Reputation

Franz Boas: Boon or Bane?

by Herbert Lewis

PUblished in Reviews in Anthropology, 37: 169–200, 2008

Corporate Reputation and Cost of Debt

by Celim Yildizhan

Although the theoretical literature since Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Diamond (1989) has recognized that reputation... more Although the theoretical literature since Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Diamond (1989) has recognized that reputation should impact credit relationships, that impact has never been fully quantified. We show that firm reputation - the intangible way in which a company is perceived by others - plays an important role in determining corporate cost of debt. We measure a company's reputation using the annual ranking of "Most Admired Companies" published by Fortune magazine, which surveys industry experts about firm reputations. After controlling for credit risk and other determinants of credit spreads, we find a robust inverse relationship between a firm's reputation as measured by the Fortune survey and the credit spread on its bonds. We also find this effect to be greater for firms that are subject to greater information asymmetry. By explicitly accounting for an intangible element of credit risk, we substantially improve upon the existing literature which, relying on more tangible factors, concludes that a large component of credit spread variation remains unexplained. We also show that the Fortune reputation score is a good ex ante predictor of corporate failure, improving upon standard measures used in the literature.

Corporate Images of the United Kingdom National Health Service: Implications for the Recruitment and Retention of Nursing and Allied Health Profession Staff

by Crispin Coombs

An Experimental Study of the Reputation Mechanism in a Business Game

by Marco Greco

Co-authored with A. Branca & G. Morena, published online-first in 'Simulation & Gaming', 2010

Reputation enables different parties to establish a trusting and cooperative relationship, a key factor in integrative... more Reputation enables different parties to establish a trusting and cooperative relationship, a key factor in integrative negotiations referred to as “win-win” negotiations. Thus, a good reputation mechanism can bring simulations closer to reality. In this study, the authors review the reputation mechanisms applied to the online business game WIN WIN MANAGER, where the players’ reputations are decided by their counterparts at the end of each negotiation. Then, the authors compare two reputation mechanisms and hypothesize that the best mechanism will be more positively correlated with the negotiation outcome, which is measured by a scoring algorithm. Using nonparametric statistics, it is highlighted that the reputation mechanism in earlier versions of the game seems to produce values unrelated to the score, whereas the new mechanism produces values significantly positively correlated with the score. Such results can be useful to scholars who conduct experiments on negotiation, as well as online markets in which users are allowed to negotiate with one another.

Sociabilité en ligne, notoriété virtuelle et carrière artistique. Les musiciens autoproduits sur MySpace, Réseaux 152, 2008.

by Jean-Samuel Beuscart

Sur la base d’une série d’entretiens avec des artistes musicaux, l’article examine les ressorts de la construction de... more Sur la base d’une série d’entretiens avec des artistes musicaux, l’article examine les ressorts de la construction de la notoriété en ligne, et le taux de conversion de cette notoriété virtuelle en bénéfices réels pour la carrière artistique. Si le dispositif MySpace place les utilisateurs dans une position d’entrepreneur de leur propre notoriété, chaque utilisateur reconstruisant la frontière entre sociabilité acceptable et pollution publicitaire. Sous réserve de s’engager intensivement dans l’usage de MySpace, et d’en appliquer les recettes, les artistes parviennent à accumuler un capital de notoriété virtuelle qui leur donne accès à des opportunités professionnelles sur une multiplicité de scènes locales, sans pour autant parvenir à contourner les obstacles sur la voie de l’accès au cœur des industries culturelles.


FROM ON-LINE FUN TO RICHES? Online reputation and real-life benefits from the use of MySpace by small musical artists Based on a series of interviews with self-produced musical artists who use MySpace as a communication tool, this article examines the mechanisms of online reputation building, and the conversion rate of online fame into reallife career opportunities. First, the author notes that, even though the technical set-up of MySpace induces people to maximize their online audience figures, users differ vastly in their practice of self-promotion; every user has to draw his or her own line between acceptable sociability and spam. He then shows that the intensive use of MySpace, and a few tricks of success, can earn artists a significant capital of online reputation. This capital can be turned into opportunities on multiple local scenes: concerts, collaborations, or edition on micro-labels. But MySpace does not allow artists to bypass the obstacles on the way to the music industry.

“It's a Wonderful Life”: signaling generosity among the Ache of Paraguay

by Wesley Allen-Arave

available for download at http://www.unm.edu/~allenara/publications.htm, 2nd author with Michael Gurven, Kim Hill, and A. Magdalena Hurtado, published in ‘Evolution and Human Behavior’

Intensive food sharing among foragers and horticulturists is commonly explained as a means of reducing the risk of... more Intensive food sharing among foragers and horticulturists is commonly explained as a means of reducing the risk of daily shortfalls, ensuring adequate daily consumption for all group members who actively pool resources. Consistently high food producers who give more than they receive, however, gain the least risk-reduction benefit from this daily pooling because they are the least likely to go without food on any given day. Why then do some high producers consistently share food, and why do some average producers share proportionally more food than others? We propose that although these individuals may not receive the same amounts they give (i.e., strict Tit-for-Tat), one explanation for their generosity is that they receive additional food during hard times. These include brief episodes of sickness, disease, injury, or accidents—fairly common events in traditional societies that can render individuals incapable of producing food, thereby having long-term effects on morbidity and fecundity and ultimately on lifetime reproductive success. Data collected among the Ache, a group of South American forager-horticulturists, indicate that those who shared and produced more than average (signaling cooperative intent and/or ability to produce) were rewarded with more food from more people when injured or sick than those who shared and produced below average. These results, framed within the context of tradeoffs between short-term and long-term fitness, may provide insight into motivations behind costly expenditures for establishing and reinforcing status and reputation.