Stakeholder Evaluations of Corporate Reputation: Findings from Industrial Buyers in the South African Steel Industry

Although an extensive body of literature shows the importance of managing and measuring corporate reputation (CR), empirical studies investigating how stakeholder evaluations of reputation are influenced by the external business environment in which they operate has received scant attention. This study explores the extent to which country and industry drivers influence the assessment of CR. We use a mixed-methods design to investigate the perceptions of industrial buyers in the South African steel industry. Comparisons of our findings with normative measures of CR suggest that whilst some dimensions of standardized measures of CR are universal across contexts, others such as innovation may not be as relevant. Findings show that industrial buyers consider a number of country and industry drivers that are not included in standardized CR measures when evaluating CR. These results underscore the need for those who manage and measure CR to investigate how the countries and industries in which they operate influence their stakeholders’ evaluations of CR.