Conceptualizing and Measuring (Public) Reputation Management

Abstract

This article develops and empirically validates a conceptualization of reputation management in a public sector context. We define reputation management as management behaviors intended to identify and affect how external audiences perceive an organization, including their perceptions of what the organization is, what it strives to be, and the organization’s positive impact on society more broadly. Such behaviors include strategically communicating the organization’s vision to its most important external audiences. The empirical analysis is based on survey responses from 499 employees and 59 managers from three Danish agencies. The analysis yields support for our measure of reputation management. We conclude with a future research agenda on how our conceptualization and scale can be used to further develop Bureaucratic Reputation Theory, as well as public management research aimed at investigating the simultaneous use as well as simultaneous external and internal effects of different types of public management and leadership behaviors.