Coca-Cola: Case Study

The Influence of Corporate Reputation on Stakeholder Behavior

The kinds of behavior that stakeholders should anticipate from an organization in their interactions with it are heavily influenced by corporate reputation. As a result, it significantly influences how stakeholders respond as well as the organization's business performance. Organizations must concentrate on building and maintaining their corporate reputation in a competitive market environment in order to establish their brand apart from competitors. This can only be done by assuring the best organizational performance and respecting social obligations (Harrison). Stakeholders including customers, suppliers and investors prefer organizations with good corporate images while doing their businesses, which helps a business in determining the trajectory of its core business operations aimed at achieving satisfactory organizational performance. A business with good corporate reputation needs to carry out some corporate social responsibilities to maintain its images in the public. On the other hand, operational performance is a yardstick that stakeholders often use to assess the eligibility of the organizations for future businesses. The more a business grow, the more its focus shifts towards improving its organizational performance and performing its social duties to attract more customers and to increase its control over the market through positive brand images.

List of Factors or Characteristics for Assessing Corporate Reputation

Question 2: Develop a list of factors or characteristics that different stakeholders may use in assessing corporate reputation.

Answer: Different stakeholders use different factors or characteristics of an organization while assessing its corporate reputation (Burke, Martin and Cooper). A list of these factors is presented below:

• Ethical: if an organization follows ethical standards while performing its social and corporate responsibilities, it gets respects and preferences from its stakeholders.
• Workplace environment: many services industry stakeholders prefer organizations with good and appealing workplace environment.
• Employees: skilled and well-mannered employees are key success factors for an organization, which often help organization in attracting more customers and stakeholders.
• Past customer reviews: organization’s previous business history is a prime consideration for stakeholders. An organization with good customer reviews always gets preferences over its rivals.
• Corporate image: corporate image of an organization in the context of organizational performance and social responsibility is important to stakeholders.
• Legal image: a company that has faced many lawsuits for failing to maintain product standard, environmental integrity or social responsibility is not a good organization in the eyes of stakeholders.
• Response: quick and appropriate response to the request and queries often makes an organization preferable to the stakeholders.
• Growth: growth rate of an organization is important to stakeholders.
• After sales service: after sales service is a major determinant of organization’s behavioral pattern and commitment to ethics and stakeholders. A good organization always keeps its words and maintains treats each and every stakeholder equally both before and after sales.

Consistency of Factors Across Stakeholders

Question 3: Are these factors consistent across stakeholders? Why or why not?

Answer: No, these are not. Different stakeholders have different interests, ethical standards, and values, and their focus is not the same. For example, financial health of an organization may not be as important to its customer as it is important to potential investors. On the other hand, the way an organization handles racial issues might not be as important to the majority as it is to the minority. Again, for the same stakeholder, the point of interest might change over time and over stages of business. For example, past customers’ review about an organization might be important for a potential buyer before purchasing a good, while after sales service and employee behaviors might rise up to importance for the same buyer while seeking after sales services.

References

Burke, Ronald J, Graeme Martin, and Cary L Cooper. Corporate Reputation. 1st ed. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub. Company, 2011. Print.

Harrison, Kim. "Corporate Reputation :: Why A Good Corporate Reputation Is Important To Your Organization". Cuttingedgepr.com. N.p., 2013. Web. 6 Feb. 2017.