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Board diversity positively impacts corporate social responsibility (CSR); however, there is limited evidence on how board diversity affects the reputation of organizations that are involved in CSR. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect board diversity has on socially responsible firms’ corporate social responsibility reputation (CSRR). The authors specifically examine this relationship because an organization’s corporate reputation may be very different to its CSRR gained through engagement in socially responsible activities.

The authors use the CSR reputation scores for the top 100 most socially responsible global companies provided by the RepTrak Database as a measure of CSRR. Board diversity measures are calculated for gender, ethnicity and education to measure their impact on social reputation. The sample for this study consists of 146 observations for the period 2013–2017.

The authors find a significant and positive relation between having a combination of women and ethnically diverse members on the board and firms’ CSRR. The authors also find a significant positive effect on CSRR when the board is composed of women and educationally diverse members.

Board diversity characteristics continue to impact organizations’ decision-making processes and their involvement in CSR activities as public stakeholders demand greater representation of females and minorities on the board. Because research on board diversity is in its infancy, the authors urge scholars to continue to investigate the impact board diversity has on an organization’s motivation to be socially responsible as well as how it affects their CSRR.

The findings of this study highlight the importance stakeholders place on an organization’s social responsibility reputation and the positive effects of board diversity in managing their CSRR.

The findings provide evidence that the composition of the board can influence a company’s engagement in CSR activities and their CSRR as perceived by its stakeholders.

This study contributes to the CSR literature by introducing the concept of CSRR. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study also extends research in the diversity literature by examining the relationship between board diversity variables and an organization’s CSRR. The findings highlight the importance of having a diverse board composed of ethnically and educationally varied individuals and provide evidence of a link between organizations’ involvement in socially responsible activities and their CSRR.

This paper aims to examine the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting quality and board characteristics on corporate social reputation of Chinese listed firms.

Firms chosen for this study are drawn from a social responsibility ranking list of Chinese listed firms. The social responsibility rating scores identified by this ranking list are used to measure the social reputation of firms studied. The model-testing method is used to examine hypothesised relationships between CSR reporting quality, board characteristics and corporate social reputation.

The results indicate that CSR reporting quality positively influences corporate social reputation but chief executive officer/chairman duality as a measure of board characteristics has a negative impact on corporate social reputation. Firm’s financial performance and firm size also positively influence corporate social reputation.

The relatively small sample of firms for a cross-sectional study, and the proxies constructed for various concepts to empirically test hypotheses can limit generalising findings to firms outside the social responsibility ranking list. Future studies can undertake longitudinal analysis and compare socially responsible firms with others to expand empirical findings about corporate social reputation.

This paper investigates the influences of CSR reporting quality and board characteristics on corporate social reputation in the context of a developing country, China.

While a great amount of literature has focused on the relationship between communication strategies and corporate reputation, there is no systematic research on the different kinds of social media communication strategies. Based on the corporate reputation and social media literature, this paper aims to contribute to this gap in the research in two main ways. First identifying which social media communication strategy is more effective with contrasting levels of reputations; second, analyzing the differences between high- and low-reputation companies with respect to their ability to use corporate communication.

This paper uses a longitudinal explorative multiple-case study and theoretical sampling. The research setting is the Italian insurance context. The focus of this analysis on one medium, Facebook, because it is the most exploited in the context of the Italian insurance sector.

Six complementary social media communication strategies were identified: egocentric, conversational, selective, openness, secretive and supportive. The results also reveal distinct ways in which high-, medium- and low-reputation companies’ utilize the six complementary strategies of communications.

The study is based on a single industry and on one single geographical market, and care should thus be taken in generalizing the findings to other contexts. Therefore emerges the opportunity to broaden this research to other similar service sector, such as banking, to assess and generalize the results obtained. In addition, a possible direction of research, especially from a methodological standpoint, should investigate companies from different countries. Such a comparative study would examine in depth whether and to what extent the institutional framework may impact on communication strategies implemented by companies. This study only analyzed one social media (Facebook); hence, we cannot draw firm conclusions about what may constitute a successful social media communication strategy.

From this study, managers can learn how to combine the six communication strategies to have an effective impact on the corporate reputation. They can also learn how the number of interactions and the time taken to respond to questions from customers improve the corporate reputation and provide communication that is more effective.

