Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2016

Abstract

Companies are exposed to reputational scandals derived from both their actions and the behavior of other parties. Even seemingly routine business interactions have the potential to generate scandals and threaten the reputations of major companies. This research addresses the question, “What is the experience of managerial officers attending to and mitigating reputational threats, whether attributable to themselves or to external parties which may or may not be affiliated with the organization?” The methodological approach used is grounded theory based on semi-structured interviews with managers of 27 major publicly traded organizations. Their responses document that not all reputational threats become scandals, and that an organization’s ability to prevent scandals lies in developing internal governance intelligence. This, in turn, relies on solid detection and monitoring control systems, the inclusiveness of the ethical control environment, and regulatory adherence. A scandal occurs when at least one of those elements fails and, once it does, the organization must invest additional resources in the design and implementation of a damage-controlling management plan to minimize the associated negative effects. Keywords: governance intelligence; internal controls; reputational scandals; reputational threats

Keywords

governance intelligence, internal controls, reputational scandals, reputational threats, executives, reputation, organizational resilience, Weatherhead School of Management

Rights

© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Department/Center

Design & Innovation

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