Reputation Management Components and Meanings

In order to describe the changes that the reputation management process has made from the traditional physical world to the virtual internet environment, it must first define the fundamentals of the problem. These are the basic concepts of the term reputation management, especially an image, trust and reputation.

Image

First of all, it is necessary to define the difference between corporate identity and image. These two basic concepts are often confused, but their meanings are not the same. There are frequent errors in its understanding and perception, often confused with corporate design and image in general, but as a terminological concept it is not new. In our opinion, corporate identity is one of its main pillars. A company is soulless, basically absent, unable to fully carry out its activities without establishing “itself”. Corporate identity is an important part of corporate strategy and, simply put, represents the way a company presents itself through individual elements and then creates a single and comprehensive picture of the entire functioning. It represents uniqueness in the same way that each person has their own characteristics and particular characteristics.

It includes a company history, philosophy and vision, the people belonging to a company, its ethical values, visual style, which is a kind of virtual-reality package of all the activities of a company. While the image is a picture of what a company looks like or wants to be, the image is a public reflection of that identity. Nov & # 253; and according to Surynek, corporate identity means a purposeful formation of the strategic concepts of the internal structure, functioning and external presentation of a particular business in the market. The elements that make up and are a part of it generally include corporate communication, corporate design and acting mentioned above.

There are countless ways to explain, perceive and understand the word image in the literature. We will try to summarize their contents briefly. The description of the picture may seem clear and simple. Despite this assumption, let’s look at how this term is understood in the literature.

Kotler understands the image as a complex of a number of factors, literally a comprehensive impression, perception, opinion and attitude of individuals towards the business itself. The American Marketing Association defines magic as the customer’s perception of products, institutions, organizations, and even individuals that do not necessarily correspond to reality or the current situation. Again, considerable explanatory homogeneity is encountered in terms of supplementary literature. Image is often defined as the way management wants to present the organization from the outside. But as a rule, it is not about how the company perceives itself, but how the general public perceives it through their emotions.

Foster; notes that the image cannot be purchased. An organization should earn or deserve this, and of course it takes some time. Generally, goodwill is perceived by customers as trustworthiness combined with the brand itself. From the nature of the true definition, it is possible to conclude that this value or the assets owned by an undertaking cannot be significantly measured. The image itself, then, has a relatively high value, although the financial statement of that value is complex. Another interesting point of view is the broader approach to perceiving the concept itself, that is, the presentation of the knowledge that the image is the result of an exchange of views produced mostly through conflicts between organizations and individuals.

Confidence

The reputation issue is closely related to the issue of trust; In the context of literature these concepts often overlap. No doubt trust determines reputation, but how should something as insignificant as trust at first glance actually be defined? From the core of the concept, the verbal basis – belief – is immediately clear. In order to avoid a theological study of belief and thereby remain within economic and administrative disciplines, there is a rather strange definition, the definition of trust as a concept linked to the unknown.

At first glance, the vague definition surprisingly makes the point where trust is compared to a bet in which a particular problem is perceived in the context of equilibrium, often between opposing desires. The process can be compared to a parent-child relationship. For example, if the child asks the parent about the color of the water, whether the child trusts the parent’s answer is affected by the parent’s goodwill and the parent’s need to appear wise in their eyes. This is so even if this child does not know the correct answer. Custom dictionaries provide a more detailed definition; they usually state that trust is a kind of trust in the ability, power, character, or truth of “someone” or “something.”

Despite the fact that trust has an intangible nature, indirect measurement approaches of this phenomenon are encountered relatively frequently in the literature. Trying to describe the basis is to choose someone based on the knowledge of reality. From the economist’s point of view, the concept of “cost” is encountered, and a physicist’s concept of “speed”.

Some researchers discuss the classification of models based on trust and reputation, the main criterion of the classification is the typology of the models. According to Sabater and Sierra, the interpretation is as follows: does the model work with reputation, trust, or both parameters simultaneously? By simple decomposition, three basic categories are obtained:

• Trust only models – they only work with the trust factor,

• Reputation-only models – they only work with the reputation factor,

• Hybrid models – use both of these parameters.

Depending on the origin of knowledge, when classifying models, we consider parameters such as source and source of information, originality, irrational factors (eg prejudices or ignorance of the social roles of subjects), and so on. Thanks to the theoretical development of the trust problem and hence its relation to the issue of reputation, we can move on to the definition of reputation.

Reputation

In terms of reputation, the literature offers a wide variety of views, from formalized views for interpretation to views of an almost informal nature. Overall, all these views agree that reputation as a business asset is an extremely fragile element. It is also confronted with the claim that reputation is an element that every organization has to offer indiscriminately. Unlike trust, which is often defined as a directional situation, reputation is a more complex term, but there is also the claim (not quite correct in our view) that trust and reputation can be seen as synonymous. Let’s look at how reputation is defined in the current literature. Reputation is perceived as general quality, optics, how the organization is perceived or evaluated by individuals.

After defining the term, it comes to the decomposition of the subject in terms of partial qualities, namely focusing on reputation components. Based on professional literature, reputation can be viewed in three dimensions:

• Primary dimension: reputation is built around the organization’s personal connections and target audiences. Such reputation has an immediate and personal character. From a psychological point of view, we encounter an increased likelihood of the occurrence of the phenomenon of first contact. With this first contact, target groups perceive only the specific characteristics of the organization and form their initial attitude according to these qualities.

• Secondary dimension: Also called indirect reputation in the literature: such a reputation, unlike the previous dimension, does not have a direct personal nature. It is formed by sharing messages through media or reference groups. Due to the impersonal and mediated nature of the messages, there is an increase in the frequency of biases and stereotypes in this dimension. These hostilities often have a negative effect on the formation of reputation as they are the premise for superficial judgment.

• The cyclic dimension: Also called the third way: it is an approach in which organizations adapt the character and nature of communication to the perceptions of their target audiences. When it comes to positive attitudes, organizations typically do not need to refine the form and content of messages shared. If negative attitudes are noticed, organizations will functionally change or adapt their communications, behavior, and even their products.

Harris and Fombrun considered the reputation as the collective evaluation of the company’s ability to provide a valuable product, service or other value to a group of customers. They developed a scale to measure corporate reputation, which they call the corporate reputation coefficient (RQ). Reputation ratio is a complex method of measuring corporate reputation. The scale given consists of six criteria about which we can ask the following questions:

• Emotional appeal: Is the company popular? Is it admired and respected?

• Products and services: What is the quality of the company’s products and services? Is the company active and reliable in innovation?

• Financial representation: How can we evaluate the company’s growth opportunities and risk? Is it based on a solid financial foundation?

• Vision and leadership: Is there strong leadership in the company? What visions do leaders follow? Does it recognize the opportunities and threats in the market?

• Working environment: How successfully is the company run and what is the quality of its colleagues?

• Social responsibility: How important is the company’s social participation and how responsible is it towards its environment?

The main purpose for companies is to be perceived as open and honest in their business activities. It requires transparency, good communication, a lot of good communication.

A company can differentiate itself from its competitors thanks to its corporate reputation. Reputation provides a significant advantage in industries with intangible assets such as innovation, creativity, intellectual capital, and high levels of customer service. From the theoretical overview stated, it is possible to deduce the essence of reputation management, namely, the four basic determinants of reputation management: responsibility, reliability, reliability and credibility. Each of these issues has an important and irreplaceable role in the reputation management process.