Employees' awareness of their impact on corporate reputation

a r t i c l e i n f o Corporate reputation is critical for cultivating stakeholder relationships and, specifically, for regaining public trust. Corporate reputation results from the firm's interactions with stakeholders, emphasizing the important role employees play in reputation management. However, employees are not necessarily aware of, or prepared for, this extra-role assignment, indicating a gap in research and a managerial challenge. The purpose of the present article is to identify how employees' awareness of their impact on their employers' reputation is influenced by pride, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and perceived corporate reputation. An online survey of employees working for firms ranked in Fortune's America's Most Admired Companies Index provides empirical evidence. The findings underline the prominent effect pride in membership has regarding employees' awareness of their impact on corporate reputation. Study findings further deliver insights into opportunities and risks for managers who wish to use internal reputation building strategies to enhance corporate reputation. Studies conducted by the World Economic Forum steadily report a decline in public trust in large companies, paired with perceptions of a deficit in values in the global economy (World Economic Forum, 2010). In counteracting this development, building and safeguarding a favorable corporate reputation is an important managerial goal The relationship between a firm's reputation and its employees is two-sided. On the one hand, employees actively shape other stakeholders' perceptions of the firm (George, 1990; Harris and de Chernatony, 2001). Especially in services industries, employees contribute to the formation of corporate reputation through the quality of their interactions with customers (Davies et al., 2003; Helm, 2007). On the other hand, employees are themselves affected by public perceptions of their employer. Affiliation with a reputable firm improves employees' self-esteem, thereby constituting both, an appeal to join for potential employees and a vested interest for current employees to safeguard their employer's good name. The present paper aims at further exploring the prominent role employees play in shaping corporate reputation. Specifically, the paper addresses how employees' awareness of their impact on their employer's reputation is affected by employees' pride in membership, their level of job satisfaction, their affective commitment, and perceptions of their employer's reputation. In discussing these influences on employees' reputation building awareness, the article lays the groundwork for future research on possible incentives for employees to engage in reputation building and the specific actions used to enhance corporate reputation. 2. Literature review Different research …