Reputation, return and risk: A new approach

Abstract

Corporate reputation has deserved attention in recent years from firms and researchers given its impact on creating a competitive advantage and on keeping a sustained superior performance. However, the impact of corporate reputation on risk, in addition to being less studied, still presents controversial results. Thus, the purpose of this study is to, simultaneously, analyze the effect of corporate reputation on stock return and risk. A model based on firms' financial market data was assessed through a panel data analysis which included 84,745 firm-year observations, which occurred between January 6^th, 2009, and December 31^th, 2019, from a full sample of 156 United States firms listed in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), 82 of which were listed in Reputation Quotient (RQ).

The results show that there are no significant differences between listed and not listed firms in Reputation Quotient concerning firms' abnormal returns and firms' systematic risk. This can be justified because stock prices adjusted instantly to the corporate reputation, which supports the market efficiency hypothesis.

This study may provide important insights into the literature: firstly, although the impact of reputation on performance has gained attention in recent years, the firsts studies essentially analyze the reverse impact; secondly, this work aims to, simultaneously, study the effect of corporate reputation on return and risk, being the impact on the risk an area still little explored and with controversial results; thirdly, this study distinguishes itself by using a set of firms listed in a reputation ranking and a set of firms not listed, but with similar characteristics in terms of market capitalization, highlighting the impact of reputation communication through media rankings.