtained when considering uncertainty avoidance as a continuous moderator variable suggested that only the differences found as regards workplace and leadership were owing to this variable, thus providing empirical support for two out of the eight hypotheses developed on the basis of cultural theories.

This is the first study to analyse whether the relative importance of the antecedents of bank reputation differ with regard to customers’ uncertainty avoidance patterns, which is the cultural variable that is most closely linked in literature to customers’ banking decisions. This study contributes towards reputation research by showing that cultural differences in terms of uncertainty avoidance should be used with caution when establishing business guides for bank managers.

The present study aims to propose and validate a model to measure certain variables that may contribute to increasing the bankarization rate (uptake of retail banking services) among developing-economy populations characterized by poor financial literacy and low income levels.

A quantitative empirical study is carried out in the retail banking sector of a country with low-bankarization rates. Using a self-administered questionnaire distributed online, structural equation modeling is applied to analyze the relationships between value co-creation, brand experience, brand equity and reputation.

The results show that brand equity is an antecedent of reputation that values co-creation, and brand experience positively influences brand equity and that values co-creation that positively influences brand experience.

The bankarization rate of a developing country is generally taken as an indicator of the socioeconomic wellbeing of its population. Where there is a low-bankarization rate, this renders it more difficult for financial institutions to build their reputation to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Strategies are, therefore, proposed to improve the reputation of financial institutions in such settings and, thus, contribute to increasing the bankarization rate.

The findings of this study provide an original perspective that offers a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that enable banks operating in low-bankarization markets to enhance their reputation through strategies based on customer–company interaction and branding (with the variables of brand equity, brand experience and value co-creation).

The purpose of this paper is to develop and tests a service excellence model, thus providing a detailed understanding of the key antecedents of service excellence, from a customer ' s perspective. The model presented in this paper is rooted in cross-disciplinary literature and tested amongst customers of UK retail banking services.

Following a systematic approach to scale development, the paper draws on survey data from 260 consumers of retail banking products, with the data collected on national basis in the UK.

The theoretical framework was evaluated using a structural approach. Of the hypothesised antecedents, innovation has the greatest impact on service excellence while reputation the least, as far as customers are concerned.

The research was limited to one research domain, i.e. UK retail banking, and thus it is reasonable to hypothesise that other aspects of service excellence will be more or less relevant for other types of financial services or in other geographic regions.

Given the challenges faced by the retail banking sector, there are implications for practitioners because the authors identified the key antecedents of service excellence. The antecedents can be used by practitioners to help demonstrate excellence on their part and they could differentiate what are homogenous services at a time when the retail banks are going through a period of recovery following the crisis within the sector.

This work complements the understanding of service excellence and provides insight for scholars and practitioners by modelling services for a specific service sector.

Organizational reputation has come to the forefront amidst today’s increasingly competitive business environment. While the perspectives of external stakeholders continue to generate research attention among reputation scholars, perceptions of internal stakeholders like employees deserve similar or more focus due to their ability to sway external organizational reputation. Thoroughly understanding organizational variables that precede internal reputation perceptions among employees and the ensuing consequences enables effective reputation management measures. This study aims to develop a comprehensive framework that outlines the antecedents and consequences of the internal reputation concept.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 review protocol was applied. Around 24 journal articles were drawn from the Web of Science and Scopus databases and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

The review revealed 31 constructs related to the internal reputation concept, which were categorized into seven main themes, and a comprehensive framework was developed. Future research recommendations include the need to expand the study’s parameters, adopt a different research method and target varied contexts to achieve a more exhaustive systematic literature review on internal reputation.

This study attempts to contribute to the understanding of the internal reputation concept, theories and reputation management practices through its findings.

This paper provides the first known systematic literature review of the internal reputation concept, which could provide practical guidance to professionals in internal reputation management and academic guidance for future research in internal reputation.

Via an initial trust‐building model, the purpose of this paper is to examine consumers' initial trust in an unfamiliar online retailer, considering cognitive perceptions of the retailer and institutional beliefs about the online environment.

A random sample of 2,000 US households, resulting in 477 usable responses, was surveyed by assigning subjects to one of the two shopping scenarios portraying an online insurance retailer with a weak or strong reputation.

Structural equation modelling revealed that second‐hand cognitive and first‐hand institutional information have comparable and contrasting effects on purchase intent through formation of initial trust.

Results imply that consumers form initial trust using a combination of cognitive perceptions about the online retailer and consumers' institutional beliefs regarding the online environment. Ways in which researchers and online retailers can shape initial trust formation via these antecedents are suggested.

The influence of an institutional belief, situational normality of the online environment, on initial trust has not been previously investigated by simultaneously assessing relative influences of institutional beliefs and cognitive perceptions of the online retailer.

Public funding of institutions offering higher education is becoming scarcer, more complex, and to an ever‐increasing extent performance‐based. Concerning the teaching area the financing is partly based on student credits and professional degrees. Thus student loyalty has become an important strategic theme. The purpose is to study relationships between student satisfaction, students' perceptions of the reputation of an educational institution and student loyalty; hypothesizing positive relationships between satisfaction and loyalty, reputation and loyalty, and between satisfaction and reputation. Antecedents of student satisfaction and reputation are also included in the study.

The data source is a survey among students at the bachelor level of a university college in Norway, analyzed by a structural equation modeling approach.

The findings strongly support the three hypotheses. The university college may be looked upon as being satisfaction‐driven. Still reputation management is of great importance. Significant antecedents are identified and discussed.

This research has been applied to a specific university college. The research should be expanded to other institutions offering higher education.

Based on a theoretical framework the study gives practical insight concerning drivers of student loyalty so that key success factors for the coming period of time can be identified.

When determining the most appropriate management strategy, such insight is becoming even more important than earlier. By allocating resources to activities that are important for the students, the managers may increase the value offered so that student retention may be obtained, thus ensuring governmental funds in future.