Building Reputational Capital: Strategies for Integrity and Fair Play That Improve the Bottom Line

By Kevin T. Jackson

Book Overview

In the aftermath of scandals such as those at Enron and WorldCom, there is a growing suspicion of the corporate world. For this reason it is more important than ever for firms to maintain a good reputation. In Building Reputational Capital, Kevin T. Jackson offers a practical guide to taking the high road--the only path that leads to lasting success.
Based on extensive research and real-world experience, Building Reputational Capital reveals basic principles of integrity and fairness with which firms can build an enduring reputation. More than image, a firm's reputation is a form of capital often neglected in the boardroom and overlooked in conventional analyses of financial statements. Speaking directly to the work experience of real people in practical business settings, Jackson couples each principle with straightforward actions that drive management systems, and he provides tested strategies--from downsizing techniques to e-commerce tips--that cultivate the hidden power of a good reputation. He outlines the advantages of a superior reputation (simply put, people want to work for, invest in, and do business with a company or person with integrity), describes the vital role the firm's leader must play, offers ways to build and protect your reputation on the Internet (from defusing Internet rumors to creating an online community), and shows how to rescue your reputation once disaster hits. Perhaps most important, he shows how to strike the right balance of virtues like authenticity, honesty, responsibility, and stewardship of the environment, employees, and the economy.
Highlighted with real-life success stories--from giants like Hewlett-Packard to small firms like Thanksgiving Coffee Company (which invests part of its revenues in the Central American villages in which its beans are grown), Building Reputational Capital offers a simple but effective guide for executives, managers, entrepreneurs, legal professionals, and corporate consultants.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195161386
• ISBN13: 9780195161380
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Packed with Knowledge!

This important book advocates an ethical way to do business and elevates "soft" concepts, such as reputation, ethics and civic responsibilities, into real factors affecting your corporate bottom line. Using fresh interpretations and real-world examples, author Kevin Jackson shows how these elements can add to or detract from a corporation's capital structure. He shares his mastery of how global corporations operate differently when they have a reputation for fairness and integrity. Jackson might challenge some management teams and boards of directors with his use of academic models, business cases and critical presentations to prove that good business behaviors and long-term profits are linked. We recommend Jackson's persuasive book to business owners, strategists, marketers and senior managers who aspire to be leaders. As this fine book very ably shows, when a company builds a great reputation, everyone benefits.

Why Corporate Ethics Pays

This is a great accomplishment that speaks right to sophisticated business audiences interested in winning while still following their conscience. Author Kevin Jackson demonstrates how taking the moral high road is the most certain way for firms to gain lasting financial success. As he says, "companies that operate ethically, that safeguard and cultivate their reputations, gain a competitive edge over rivals that don't." In this scrupulously researched (its even got stock charts to show effects of ethical/unethical conduct on share prices), interesting, and logically organized book, Jackson offers a practical guide for executives, managers, entrepreneurs, lawyers and consultants. There couldn't be a better time for a book like this to be hitting the press!

Integrity Impacts the Bottom Line

This book develops the astute and timely premise that ethical conduct in business is at root a solid economic investment. While money spent following the law might not lead to any special payoffs other than avoiding fines and other sanctions, when a company moves beyond compliance it is making a long-term investment in its reputational capital. Author Kevin Jackson convincingly shows how the notion that you need to be brutal to make it in the business world is a huge myth. And clinging to that myth can ruin a firm's reputation and hurt its bottom line in the process. The powerful message of Jackson's book rings out loud and clear: a reputation for integrity and fair play is the most overlooked intangible asset that a company owns. I think that every businessperson would benefit from a careful study of this book. The author shows how wrongheaded it is for companies to focus on the short-term only, trying to please shareholders with the stock price games that have become all-too-familiar and even scandalous. Jackson gives a clear, sophisticated, and highly insightful guide to help firms maximize principles of moral responsibility -- including respecting human rights, being environmentally friendly, and socially conscious -- to build an enduring and authentic reputation. One of the really interesting ideas set out in the book is that building a strong ethical reputation doesn't have to be a budget-busting enterprise. Corporate leaders can make themselves accessible, treat people with dignity and respect, be compassionate without having to spend a dime. Other good strategies Jackson sets out include: conducting reputation audits, creating mission statements, treating critics (sometimes even activists) as advisors by listening to their point of view, and fostering loyalty from employees and suppliers, which eventually will find its way to customers. The book is inspirational and refreshing, taking both a broad, philosophical perspective while also showing a high degree of sophistication in detailed matters of contemporary business and finance. In making his case for the impact of corporate character on economic assets, he covers ground from Enron, WorldCom and the mutual fund debacle to human rights issues in the Third World.