Corporate reputation has become an important component of today's business literature. Numerous academic studies and interest in coverage increase regularly. Parallel to this increasing emphasis, a significant opportunity is open to several actors. However, the discipline is suffering from institutionalization. This paper explores the emergence of methodological problems as signals of institutionalization of a new paradigm and underlines the importance of methodological criticisms. By specifically emphasizing the measurement of corporate reputation, this paper identifies methodological threats. A case study is included as an example and to provide further learning.
This paper is founded on the market research carried out by the author in 1987 in the Market Research Centre - Zagreb, for the needs of a specific Yugoslav conglomerate which is involved in the production and processing of zinc, alloys and chemical products. The basic impetus for the research was an assumption that the existing corporate image was inconsistent.
We are delighted to have the opportunity of speaking today in a session devoted to Corporate and Strategic Planning. The existence of such a session reflects the growing importance attached to corporate image, and recognition of the researcher's role in its development process. There is no doubt of either of these two trends. Evidence, including our own, tells us that senior industrialists rate corporate image a major and increasing issue. Corporate communications conferences abound, and the research speaker is an integral part of them. Arguably the most important principle in corporate communications is to identify and understand key audiences. These include customers and the range of opinion leader groups where research is well established. However, a company's own employees have tended to be undervalued as an audience of importance. The most powerful source of knowledge about a company is knowing someone who works there; employee commitment to corporate strategy will affect not only internal efficiency, but also the picture portrayed to the outside world. Companies are often ignorant of their employees' feelings and motivations, and consequently fail to optimise their contribution. Research is good for corporate communications, we contend, and corporate communications is good for research. In the eyes of some companies, market research should keep its servant status and remain "below stairs"; even some market research managers in companies seem to share that view. Corporate communications and planning can put the researcher firmly in the Boardroom, and we regard this as a healthy trend. It is, however, a potentially dangerous one. Unless we can make a positive contribution - which means we must understand the objectives of corporate communications, how they work and how they can effectively be measured - our status will be undermined.
The principal purpose of writing this paper is to draw together the experience of executives conducting customer care research in four European countries - The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain. All four authors have a history of co-operation, both on domestic and internationally co-ordinated customer research projects. The authors start by examining the shift in emphasis that has taken place recently in the marketing of services - away from acquisition and towards retention marketing. This has had a profound impact on the way in which market research projects are designed and used. The paper proceeds to define service and differentiates between two main types of service attribute - tangibles and intangibles. Traditional approaches are reviewed, along with recent advances that go some way towards improving the the quality and usefulness of service research data. The advantages over traditional approaches of two major new developments - SMART and Integrated Problem Solving are discussed in some detail prior to put- ting forward a blueprint for future pan-European service research. The principal ways in which this paper differs from previous papers on this topic can be summarised as follows: - The paper sets service improvement studies in the context of corporate image and customer satisfaction studies. It examines in some detail both the mechanics of the SMART approach (particularly design issues and the elicitation procedure) and the advantages of this approach over more conventional research techniques. -It highlights ways in which SMART has developed (particularly with regards micro-modelling and tracking). -Service research is examined from a pan-European rather than a domestic perspective.
Our analysis looks at costs, benefits, and ways to measure payoffs. Half the firms surveyed take no measurements, but the more astute ones are beginning to measure effectiveness in a number of ways, ranging from simple counts of spectators and participants to more sophisticated measures of attitude change and media spending equivalencies. Continued development of measurements is important, since sponsorships can be expensive, and there is no other way to evaluate the effectiveness of a sponsorship activity in achieving its promotional objectives.
The choice of a specific manufacturer (brand) or supplier in the business-to-business market is not only determined by company performance, e.g. price, quality and time of delivery, but also by a company's corporate image. Corporate Image Purchasing Analysis (CIPA) gives an insight into the influences exerted on the deciding process by company performance on the one hand, and corporate image on the other. 3M Netherlands BV (practice) and Motivation Amsterdam BV (theory) have cooperated in the production of the following paper on this new and successful research model.
Corporate research encompasses all aspects of research conducted among publics of importance to the corporation, company or organisation in their direct role other than as customers. Consumers are obviously the primary target of marketing research, but there are many other publics of importance to the corporation. Industrial customers, while not included as such in this handbook, are of prime importance to a company selling industrial products. The financial community, including shareholders, are another important audience; financial relations research is covered in the next chapter.
For their external, customer-targeted research, industrial market researchers have access to a varied range of quantitative and qualitative methods adapted to the particular characteristics of the environment under study. Polling is an accurate means of measuring ownership of appliances or equipment; the semi-directive interview can record motivations and perceptions; while the monograph allows us to understand the decision-making process as a multi-actor system
The purpose of this paper is to make some remarks and comments on the relationship between: - the Corporate Image, a concept which is more and more important on a market where the financial terms, the interests paid, the criteria used for giving loans, etc. do not differ much anymore and; - The perceptions and expectations of service quality, the expectations of the customers, what they come asking for and what they consider as "fitness for use". In doing so, we will need to introduce another concept - narrowly related with the Corporate Image or - to say it better - that should be narrowly related with it: the Corporate Culture.