The Role of Financial Performance in Corporate Reputation Management: An Analysis on the Press Releases Published by Corporations During the Pandemic

As with all their assets, organizations need management when it comes to their reputation. Having a successful corporate reputation is closely related to how corporations manage their existing reputation. The main components of long-term corporate reputation are categorized as appealing to emotions, product and service quality, vision and leadership, financial performance, workplace environment and social responsibility (Fombrun et al., 2013: 253). Among these components, financial performance is positioned as one of the main factors that come to the fore especially in crisis situations. Financial performance is also an effective factor in building trust in all relationships established with the target audience. Therefore, organizations should reflect their financial performance with a good corporate communication strategy in order to create a solid corporate reputation based on trust. The Covid-19 pandemic, which affected the whole world in 2019, negatively affected many corporations in Turkey economically. In the face of this situation, which can be described as a global crisis, corporations carried out corporate communication activities that support corporate reputation management in order to turn the crisis into an opportunity. It is seen that especially the financial performances of the corporations are highlighted among these activities carried out with the aim of strengthening the positive image of the corporations in the eyes of their stakeholders and the public. Within the scope of this research, the press releases published by five companies operating within the automotive sector in Turkey, among the sectors given in the Sectoral Impact of Covid 19 on the Economy report of Global Times (2020), were examined through the content analysis method in the context of financial performance indicators. The purpose of the research is to reveal how organizations reflect their strategies, which include the elements that reflect their financial performance in their press releases, to the public. As a result of the research, the financial performance indicator that took the most place in all the press releases examined was determined as “competitive advantage”.