4: Building and Defending Corporate Reputation

A great deal has been written on the topic of corporate reputation, also called corporate image and corporate brand (Grunig & Repper, 1992). This coverage is not surprising, as corporate communications is the foundation of all public relations (Doorley & Garcia, 2025; Gotsi & Wilson, 2001). Before we have a product or a service, we have a company that makes that product or provides that service. The reputation of the company with its stakeholders will help set it apart from the competition, which may be offering similar products and services in the marketplace. In this sense, the corporate reputation should be geared toward helping stakeholders to engage positively with an organization in the form of consumers, employees, shareholders, or the overall community, for example (O’Donnell, 2023). Essentially, corporate reputation is seen as a very important intangible asset and an integral identity of a company, and involves the way that a company is perceived by its internal and external stakeholders, founded on prior performance and its anticipated behaviors.