Corporate reputation and the family business

Corporate reputation is a largely neglected topic in the family firm literature. That neglect is surprising because corporate reputation is found to be an important source of competitive advantage and can therefore be an explanatory factor for firm performance and behaviour. The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the field of family business by demonstrating the potential of the reputation research in this field. The chapter first introduces the corporate reputation construct and how this construct and the related constructs of image and reputation capital are approached in the literature from different disciplines. The second part of the chapter provides a review of the current family business literature on this topic. Three approaches of corporate reputation have been identified: 1. Reputation of family firms as an assessment by stakeholders. 2. Reputation as a managerial goal to preserve socioemotional wealth. 3. Reputation as a communication goal or strategy of family firms. The discussion of the literature identifies major gaps in our knowledge and in our methodological orientation that represent opportunities for future research.