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INTRODUCTION
Several studies have examined how a strong corporate reputation improves the performance of an organization, whether in financial terms (Roberts and Dowling, 2002; Eberl and Schwaiger, 2005), in its operations or at the strategic level (Brammer and Pavelin, 2006; Christopher and Gaudenzi, 2009). In this latter sense, corporate reputation is a strategic asset (Rayner, 2003), and any damage to it could create a critical threat (Atkins et al. , 2006). In the past decade, several well-established companies have faced such crises, such as British Petroleum's involvement in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Toyota's loss of market share after a product recall and Enron's financial ethics scandal (Louisot and Rayner, 2011). Even Johnson & Johnson, which saved its brand reputation after the Tylenol threat in the 1980s, spent much of 2011 defending itself against a boycott of its baby shampoo by a child advocacy group that alleged it used dangerous chemicals that might cause cancer (Crisis Management Report, 2011). Health care and Financial sectors continue to suffer from substantial exposure to their reputation and recent crises demonstrate how a single corporate crisis can affect the entire sector, as well as the wider society and economy. These domino effects also spread from production/distribution to entire product categories, and social media are amplifying and accelerating these reactions worldwide.
These effects on reputation are more and more important for those organizations considered as 'top companies', where the value related to intangible assets is quite critical and should be carefully protected (Larkin, 2003).
The Reputation Institute (2012) ranked the management of reputational risk (eg Reputation issues management) as one of the top reputation priorities in 2012. Yet despite recognition in previous studies and business surveys that risk related to reputation is critical (Black et al. , 2000; Eccles et al. , 2007; Greyser, 2009; Commercial Risk Europe, 2013), concrete reputational risk management approaches remain poorly undertaken and developed (Louisot and Rayner, 2011).
From an academic point of view, there has been a call for more research combining the fields of reputation management, risk assessment and knowledge management (Neef, 2005).
Moving from these considerations, our study aims at taking some preliminary steps in building a process for increasing awareness about reputational risk providing companies with a structured...