Public Relations and Corporate Reputation

As recent corporate events have made it clear, an organization’s reputation is of paramount importance to its success as well as survival. This is because the happenings leave the corporate credibility at stake while public mistrust spills over into investment markets. As such, there is a need to restore public faith. Reputation accounts for a large portion of a company’s market capitalization and is one of its most important long term assets. It impacts the organization in several ways including stock price as well as the ability to attract and retain customers and employees (Michael and Judy, 2008). Organizational reputation is seen in such factors as the quality of products and services it offers, earnings and business performance, level of integrity in business practices, stability and fairness as an employer, involvement in local communities as well as the degree of honesty and openness. However, with the increased distrust of corporate world, corporate credibility is of paramount importance. Companies today must realize that they are at the mercy of the public (external environment). There is growing realization of the need to foster a good reputation through development of positive relationships with the various components of the external environment. It is for this reason that reputation management has become an integral part of public relations in organizations. Is reputation management an adequate description of the role of public relations in contemporary organizations? This paper aims at analyzing the role of modern public relations with emphasis on its contribution to the achievement of marketing and other organization goals.

Reputation management

As the name suggests, reputation management implies managing the re...

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...owever, while reputation management is a key role of public relations, it also plays a key role in establishing cordial (good) relations between the organization and other stakeholders. Therefore, organizations must always strive to put in place good public relations mechanisms to ensure that their public image is good and its relationship with various stakeholders is not at stake.

Works Cited

John, David. 2006. Reputation management: The key to successful public relations. London: Routledge.

Michael, Austin and Judy, Bunn. 2008. Risk issues and crisis management in public relations. New York: Macmillan.

Edward, Lickey. 2004. Public relations. Newyork: Oxford university press.

Jane, Johnston. 2009. Public relations: Theory and practice. London: prentice Hall.

Jacquie, Zawawi. 2007. Public relations: concepts practice and critique. London: Routledge.