Organizational image and reputation construction by various stakeholders using social media
Creators: name: Li, Zhe
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2021

description: This study aims to investigate how organizational image and reputation are constructed and shaped through the use of social media by organizations and a variety of organizational stakeholders. Organizational images that are communicatively constructed by organizations and key stakeholders on organizationally-sanctioned social media and counter-organizational social media, and how stakeholders’ social media use affect the perceived organizational image and perceived organizational reputation are examined. A mixed-method, multiple-case-study design is adopted and BP and Monsanto are selected as the two case companies for this study.The data collection and analyses include two phases. In Phase 1, textual messages were collected from the three social media sites related to BP and the three social media sites related to Monsanto; and semantic network analysis was conducted to analyze the textual messages to identify organizational images conveyed on those sites. In Phase 2, online surveys were conducted and Amazon MTurk workers were recruited to participate in the study to examine public perceptions of the communication between organizations and stakeholders on social media, the organization-stakeholder relationship, organizational image, and organizational reputation.Findings of the study suggest social media not only provide opportunities for organizations to build preferred images and reputation, but also bring substantial risks and could significantly damage an organization’s image and reputation. Contrasting organizational images were built on organizational and counter-organizational social media sites and both types of social media sites strategically built and conveyed specific images of BP and Monsanto according to their goals. The study found that social media provide platforms for stakeholders to express voices, unite people who intend to make changes, and declare their resistance to the big corporate giants. In this respect, social media do empower otherwise disadvantaged stakeholders to some extent by providing communication channels to them that even large organizations are unable to control. The systematic communication activities of the two counter-organizations, Boycott BP and Occupy Monsanto, reveal that in the era of social media, organizational image and reputation are co-created/co-constructed by both organizations and stakeholders, rather than solely constructed by organizations. The study found social media become interaction arenas of organizational image and reputation construction, and multiple images and reputations coexist in these arenas. Stakeholders’ social media use positively predicted organization-stakeholder dialogic communication on both types of social media sites, which positively predicted organization-stakeholder relationships. Organizational image and reputation were strongly and positively related, and both of them were positively predicted by organization-stakeholder relationships. No direct effects of organization-stakeholder dialogic communication were found on organizational image and reputation. The effects of dialogic communication and organizational image/reputation were mediated by organization-stakeholder relationship.