Marketing and Reputation within Professional Service Firms
This chapter reviews the research on marketing and reputation relevant to Professional Service Firms (PSFs). Although there has been relatively little research to date which explores both fields concurrently, the authors organize the material by problematizing the issue of marketing within PSFs. They introduce and provide a conceptual model of reputation that explores its antecedents, such as service quality, social networks, and rankings as well as consequences such as sales effectiveness, premium pricing, and client loyalty within PSFs. Reputation has often been conflated with other related terms such as identity and image and the authors provide some clarification on defining and measuring reputation. The chapter explores this and other problems inherent within the application of reputation to marketing principles and practice to PSFs as well as hints at solutions. Finally, the authors identify a future research agenda for both marketing and reputation.