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Reputation management and authenticity

Reputation management and authenticity PurposeFollowing a report released by the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, multinational corporations like Starbucks, Google, and Amazon found themselves in a firestorm of criticism for not paying or paying minimal taxes after earning significant profits in the UK for the past three years. Allegations of tax evasion led to a serious crisis for Starbucks in the UK, which played out in a public forum via social media. The researchers explored whether Starbucks’ corporate ethics insulated its reputation from negative media coverage of alleged tax evasion evidenced in its “hijacked” social media “#spreadthecheer” campaign. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachUsing an exploratory case study analysis of news articles, Starbucks’ annual reports, #spreadthecheer Tweets, and David Michelli’s The Starbucks Experience, data collection helped to inform the discussion of authenticity and whether it helped to insulate Starbucks’ reputation during its crisis in the UK.FindingsAuthenticity is key when organizations face a turbulent environment and active publics and stakeholder groups. Findings from this study also suggested proactive reputation management strategies and tactics, grounded in the organization’s corporate culture and transparency, could have diffused some of the uproar from its key publics.Originality/valueAuthentic corporate cultures should align with corporate business practices in order to reduce the potential for crises to occur. It is possible that ethical core values and a strong organizational approach to ethics help to insulate its reputation among publics during a crisis. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Communication Management Emerald Publishing

Reputation management and authenticity

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References (48)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1363-254X
DOI
10.1108/JCOM-06-2016-0043
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PurposeFollowing a report released by the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, multinational corporations like Starbucks, Google, and Amazon found themselves in a firestorm of criticism for not paying or paying minimal taxes after earning significant profits in the UK for the past three years. Allegations of tax evasion led to a serious crisis for Starbucks in the UK, which played out in a public forum via social media. The researchers explored whether Starbucks’ corporate ethics insulated its reputation from negative media coverage of alleged tax evasion evidenced in its “hijacked” social media “#spreadthecheer” campaign. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachUsing an exploratory case study analysis of news articles, Starbucks’ annual reports, #spreadthecheer Tweets, and David Michelli’s The Starbucks Experience, data collection helped to inform the discussion of authenticity and whether it helped to insulate Starbucks’ reputation during its crisis in the UK.FindingsAuthenticity is key when organizations face a turbulent environment and active publics and stakeholder groups. Findings from this study also suggested proactive reputation management strategies and tactics, grounded in the organization’s corporate culture and transparency, could have diffused some of the uproar from its key publics.Originality/valueAuthentic corporate cultures should align with corporate business practices in order to reduce the potential for crises to occur. It is possible that ethical core values and a strong organizational approach to ethics help to insulate its reputation among publics during a crisis.

Journal

Journal of Communication Management – Emerald Publishing

Published: Aug 7, 2017

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