Corporate reputations can be damaged for a number of reasons. To prepare and respond to reputation threats, businesses must pay greater attention to reputation risks.
Despite the increased weight placed on corporate responsibility in recent years, several companies have taken well-publicized hits to their reputations. The past year has been particularly hard on businesses.
A Harris Interactive survey concluded last year that more Americans view the overall reputation of corporate America as having declined a little (33 percent) or a lot (18 percent) over the previous year. Only 11 percent said it had improved. Fully 71 percent of Americans said the reputation of corporate America is poor, signaling a continued environment of consumer concern and frustration with the way companies operate.
“Ultimately,” senior consultant Dr. Majorie Dijkstr writes at Reputation Institute, “risk management is about both anticipating strategic issues and leveraging opportunities to engage with the company’s key stakeholders around topics and initiatives that are most relevant to them.
“Effective risk management is about aligning perception and reality,” Dijkstr says.
