Administration May 6, 2002

Reputations Ruined by Unethical Conduct

June 5, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Having witnessed the fallout from the Arthur Andersen accounting scandal, almost half the executives polled in a survey cited unethical behavior as one of the greatest threats to a company's reputation.
Reported by

And watching the scandal unfold in the media caused 49% of the sample to cite negative press as constituting a real threat.

According to the annual Corporate Reputation Watch survey by Chief Executive magazine and PR firm Hill and Knowlton,

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANSPONSOR NEWSDash daily newsletter.

  • a further 36% believe that disasters pose the most danger to corporate reputation,
  • some 35% point to litigation, and
  • only 13% of the sample say that criticism on the Internet poses the biggest threat

Influences

This year’s survey found that

  • 93% of the nation’s senior executives believe that the opinion of customers strongly influences corporate reputation,
  • followed by employees, cited by 80%, and 
  • CEO reputation, also 80%

The majority of the companies included in the survey measure their corporate reputation either formally or informally.  To do so,

  • 73% listen to the word on the street,
  •  41% conduct custom research,
  • 40% believe that financial performance has the most impact on corporate reputation,
  • 32% pay attention to media coverage, and
  • 27% take note of published rankings.

The survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive in February, comprised the input of 557 executives.

«