Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Reputation: Two Separate Concepts or Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Abstract

The need to investigate the link between reputation and responsibility is well established. This paper answers calls to conduct this comparison from a stakeholder perspective. In so doing a literature review identified models of reputation that engage with stakeholders from their inception to measurement, while no such models of corporate responsibility were found. A qualitative study to conceptualize responsibility from the perspective of stakeholders was then conducted. Following this, a formal comparison between this conceptualization and that of reputation models is undertaken. The results suggest that there is considerable similarity between the concepts of responsibility and reputation. Implications may include the use of reputation models as potential measures for many of the aspects conceptualized as responsibility. Questions about the causal relationship between the two concepts are also discussed.