This research extends the previous literature on corporate reputation and corporate communication, showing the relationship between them in a social media context and providing different strategies of managing this combination.

Is it in corporations' long‐term interests to exceed their social and environmental obligations and deliver a superior ethical performance? This is one of the key questions raised in the debate launched by the European Commission's green paper last year regarding the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is clear that the commercial world must rise to the challenge of building the confidence and trust demanded by stakeholders worldwide. There is a broad consensus on the need for businesses to take the social, economic, and environmental impact of their actions — the ‘triple bottom line’ — into account. Businesses are an integral part of the society (local and international) and they have to consider the impact their behaviour has on it. Many businesses highlight the links between CSR and their wider sustainable development agenda. Corporate reputation or image depends on how the company conducts or is perceived as conducting its business. Today the ability to build a sustainable corporate reputation is more important than ever before as stakeholders are more educated, more knowledgeable, and more demanding. The Cyprus Popular Bank, the second largest banking organisation in Cyprus, has developed and launched ‘Radiomarathon’ in support of children with special needs, which has won a place in the Guinness World of Records as the most successful charitable event in the world on the basis of per capita contribution, and was chosen among the top five charity events worldwide by the Chartered Institute of Bankers for 2003. Radiomarathon has been used in order to build a strong corporate identity and corporate reputation: “With the Radiomarathon we have hit a vein of gold…our corporate reputation is stronger than ever before! In such a turbulent climate, a positive corporate reputation can play a vital role in ensuring that the organisation is on a solid footing. ” (Yiannos Pissourios, Cyprus Popular Bank). The bank realised the importance and need for corporate social responsibility in their efforts to build a good corporate reputation and achieve competitive differentiation.

The purpose of this paper is to untangle the impacts of a firm’s corporate reputation and its alliance partners’ social capital on its financial performance, drawing on the relational and the network points of view.

This paper explored the moderating effect of corporate reputation on the relationship between partners’ social capital (e.g. resource heterogeneity, structural relations and partners’ social ties) and a focal firm’s performance. An OLS three-step regression model (controls, main effects and interaction effects) was used to test the proposed hypotheses based on 265 US joint ventures.

The influence of partners’ social capital on a focal firm’s performance is negatively moderated by the focal firm’s reputation at the firm and network levels; larger and more prestigious firms listed in Fortune database tend to choose partners with a higher level of resource heterogeneity, whereas smaller firms tend to choose partners in similar industries to increase economies of scale. The social capital factors of the partners will have different effects on the focal firm performance.

The value of this paper is in providing insight into the importance and nuances of corporate reputation in offsetting the advantages of inter-firm alliances and their impact on firm performance. In particular, the performance benefits of inter-firm alliance partners’ social ties and heterogeneous resources are negatively affected by the corporate reputation of a firm.

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 – This chapter examines how irresponsible corporate activities (environmental pollution, human rights abuses, tax evasion, corruption and contract scandals) of some multinational oil companies in the Niger Delta influence stakeholders’ perception of their image/reputation in Nigeria.

Methodology – The objective of this chapter is accomplished through the review of literature on the activities of multinational oil corporations in the Niger Delta, supported by qualitative interviews and analysis of archival materials.

Findings – Three important findings emerged from this study. First, the participants were fully aware of the irresponsible behaviours of oil corporations in the Niger Delta, and some oil corporations were involved in these illicit acts. Second, the analysis of archival materials supports the participants' views with reference to the identities of the corporations involved in these criminal acts. Third, the absence of a strong corporate governance system in Nigeria makes it possible for the officials of oil corporations to tactically circumvent the law by involving in a maze of sophisticated corrupt acts.

Research/practical implications – The implication for the academics and practitioners is evident when a corporation implements corporate social responsibility dutifully; it generates positive impact on its corporate reputation rating. Conversely, when a corporation engages in irresponsible corporate misbehaviours, it attracts negative consequences on its reputation.

Originality – The originality of this chapter lies in the fact that it is the first empirical study to examine the impact of corporate social irresponsibility on the image/reputation of multinational oil corporations in Nigeria.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a theory-based approach to defining the corporate reputation construct.

