ABOUT THIS BOOK

A scientific approach to corporate reputation from the field’s leading scholar.

Public opinion is a core factor of any organization’s success—and sometimes its failings. Whether through crisis, mismanagement, or sudden shifts in public sensibility, an organization can run afoul in the span of a Tweet.

In Reputation Analytics, Daniel Diermeier offers the first rigorous analytical framework for understanding and managing corporate reputation and public perception. Drawing on his expertise as a political scientist and management scholar, Diermeier incorporates lessons from game theory, psychology, and text analytics to create a methodology that has immediate application in both scholarship and practice.

A milestone work from one of social science’s most eminent scholars, Reputation Analytics unveils an advanced understanding of an elusive topic, resulting in an essential guide for academics and readers across industries.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Daniel Diermeier is the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, having previously served as Provost of the University of Chicago. His works include Reputation Rules, among others.

REVIEWS

“Reputational management is critical to businesses, especially in light of global events such as Covid-19 and increasing calls for social justice. Timely, bold, and comprehensive, Diermeier integrates disparate fields to create a rich portrait which answers the question of how organizations may effectively manage their reputations.”

— Michael Lenox | Darden School of Business, University of Virginia

“There is high demand for interdisciplinary approaches to problems in the study of management, and in the social sciences more broadly. Framing corporate reputation as 'public opinion for companies' and noting that companies typically face various 'publics' (employees, activists, customers, etcetera), Diermeier leads the reader through a plethora of methodologies in this tour-de-force book, seeking an integrated approach for understanding and operationalizing the theory and practice of reputation management.”

— David Austen-Smith | Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

"In an era when businesses are increasingly drawn into contentious political debates and their every move is scrutinized, a firm’s public standing should be a priority, not an afterthought, for business leaders. In his most important book to date, Daniel Diermeier creates a multidisciplinary roadmap for executives seeking to integrate reputation management with corporate strategy, and he also lays the foundation for using cutting-edge methodologies to study the dynamics of public attitudes toward firms. Reputation Analytics is required reading for anyone interested in understanding what managers can, and can’t, control when it comes to how their companies are perceived by customers, regulators, and other key constituencies."

— David M. Primo | Simon Business School, University of Rochester

"Daniel Diermeier has written a masterful book that deepens our understanding of the foundations of and risks to a company’s reputation. Based on psychology, economics, and public opinion research, he presents methodologies and metrics for building a reputation management capability."

— David Baron | Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

"Everybody knows that corporate reputation is critical. But who knows how best to manage it? With Reputation Analytics, Daniel Diermeier achieves the near-impossible: he provides an account that is at one and the same time steeped in science—game theory, cultural anthropology, computational linguistics—and brimming with practical advice for executives who are responsible for managing the forces that shape the public opinion of their companies."

— Felix Oberholzer-Gee | Harvard Business School, Harvard University

"Reputation is critically important, but discussions of strategic reputation management are often full of overblown assertions, hunches masquerading as insight, and sloppy thinking based on uninformative data. In this pathbreaking book, Daniel Diermeier charts the course for rigorous study of corporate reputation. His approach is solidly grounded in key lessons from a wide range of academic disciplines, including cognitive science, political behavior, moral psychology, linguistics, machine learning, and game theory. For scholars, the book provides deep insight into an emerging interdisciplinary field. For business leaders, it provides an essential toolkit for measuring, analyzing, and strategically managing their company’s reputation."

— Ken Shotts | Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

“The practice of reputation management is changing to more directly impact business strategy and long-term value creation. As a result, it’s now emerging as a more explicit strategic discipline for management teams, as well as a more explicit corporate governance matter for boards. A wonderful and timely text, Reputation Analytics provides critical knowledge and tools by which to create and optimize reputation management systems.”

— AnnaMaria DeSalva | Global Chairman and CEO, Hill+Knowlton Strategies

“Never has there been a time where a company’s reputation can be impacted so quickly and through so many channels. Reputation Analytics gives incredible insights into the array of issues that can impact a company, the means through which they can surface, and the pace at which they can unfold. Like many things in life, preparation is key, and Reputation Analytics provides critical understandings on how to best position an organization for maneuvering through ultra-sensitive and rapidly moving reputational minefields.”

— Jim Roth | Chief Executive Officer, Huron Consulting Group

“Daniel Diermeier’s assertion that corporate reputation is public opinion for companies is a fundamental reappraisal of communications strategy that demands serious consideration by the C-suite. Publics across the world are increasingly looking to businesses to solve social problems. Activist employees and belief driven consumers are pushing brands and CEOs to speak up on the issues of the day, from sustainability to race to geopolitics. Developing rigorous methodologies for managing these challenges is essential: Reputation Analytics defines the standard on how to accomplish this feat.”

— Richard Edelman | CEO, Edelman Communications | Chairman, Daniel J. Edelman Holdings

"Today's organizations face massive challenges on the topic of trust and reputation. Reputation Analytics provides a meaningful and pragmatic approach to equip leaders with clear thinking and solid analytics to manage what has otherwise been a very amorphous topic."

— Paul Leinwand | author of "Strategy that Works" | Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern University

“Path-breaking in its perspective, Reputation Analytics is enlightening to both scholars and practitioners, providing an outstanding navigation tool for scholars who wish to use frontier methods to explore the dynamics of corporate reputation.”

— Dennis Yao | Harvard Business School, Harvard University

"Diermeier [analyzes] the factors that affect the public’s opinion of companies, presenting an application of the perspectives and methods of modern social sciences to corporate reputation....Reputation Analytics [explains] how a company can build a reputations management capability based on its business model and core values."

— Journal of Economic Literature

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Overview

Part I. Reputation and Public Opinion

Chapter 2. Principles of Public Opinion

Part II. Perception, Attitudes, and Behavior

Chapter 3. Evaluations, Attitudes, and the Role of Values

Chapter 4. Affective Primacy and Dual-Process Theories of Cognition

Chapter 5. Beliefs: Risk, Trust, and Apologies

Chapter 6. Open Questions and Future Directions

Part III. Salience and Attention

Chapter 7. Framing

Chapter 8. Models of the Media: Bias and Influence

Chapter 9. Social Media—Social Networks

Chapter 10. Media Influence: An Assessment

Part IV. Stakeholders and Strategies: Firms, Activists, and Corporate Campaigns

Chapter 11. The Rise of Strategic Activism

Chapter 12. The Boycott Game

Chapter 13. The Logic of Campaigns

Chapter 14. The Strategic Interaction between Activists and Firms

Part V. Beyond Surveys: Measurement and Metrics

Chapter 15. Surveys and Their Limitations

Chapter 16. Measuring Opinion

Chapter 17. Agendas, Topics, and Issues

Chapter 18. Frames

Chapter 19. Text-Analytic Methods: Promise and Pitfalls

Part VI. Conclusion: Toward a Reputation Management Capability

Chapter 20. The Right Mindset: Corporate Reputation as Public Opinion

Chapter 21. Developing a Reputation Management System

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.