The broadening spectrum of reputation risk in organizations: banking on risk and trust relationships

Abstract

Globalizing knowledge economies foster conditions that intensify the role and value of organizational reputation risk. In a holistic, enterprise focused era reputation is a key strategic construct that can act as a boundary object linking communities within and between organizations. Yet approaches to its management tend to be reactive and remain under the hold of industrial society principles. In this paper we examine the influences fuelling a broadening in the spectrum of organizational reputation risk. Having noted the ambivalence that surrounds ‘risk positions’, we present a re-definition of reputation risk that encompasses the dynamics of contemporary risk and trust relationships. We explore the capacity of different trust forms to reduce complexity concerning the future and examine the potential of ‘active trust development’ as an approach to the management of reputation risk in organizations. This paper contributed to theoretical development of reputation risk in organizations through an analysis of recent literatures on risk, trust and reputation that links it to broader developments in society