Defining a brand's reputation and identifying the criteria used to assess a financial services brand's reputation: a comparison across stakeholders

Abstract

The importance and impact of reputation is well documented in the literature. Yet scant empirical research has been conducted into the way different stakeholder groups define and assess reputation. This paper examines the way that different stakeholder groups define a brand's reputation and identifies the criteria they use to evaluate a financial services brand's reputation. The findings provide confirmation of many of the themes discerned in definitions of reputation proposed in the literature. However, in contrast to the literature, the research revealed that different stakeholder groups do not necessarily use different criteria to evaluate reputation, but rather emphasise different criteria.