The approach taken is to describe how to create a well-formed nominal definition of a construct and then show how this definition is translated into an operational definition that guides the selection of an appropriate measure. New definitions of corporate social reputation and appropriate measures of this construct are provided to illustrate this framework.

The definitional framework used suggests that many measures of corporate social responsibility and reputation are under specified. Thus, the measures derived from these definitions are poorly constructed. The strengths and weaknesses of three new types of measure of corporate social reputation are reviewed.

For scholars the advantages of creating a well-formed definition are that it will lead to a valid measure of the construct under investigation. This will then help to better interpret what are significant findings and non-findings of empirical research.

This paper is an extension of the author’s previous work on defining the corporate reputation construct. Because what is meant by corporate social responsibility is contested amongst scholars this and related constructs need more precise definition and measurement. This paper offers a theory-based approach to achieve this aim.

The appraisal of corporate reputation based on third-party corporate social responsibility (CSR) indices appears to have been institutionalized. The endorsement of such an approach by sustainability custodians and influencers undermines the uptake of the morality and legitimacy of CSR. This study takes a social realist perspective, which suggests that social phenomena such as CSR and corporate reputation are shaped by social structures and power relations. This study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between CSR and corporate reputation and understand ways in which the constructs are influenced by cognitive factors.

This study surveyed 411 respondents across five shopping malls and analyzed the data using path analysis of the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The mall-intercept survey sought to critically assess expectations of CSR vis-à-vis evaluation of corporate reputation. Based on a case study of three Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies, CSR expectations were measured along the philanthropic, economic, ethical and legal dimensions, while evaluation of corporate reputation was based on product quality, financial performance and social responsibility. SEM path analysis was used to extrapolate the predictive outcomes of CSR on corporate reputation.

Reputation for product quality and social responsibility is underpinned by the fulfillment of ethical CSR expectations, while philanthropic gestures enhance the evaluation of financial performance. Legal CSR significantly influences the reputation for social responsibility and product quality. Fulfillment of economic CSR expectations influences the reputation for product quality. However, no relationship was established between economic performance and social responsibility. Involvement in economic, philanthropic and particularly, legal CSR, are not indicative of the reputation for financial performance. Conversely, companies’ involvement in economic CSR does not suggest a higher propensity for social responsibility.

The predictive outcomes of CSR expectations on corporate reputation can reveal situated understanding of actual perceptions of corporate behavior.

Ethical business conduct is synonymously associated with social responsibility while espoused corporate philanthropy signals strong financial performance. The awareness of consumers’ cognitive evaluation of corporate reputation can offer a pathway to corporate communication professionals, policy makers and agencies to rethink and reposition CSR efforts.

Insensitivity to taken-for-granted cultural prescriptions and reliance on market-based reputational rankings undermine mutually beneficial stakeholder relationships and the social license to operate.

This study brings to the fore, cognitively dominated indicators of consumers’ perceptions of the reputation for CSR, to foster nuanced and halo-removed approaches to social responsibility. The authors show for the first time how companies’ skewed focus on corporate philanthropic giving paradoxically signals a capitalistic notion of social responsibility and unethical business conduct. This study offers a halo-removed orientation to the appraisal of CSR and corporate reputation.

Publics are becoming responsible customers that urge firms to improve society. By using social media, corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions could influence organization’s commitment and e-reputation. The purpose of this paper is to look at the influence on e-reputation of communication strategies (i.e. corporate ability and CSR) on social media.

Four international companies (Danone, Renault, Orange and BNP Paribas) were studied and a content analysis was performed: Leximancer for the social media content (between 25 and 50 pages for each company) on a six-month period; and Social Mention for the measurement of e-reputation.

Results show that there is a link between CSR communication strategies and e-reputation. More precisely, by using a corporate ability strategy (focus on product quality or innovation R & D), a company can increase its e-reputation better than on a common CSR communication strategy.

This study is based on only four companies (from four different industries) and would profit from a larger base for analysis. Second, the content the authors analyzed was generated by the company on their own social media.

This exploratory study is one of the first to look at the influence of CSR communication strategies on e-reputation and tries to see how companies’ action on social media can change the way they are perceived by their customers. It completes the current literature by defining how CSR communications strategies should be declined for in order to influence customers.