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Neutral Reputation and Public Sector Organizations

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Abstract

Despite the strides taken in reputation research during recent decades, the reputation of public sector organizations has remained rather neglected. Public sector organizations often measure intangibles with instruments designed for corporations, although their raison d’être differs fundamentally from that of the latter. This paper attempts to fill the gap in reputation research on public sector organizations by developing the proposition that for public sector organizations a neutral rather than excellent reputation is ideal, as neutrality enables a critical operating distance, and the resources for maintaining an excellent reputation are scarce. To test the idea of neutral reputation in practice, a study measuring the reputation of 12 Finnish public sector organizations among their stakeholders was conducted. The results of the study found that the Finnish public sector organizations generally had a neutral reputation, though more research across countries and cultures is needed. The implications of the findings for theory and practice are also discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The study was funded by the research program Social Capital and Networks of Trust (SoCa) of the Academy of Finland, and the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation. The author would like to thank Craig Carroll and Vince Hazelton for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. This paper draws on data and theory used in the author's 2005 doctoral dissertation ‘Faith-holders as Social Capital of Finnish Public Organizations,’ Department of Communication, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland, and has not previously been published in an international journal.

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    Vilma Luoma-aho

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Appendices

Appendix A

A comparison of the attributes mentioned during the 12 informal interviews and the attributes found through the background research. Any attributes mentioned in less than three interviews were omitted. Table A1

Table 2 Table a1
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Appendix B

The stakeholder reputation questionnaire. Table B1

Table 3 Table a2
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Appendix C

The reputational factor loadings (arranged in factor order for clarity). Table C1

Table 4 Table a3
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Luoma-aho, V. Neutral Reputation and Public Sector Organizations. Corp Reputation Rev 10, 124–143 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.crr.1550043

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