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In 2015, Malaysia’s investment vehicle, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), came under international scrutiny after it amassed a debt of US$11 billion (10.3 billion) (Wright & Clark, 2015), which it had difficulty repaying. More disturbingly, investigators found that US$700 million (658 million) was transferred into the personal bank account of Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, founder and chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board (Wright & Clark, 2015). Najib was also accused of embezzling state money (Reuters, 2015) and damaging the image of the country (“Najib tried to bribe me”, 2015). This chapter aims to examine the strategies used by the Malaysian prime minister to repair his image in the 1MDB scandal, the effectiveness of these strategies, and how these impacted Malaysia’s public diplomacy efforts in restoring the country’s image and reputation. Findings showed that the prime minister denied wrongdoing, and simultaneously bolstered his position and promised to turn 1MDB around. In contrast to the current explication of Benoit and Pang’s (2008) image repair strategies, Najib’s way of attacking the accusers sheds light into how image repair strategies may be operationalized in the Asian context. A new image repair strategy – diversion – is proposed to be added to the existing framework.

Based on the assumption that the identity and self-understanding of an academic discipline determines how it conceptualizes different domains of social reality, including how it imports and/or exports concepts from or to other disciplines, this chapter presents some of the findings of a major ongoing comparative and cross-disciplinary study of how five key concepts within the combined fields of crisis management and reputation management are applied in three different disciplinary contexts. In this chapter, however, the focus is on just one of these concepts: the concept of reputation.

Purpose – In business environment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly an important issue for every stakeholder. Organizations are being reputable through CSR activities. The aim of this chapter is to examine the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation, and determine the role of CSR activities in corporate reputation building process.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive literature research is conducted in order to develop the theoretical framework that supports the positive role of CSR activities on corporate reputation.Findings – As CSR activities affect the consequences that have a positive impact on corporate reputation, findings show that CSR enables firms to improve reputation with a broad range of stakeholders including employees (internal customers), customers (external customers), suppliers, competitors, bankers, and investors.Research limitations/Implications – However this research is a theoretical study, for further studies an empirical research model may be developed for investigating the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. These dimensions should be measured and the hypothesis about the positive relationship between CSR and corporate reputation may be statistically tested.Practical implications – This theoretical study may be useful for the board of directors and managers since they should become aware of the importance of one of the growing areas of corporate reputation and CSR. They are also increasingly being encouraged to engage CSR activities into their organization's vision, identity, brand, and reputation. Based on societal expectations of stakeholders, organizations should develop and improve their CSR programs and reflect these developments to their reputation mechanisms.Originality/Value of the paper – This study is valuable to understand the corporate reputation practices that enhance and demonstrate the value of reputable organizations. It is also attractive to compare other dimensions of corporate reputation such as emotional appeal, workplace environment, and corporate reputation with CSR.

Further understanding of how stakeholder marketing explains firm performance through greater customer satisfaction, innovation, and reputation of a firm.

Grounded in stakeholder theory, the study provides a conceptualization of stakeholder orientation based on cultural values that is distinctive from stakeholder responsiveness and examines the relationship of stakeholder responsiveness to firm performance. The study determines the mediating role of marketing outcomes on the impact of stakeholder responsiveness on firm performance. Multiple regression analysis tests hypotheses using a data set consisting of qualitative data obtained from corporate documents and quantitative data from respected secondary sources.

Our findings provide support for stakeholder marketing creating a strong relationship to organizational outcomes. There exists a positive relationship between stakeholder responsiveness and firm performance through customer satisfaction, innovation, and reputation.

Our definition implies that stakeholder responsiveness is acting in the best interests of the stakeholder as a responsible business. This study shows that stakeholder marketing may not always represent socially responsible marketing. Further research could explore how and why firms may not respond ethically and responsibly to stakeholders.

We further the discussion whether stakeholder marketing equates to sustainability. Marketers can build on expertise of managing customer relationship and generating customer value to develop a stakeholder marketing approach that addresses the economic, social, and environmental concerns of multiple stakeholders.

We further the discussion whether stakeholder marketing equates to sustainability. Marketers can build on expertise of managing customer relationship and generating customer value to develop a stakeholder marketing approach that addresses the economic, social, and environmental concerns of multiple stakeholders.

Purpose – We delineate how the concept of reputation has been used in different literatures. We develop some formal definitions of observers and reputation that bring together the different literatures. We then ask how noncooperative or “bad” reputations might be repaired. Based on the developed definitions and past research, we suggest some possibilities for reconciliation. We also work on developing an experimental paradigm to investigate reputation.

Methodological/Approach – We review research from different disciplines, develop definitions, and design an experiment.

Findings – We suggest that, under certain conditions, group reconciliation can occur. However, these conditions are quite specific.

Practical Implications – When the goal is to solve a social dilemma, reconciliation is an important part of the process. Without reconciliation, group integration is problematic.

Social Implications – Reconciliation can be a powerful process that encourages cooperation. We suggest some ways that reconciliation might be possible.

Originality/Value of the Chapter – This chapter suggests a new formalization to connect different conceptualizations of reputations.

Organizations are increasingly required to take up extended responsibilities for social and environmental outcomes, including in global value chains. To address these challenges, the organization must call upon stakeholders to engage, contribute, and innovate, and in turn, this requires the organization to have a stronger social basis for its relationships. An integrative model of global value chain management based on social cooperation shifts the focus from corporate reputation to value chain reputation, from a firm-centric view of corporate reputation to a multistakeholder conception of value chain reputation. This approach conceptualizes reputation as a dynamic and potentially vulnerable organizational feature which cannot always be managed by public relations but requires a more stable notion grounded in something more permanent in the organization’s character, history, and the quality of its relationships with stakeholders. We consider the prospects for attending to organizational integrity as a stabilizing force for its public reputation. Integrity may be adopted as a hypernorm for motivating stakeholders who share a concern for the organization’s reputation. Co-creating reputation depends upon a social bond of cooperation developed by stakeholders caring about the organization and in turn, the organization caring about its stakeholders. This socialized understanding of reputation-building is grounded in an ethic of care and manifested through joint purposes, boundary-crossing processes, collaboration practices, and a division of labor into which value chain members are integrated and brought into relation with one another. We propose a model of global value chain management that discusses organizational capabilities required for such an approach.

We model the interaction between a profit-maximizing firm and an activist using an infinite-horizon dynamic stochastic game. The firm enhances its reputation through “self-regulation”: voluntary provision of an abatement activity that reduces a negative externality. We show that in equilibrium the externality-reducing activity is subject to decreasing marginal returns, which can cause the firm to “coast on its reputation,” that is, decrease the level of externality-reducing activity as its reputation grows. The activist, which benefits from increases in the externality-reducing activity, can take two types of action that can harm the firm’s reputation: criticism, which can impair the firm’s reputation on the margin, and confrontation, which can trigger a crisis that may severely damage the firm’s reputation. The activist changes the reputational dynamics of the game by tending to keep the firm in reputational states in which it is highly motivated to invest in externality-reducing activity. Criticism and confrontational activity are shown to be imperfect substitutes. The more patient the activist or the more passionate it is about externality reduction, the more likely it is to rely on confrontation. The more patient the firm and the more important corporate citizenship is to firm’s brand equity, the more likely that it will be targeted by an activist that relies on confrontation.