Textbook Chapter 8

This chapter gave some insight into reputation management for organisations. It is indeed important for an organisation to have a positive reputation as it can make or break a potential client’s first impression of it. These days, reputation management is a part of public relations practitioners’ jobs.

I agree with the textbook’s notion that an organisation’s relationship with its stakeholders plays an important part in determining its reputation. One stakeholder who has a particularly large influence on an organisation’s reputation is its clients. When an organisation has a poor relationship with its client, it would mean that the client is dissatisfied with the organisation. If the client spreads the news about his bad experience, it can cause others to have a poor perception of the organisation too. In this way, the organisation’s reputation would have suffered some damage.

I feel that the media also has significant control over an organisation’s reputation, even though it is not a primary stakeholder. The public relies heavily on mass media for information on international and local affairs. Thus, any information disseminated by the media will have a large outreach.

According to the hypodermic needle communication theory, the media holds significant influence over public opinion. If the media portrays an organisation in a negative light, the public is likely to have a poor perception of the organisation. In this way, the organisation’s reputation would take a beating.

Although reputation management is part of a public relations practitioner’s responsibilities, I feel the organisation cannot solely rely on it. The other corporate functions are also responsible for reputation management. If one department in the organisation is unable to build a satisfactory relationship with its stakeholders, the damage to its reputation is already done and the effort made by the public relations practitioner to build a positive reputation would have been futile.