As the role of public relations becomes increasingly important, so does the definition. Public relations now involves reputation management as nicely put by The British Chartered Institute of Public Relations, that is is "the discipline which looks after reputation". In this chapter, I learnt the relevance of reputation management for organisations and the importance of stakeholders in maintaining a positive image for for the organisations. I was also able to distinguish the difference between various key concepts such as corporate reputation, image, brand identity, and culture.
I felt that there is a direct relationship between the stakeholders of an organisation and its reputation. Reputation as read from the textbook, is generally referred to a person's character, state of being well reported of, credit, distinction, respectability, or good report. Research shows that positive relationships with stakeholders lead directly to improved financial performance because organisations with satisfied stakeholders enjoy a good reputation. It is therefore important for public relations officers to take their clients' interests into full consideration to ensure a positive overall image perceived by the public. That is why we often discuss about issues such as public relations ethics, and crisis management because these factors help to contribute to the reputation of the respective organisations.
However, I would like to highlight that the public relations could only provide minimal help to organisations in managing their reputation. This is becaue corporate reputation could be tarnished as long as a key factor of the organisation is affected. For instance, Hutton et. al (2001) mentioned that the CEO's personal reputation could affect the overall corporate reputation of the organisation. Unless public relations could help manage the personal image of every managing directors of the organisation, it is difficult to avoid damages to the organisation's reputation. In addition, reputation is the result of consistency of delivering on promises (Bussy, 2009). This means that if an organisation failed to deliver its promise to the public, the damage is already done and there is no point relying on public relations to manage the reputation because the perception of the organisation has long been created by the public.
References
Chia, J. and Synnott, G. (2009), An Introduction to Public Relations: From Theory to Practice, Reputation Management: A Driving Force For Action, Oxford University Press, Australia, New Zealand.
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