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Once a corporate crisis is entangled with a social issue, how consumers make sense of the crisis can be impacted by issue-based opinion polarization. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms as consumers go through this process. This study also examines whether corporate social advocacy (CSA) can be an effective crisis-response strategy for mitigating reputational loss.

Theoretical inquiries were empirically tested using an online experiment (N = 792). The experiment set the context in China, in a working-overtime-issue-related crisis. It had a 2 (online exposure: anti-issue opinion vs. pro-issue opinion) × 2 (CSA: absence vs. presence) between-subject design with a continuous variable (pre-existing issue attitudes) measured before the manipulation.

This study found that pre-existing issue attitudes can be directly and indirectly associated with corporate reputation, for the issue attitudes influence how consumers attribute crisis blame. Such a direct effect of pre-existing issue attitudes varies depending on which polarized opinion consumers were exposed to on social media. This study also found CSA to be a robust crisis response strategy, through multiple mechanisms, in protecting the corporate reputation.

Scholars are scarcely aware of the threats that issue-based opinion polarization poses to corporate reputation. This study serves as an early attempt to provide theoretical explanations. In addition to this, this study extends the current conceptual understandings of CSA during corporate crises that involve social issues while adding fresh insights into the established typology of crisis-response strategies.

Customer co-creation behaviors significantly affect a firm's performance and sustainable growth. This study tested the mediating role of corporate reputation in the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and two types of customer co-creation behaviors: customer citizenship behavior and customer participation behavior. The study also investigated the moderating effect of self-corporate brand connection on the corporate hypocrisy–corporate reputation relationship and the indirect relationship between corporate hypocrisy and customer co-creation behavior through corporate reputation.

The authors conducted a two-wave research survey with 346 Korean bank customers and tested our hypotheses using PROCESS Macro.

Corporate reputation mediated the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and customer citizenship/participant behavior. The negative effect of corporate hypocrisy on corporate reputation was more pronounced when self-corporate brand connection was high. Self-corporate brand connection further moderated the indirect effect of corporate hypocrisy on customer citizenship/participant behavior through corporate reputation.

The results clearly explain how corporate hypocrisy affects customer co-creation behavior. This study advances corporate hypocrisy and corporate reputation research by proposing and verifying a moderated mediation model.

Corporations are confronted with growing demands to take a stand on socio-political issues, i.e. corporate social advocacy (CSA), which affects their reputation in the public. Companies use different CSA message strategies, including calling the public to support and act on the issue they advocate. Using reactance theory, the authors investigate the impact of CSA messages with a call to action on corporate reputation in the case of a company's gender equality initiative.

A one-factorial (CSA message with or without a call to action) between-subjects experiment was conducted by surveying 172 individuals living in Switzerland. The CSA messages were created in the context of gender equality.

The authors' study indicates that CSA messages with a call to action compared to those without overall harmed corporate reputation due to individuals' reactance, which is higher for CSA messages with a call to action, negatively affecting corporate reputation. The impact of the CSA message strategy with a call to action on corporate reputation remains significant after controlling for issue alignment and political leaning.

Communicating about socio-political issues, especially taking a stand, is a significant challenge for corporations in an increasingly polarized society and has often led to backlash, boycotts and damage to corporate reputation. This study shows that the possible adverse effects of advocating for socio-political issues can be related to reactance. It emphasizes that companies advocating for contested issues must be more cautious about the message strategy than the issue itself.

This study aims to explore the impact of carbon neutral announcements on “stock market value” of publicly listed companies in China.

The event study approach is adopted. Market, market-adjusted, Carhart four-factor model and a cross-sectional regression model are employed to examine the impacts of carbon neutral announcements on “stock market value” of Chinese companies based on data from 188 carbon neutral announcements.

Carbon neutral announcements positively impact Chinese shareholder value. Carbon neutral announcements at the strategic level have a more positive and significant impact on Chinese stock market value. Innovative carbon neutral announcements do not significantly cause Chinese stock market reactions. Companies have more positive and significant stock market reactions when the companies make carbon neutral announcements that reflect high supply chain network resilience and heterogeneity and strong supply chain network relationships.

The findings uncover the business value of carbon neutral activities and provide operations managers in developing countries insights into how to improve enterprises' market value by actively implementing carbon neutral activities.

