by Pat Akey, Stefan Lewellen, and Inessa Liskovich

Corporations have reputations, just like individuals. However, the costs of protecting a corporate reputation, or the costs of losing one, are not well understood. Negative reputation shocks can be costly, and recent scandals at well-known firms such as News Corp. and Volkswagen have reaffirmed the fragility of corporate reputations. However, corporations can also invest in technologies such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) to build their reputations or to provide insurance against a future reputation shock. In a recent paper, we find that negative reputation shocks are at least partially insurable through CSR and that firms actively invest in CSR as the result of a negative reputation shock. Continue reading →