Becoming a reputation-driven company

REPRINTED FROM: “The Good, the Bad, and the Trustworthy”, strategy+business, Winter 2010

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Paul A. Argenti is Professor of Corporate Communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and faculty director of the Leadership and Strategic Impact Program. He also teaches in the flagship Tuck Executive Program (TEP) – the only elite advanced management program lasting just three weeks. Prof. Argenti has written several books on corporate communication including: Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications (McGraw-Hill, 2009), Corporate Communication (fifth edition, Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2009), Strategic Communication (Tata/McGraw-Hill, 2007).

CONTENT DESCRIPTION: Companies, both big and small, risk their reputation each day. No matter how good things seem to be, serious threats can instantly damage a company’s reputation, sending even the most respected businesses into a tailspin from which they might not fully recover for years. Typically companies assume the appropriate way to manage reputational risk is to significantly increase spending on crisis management. However, this approach will no longer fly, because the public is growing increasingly cynical about corporate behavior. What can companies do to safeguard their reputation and their brands — and beyond that, to enhance and even realize strategic value from them? This article defines the four reputation strategies companies typically utilize and offers advice on which work and which do not.

Fill out the information at right to receive this strategy+business article which defines the five strategic pillars for becoming a trustworthy, reputation-driven company..