This paper is the first trial to apply an event study to examine the relationship between carbon neutral announcements and Chinese stock market value from the perspective of announcement level and type and supply chain networks. This paper introduces corporate reputation theory and enriches the application of corporate reputation theory in the field of low-carbon environmental protections and supply chains.

The gap that this research attempts to fill is to analyse the explanatory factor “industry” when assessing the reputation of a corporate group. In other words, this research attempts to demonstrate the impact of the “industrial halo” on the assessment of corporate reputation, given that, to date, the academic literature has not considered industry as an explanatory variable in the assessment of the reputation of private companies.

A sample of 43 Spanish companies was used to analyse the relationship between the reputation of firms as measured by the Merco Empresas index, and the industries to which they belong, after controlling for company performance, size, turnover, public recognition of their leadership, and corporate responsibility. This involved conducting a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between the variables for each year in the time period from 2005 to 2016. The available data were taken from the firms' annual financial reports and websites, as well as from the Merco.

The paper shows the existence of industrial halos that account for the corporate reputation of businesses in Spain. It is also shown that industrial halos are not permanent over time, and that they tend to occur in years of crisis.

It would have been desirable for this study to have had sufficient data to include other industries, but this was not possible. As for possible extensions, in addition to expanding the period considered, other analytical techniques, such as panel data models, could be applied to allow comparison with the results obtained here.

The results of this study have some practical implications. Firstly, firms that publish corporate reputation rankings should be aware of the distortion that the industrial halo can produce, especially in times of uncertainty, and seek to correct for it in their measurements. And secondly, corporate groups themselves should assume that the reputation of the industry affects their individual reputation, and consequently, they should see the other companies in the industry not only as competitors but also as “reputational allies”. They should therefore make collective efforts to improve in this respect, especially in the face of reputational crises.

This paper provides a better understanding of the relationship between the reputation of a company and the industry to which it belongs, and of its permanence over time. This relationship has been little studied in the Spanish market to date.

本研究擬分析當企業集團的信譽被評估時的解釋性因素-行業,以填補現時的研究缺口。具體來說,研究人員鑒於學術文獻至今仍未於評估私營企業的信譽時、把行業當作是一個解釋變量來看待,故擬進行研究、以顯示行業光環在評估企業信譽時所產生的影響。

研究使用的樣本為43間西班牙公司。研究人員分析以Merco Empresas 指數來測量的公司信譽與公司所屬行業之間的關係。有關的分析調控了公司的業績、規模、營業額、企業責任、以及企業領導能力的公眾認可程度所帶來的影響。研究人員對有關變量間的關係進行橫向分析 分析於2005年至2016年期間年度性地進行。現有數據取自有關公司的年度財務報表和其網站,也有取自Merco的。

研究結果表明了可解釋西班牙企業信譽的行業光環是存在的。研究結果亦顯示、行業光環不是永恆的,而且,行業光環往往會在營運極其困難的年度內出現。

本文讓我們更深入瞭解公司信譽與公司所屬行業之間的關係,以及其在時間上的永恆性。就這相關的關係而言,探討西班牙市場的研究至今為數不多。

The study investigated the strategic contribution of COVID-19 preventive measures in building corporate reputation in the hospitality industry when mediated with ethical branding.

The hypothesized model was developed and tested using a cross-sectional research design among 404 customers of hospitality organizations (i.e. hotels and restaurants). The collected data were analyzed quantitatively using structural equation modeling.

The results showed that COVID-19 preventive measures are important drivers in building or rebuilding corporate reputation during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also showed that ethical branding acts as a mediator between COVID-19 preventive measures and corporate reputation.

The study used a nonprobability sampling technique, i.e. convenience sampling and a cross-sectional survey research design. It is therefore necessary to be careful when generalizing the findings.

The study recommends that managers in hospitality organizations should ensure proper and effective compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures during service delivery. Among others, the study highlighted areas for further study to include an investigation using a longitudinal approach to observe behavioral changes toward COVID-19 preventive measures and their consequences on the overall corporate reputation of the hospitality industry. This recommendation is based on the fact that, currently, new cases and mortality rates have decreased considerably. As a result, customers in the hospitality industry have started to have different opinions about complying with COVID-19 preventive measures.

The study is among new endeavors to investigate drivers that can rebuild and sustain the corporate reputation of hospitality organizations during a pandemic like COVID-19.

