Using Corporate Social Responsibility as a Public Relations Tool in Reputation Management

This chapter delves into the subject of corporate social responsibility, its relations, and how it affects corporate reputation. The literature review presents a brief history of CSR and sheds light into the role of business ethics, corporate governance, corporate citizenship, and corporate social performance with a specific focus on companies' approaches towards CSR; motivations for company to invest in CSR; and corporate reputation. While the literature review will wrap up with arguments for and against CSR, this chapter will provide a brief outlook on CSR practices in Turkey.

Reputation Management

The scope of this chapter is to provide insight into how reputation can be managed through brand management, corporate communication practices, and new media strategies. Corporate communication practices carried out through public relations applications has become an increasingly important function in business organizations. Yet, little has been published on the role and function of communication executives. This chapter reveals the impact of corporate communications upon the formulation of corporate strategy.

Corporate Reputation Management in Times of Crisis

It has become more difficult for companies to be successful and to sustain their success in today's competitive global world. It is necessary that the crises organizations are faced with must be managed well to prevent the loss of the reputation of the organization. Corporate reputation is one of the most important elements that differentiate organizations from each other. How the products and services of the companies are perceived by the target audience is closely related to the corporate reputation management of companies. Managing reputation becomes twice as important during crises management processes. One of the most important tasks belongs to public relations departments of companies. Conveying corporate reputation to the target audience in an efficient way requires public relations works. This also requires sustainability of the relevant activities and measures to enable the company to survive.

Strategical Reputation Management in PR

Corporate reputation, being one of the most important assets that affect the profitability of companies, creates a difference in helping companies to recover from economic crises, gain price advantage against their competitors, diversify their products in the face of fierce competition, and thus, raise their brand value. Non-predictable and sudden global or regional events may cause companies and organizations to make unplanned changes and these changes can inflict difficulties on business operations. This chapter addresses the sudden crises experienced by companies and illustrates their success or failure in managing these crises and the extent of reputation being affected in return. Examples are given to show how crises can be turned into opportunities when managed well and how they can lead to disaster when managed inappropriately.

Use of Brand Heroes in Strategic Reputation Management

The last decade witnessed a renewal of historical approaches towards business management that emphasize the malleability of the past in order to serve the present. This chapter studies the use of heroes when organizations pursue strategic change, which the authors term hero-molding. The aim is to incorporate a postmodern approach towards the analysis of the representation of heroes within organizations. To explore the use of heroes, a framework of ways in which hero-molding could be established is developed and tested by the use of a longitudinal document analysis. Data showed that hero-molding is a practiced phenomena and is used to showcase continuity, despite of strategic change. Hero-molding could be achieved through the editing of the composition and/or the meaning of labels and by help of highlighting labels attached to the hero. This chapter contributes to the enrichment of the newly developed “uses of the past” approach by showing the malleability of the interpretation of prominent members of an organization in the wake of strategic change.

Sustainable Communication as a Component of Corporate Reputation

Sustainability is central to both business and academics. The cooperation of business with its close stakeholders is possible only through communication. Intangible assets and facilities are important values of corporations. This chapter gives a new perspective to reputation management strategies in the aspect of sustainable communication. It shows the effectiveness of sustainable communication in terms of corporate reputation.

Reputation Management in the Age of Big Data

The objective of this chapter is to reveal the role of big data in establishing effective corporate communication. This will be further investigated by shedding light into how brands as well as corporations make use of big data to heighten their brand value and improve their reputation. Big data is used in various sectors ranging from banking, public sector, health, telecommunication, and marketing in order to increase productivity, minimize costs, and set future goals. Big data, actively used and experienced in the world and upon which many sample case studies have been conducted, is such a giant step in organizations that enables them to safeguard their future, increase profits, assess risks, and take calculated steps.

Emotional Labor as a Reputation Management Technique in Service Organizations

This chapter discusses the issue of emotional labor as a reputation management technique. This technique, which is important for service organizations' reputations, concerns the organizational arrangements and individual processes affecting the ways in which employees exhibit expected behaviors toward their customers during service encounters. First, the chapter discusses the concept and theoretical background of reputation management. Then, it explores the concept, types, and dimensions of emotional labor by emphasizing the meaning and importance of emotional labor for service organizations. Finally, it examines the antecedents of emotional labor and the organizational and individual consequences it exposes. It is hoped that this chapter will guide service sector administrators in understanding the importance and management of emotional labor in terms of organizational reputations while also shedding light on the academic studies still needed in this field.

The Use of Second Screen Practices in Reputation Management

This chapter shines a light for understanding consumer behavior on the way the consumer develops awareness of product placements in the television content, interest in products she noticed, desire to get one of these placed products, and finally intent to take an action to gather information about the product. Public relations, marketing, and sales experts can benefit from product placement if they truly analyze the consumers who are active at the second screen. Thus, brands with recent product placement know-how can successfully manage their reputation and sales related to interest of potential customers at the second screen.

Integrating Public Relations and Social Marketing

This chapter discusses how new media turns individuals into medium, the changing face of brand communication, and works as a handmaiden in producing the right content for mass media with data management. A theoretical research with a qualitative analysis is conducted by analyzing the content methods used in new and social media in various sectors (such as construction, tourism, shopping malls, retail, health, education, etc.), from 1991 to 2015, while the focal point will be to emphasize how reputation can be managed online.