This study aims to investigate whether social reputation via corporate social responsibility (CSR) awarding facilitates access to debt and decreases the cost of debt and whether governance mechanisms moderate this relationship.

The sample covers the period between 2002 and 2021, during which CSR award data were available in the Thomson Reuters Eikon/Refinitiv database. The empirical models are based on country, industry and year fixed-effects regression.

While the main findings produced an insignificant result for access to debt, they indicated strong evidence for the positive relationship between CSR awarding and the cost of debt. Moreover, the moderating effect highlights that while the sustainability committee helps CSR-awarded companies access debt more easily, independent directors help firms decrease the cost of debt via CSR awarding. Furthermore, the results differ between the US and the non-US samples, earlier and recent periods, high- and low-leverage firms and large and small firms.

For the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors assess whether social reputation via CSR awarding facilitates access to debt and decreases the cost of debt in an international and cross-industry sample. Little is known about the effect of social reputation on loan contracting, although social reputation conveys broader information that goes beyond the firm’s internal (performance) and external (reporting) CSR practices. The authors also draw attention to the differing roles of distinct governance mechanisms in leveraging social reputation for loan contracting.

Despite the extensive body of research on absolute corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, limited attention has been given to the distinct concepts of optimal and aggressive CSR engagement, as well as their associations with CSR awarding. This study aims to differentiate between optimal and aggressive CSR engagement and examine their relationship with CSR awarding while considering the moderating influence of board characteristics from the perspectives of stakeholder and agency theories.

This empirical analysis draws on an international dataset comprising 43,803 observations from nine sectors across 41 countries. We employ a least squares dummy variable regression approach that accounts for country, industry and year effects to conduct the analysis.

The results reveal that engagement in aggressive CSR activities beyond the optimal level leads to the generation of a social reputation through CSR awarding. However, the influence of board characteristics on this relationship is significant. Specifically, the presence of a dedicated CSR committee encourages CSR awarding in the context of aggressive CSR engagement. Conversely, board independence constrains the relationship between aggressive CSR engagement and CSR awarding. Notably, board gender diversity does not have a discernible impact on this connection.

Our evidence provides valuable insights to help firms seeking to enhance their social reputation through CSR activities better allocate their resources and avoid unnecessary financial commitments.

This study advances the current understanding by exploring the relationship between aggressive CSR engagement and the recognition of CSR awards. Furthermore, it scrutinises the factors that dictate when such aggressive CSR engagement translates into enhanced social reputation, as evidenced by the attainment of CSR awards.

The UK government has taken the lead in accelerating the capacity of higher education to engage with sustainability accounting and adopting a novel systematic approach toward a collective implementation of and contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN SDG 16 “Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions” promotes the (re)building of effective and accountable institutions. In line with the institutional logics metatheory, we provide empirical evidence on how the alignment between social mechanisms alongside the reputation of higher education institutions (HEIs) and SDGs on transparent and responsible service (SDG 16) affect the students' overall experience. Using a sample of 142 UK HEIs, interpretative content analysis and ordinary least squares, the results show that integrating HEIs' responsible-oriented research agenda proactively with high sustainability reputation adds significantly to greater student satisfaction.

Charitable giving in China has moved from being subjected to government attention and public skepticism to receiving government encouragement and public support. The role played by political connections in philanthropy is indisputable, although very few studies have explored their association from the perspective of the country’s first Charity Law of 2016. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the 2016 Charity Law and offers an understanding of the future trends in corporate charitable giving.

Using empirical analysis of data collected from listed companies in China, this study analyzes the impact of political connections on corporate charitable giving before and after the 2016 Charity Law. The study adopts three leading theories from previous research into corporate charitable giving and political connections: corporate social responsibility, resource dependence theory and stakeholder theory. A conceptual framework is outlined, and hypotheses are formulated accordingly.

The results show that political connections have a substantial positive impact on corporate charitable giving, both before and after the implementation of the 2016 Charity Law, which has significantly promoted and increased the amount and proportion of charitable giving. Although the 2016 Charity Law attempted to weaken the political connections of enterprises, the influence of political connections on corporate charitable giving has proved difficult to diminish or eliminate, as charity is dominated by the state.

This study explores the association between political connections and corporate charitable giving from the perspective of China’s Charity Law of 2016.