Charles J. Fombrun

Social Network Analysis For Organizations

This article introduces the social network approach — its origins, key concepts, and methods. We argue for its use in organizational settings and apply the network approach in a comparative analysis of two organizations.

Opportunity Platforms and Safety Nets: Corporate Citizenship and Reputational Risk

It is argued that no simple correlation can be established between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance. The activities that generate CSP do not directly impact the companys financial performance, but instead affect the bottom line via its stock of reputational capital - the financial value of its intangible assets. It is suggested that corporate citizenship programs can be designed to help companies address reputational threats and opportunities to achieve reputational gains while mitigating reputational losses.

Constructing competitive advantage: the role of firm–constituent interactions

Current models of competitive advantage emphasize economic factors as explanations for a firm’s success but ignore sociocognitive factors. This paper integrates economic and cognitive perspectives, and shows how firms and constituents jointly construct the environments in which firms compete. We argue that competitive advantage is a systemic outcome that develops as firms and constituents participate in six processes that entail, not only use and exchange of resources, but also communication about and interpretations of those exchanges. The interpretations that firms and constituents make of competitive interactions affect decisions about how to exchange and use resources. As interpretations and evaluations of a given firm fluctuate, so do the resources the firm has access to and its competitive advantage in the marketplace. The actions and interpretations of constituents and rivals produce the shifting terrain on which competition unfolds. We illustrate these dynamics with a discussion of IBM’s changing competitive advantage in the computer industry in the 1980s. Copyright

Network Analysis in Organizational Settings

This article sets out to reinforce andfurther develop an emerging paradigm: social network analysis, which represents social structure in terms of relationships (ties) between social objects. Not all the social objects are directly linked, and objects may be connected by multiple relationships of affect, influence, information, or goods and services. Network analysis deals with the types and patterns of relationships, and the causes and consequences of these patterns. The article applies the paradigm to the study of organizational structure by both developing theoretical constructs and presenting methodology for carrying out social network analysis in organizations. An analysis of three organizations from the Aston Study is presented using social network analysis to test propositions about differences between mechanistic and organic structures.

Human resources management: A strategic perspective

We are coming to a time when the management of human resources must take a more prominent place in the firm’s decisions. The value and leverage of the resources is simply too great for the kind of reactive response to pressures which has characterized it in the past As it stands today, the personnel function, or industrial relations, or whatever title is used, is typically not a major mover in the firm . . . The reactive not the proactive tradition is strong in the personnel field.

Attributions of Power Across a Social Network

This paper examines the relationship between individual and structural explanations of attributions of power across two domains: administrative decisions and technical decisions. An assessment is made of the relative importance of member level variates against contextual variates as determinants of perceived power. The results suggest that contextual effects are far stronger than member level variates. Among member level characteristics, an incumbents formal status is found to be a primary determinant of his perceived administrative power, while his expertise is a better predictor of his perceived technical power. The formal structure outweighs the interaction network as a context for understanding attributions of power.

Intergroup Processes: A Micro Macro Perspective

The article reviews the book “Intergroup Processes: A Micro Macro Perspective,” by Hubert M. Blalock, Jr. and Paul H. Wilken.

Reputationsanalyse mit dem Reputation Quotient

Aufbau und Pflege einer tragfahigen Unternehmensreputation zahlen zu den zentralen Zielgrosen der Unternehmenskommunikation. Ein effizientes und effektives Management der Unternehmensreputation setzt dabei vor allem eine differenzierte und verlassliche Messung dieses schwer fassbaren Phanomens voraus. Ohne entsprechend tragfahige Erkenntnisse zu Ist und Soll der Unternehmensreputation besteht nicht nur das Risiko, dass gut gemeinte Masnahmen ins Leere gehen und mithin wertvolle Ressourcen fehlalloziert werden. Daruber hinaus besteht vielmehr in hohem Mase sogar die Gefahr, dass genau das Gegenteil dessen erreicht wird, was eigentlich geplant war. Anstelle eines Reputationszuwachses stellt sich ein Reputationsverlust ein – unter Umstanden sogar einhergehend mit massiven Glaubwurdigkeits- und Vertrauensverlusten. Ein leistungsfahiges Konzept, das bereits seit 1999 auf der internationalen Ebene eingesetzt wird, um die Reputation von Unternehmen in den unterschiedlichsten Landern zu messen, ist der Reputation Quotient (RQ). Er wurde zunachst im Rahmen des internationalen Expertennetzwerkes des Reputation Institute (RI) in Gestalt des sogenannten Harris-Fombrun-RQ etabliert, gelangt inzwischen aber bereits in erweiterten Varianten erfolgreich zum Einsatz. Diese Konzepte, die einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Analyse der Unternehmensreputation als Basis der Planung eines Reputationsmanagement und speziell einer Ziel fuhrenden Ausrichtung der Unternehmenskommunikation leisten, werden in diesem Beitrag vorgestellt.

Structures of Organizational Governance

Organizations are viewed as systems of governance. A distinction is made between formal structure and governance structure, and a network perspective is adopted to investigate the correspondence between them. This paper reports on an exploratory investigation of governance in an R&D laboratory in which decision-making power is found to be concentrated in an elite cadre of managers and experts who are also centrally located in the interaction network. The article discusses the utility of the concept of governance in enriching our perspective on organizational structuring.

Ansatzpunkte zur Messung der Reputation von Unternehmen

Unternehmensreputation stellt einen zentralen Vermögenswert sowie einen wichtigen strategischen Erfolgsfaktor dar. Voraussetzung eines leistungsfähigen Reputationsmanagement bildet eine aussagekräftige Messung der bestehenden, aber auch der künftig anzustrebenden Unternehmensreputation. Je aussagekräftiger die Informationen zu Ist und Soll sind, desto effizienter und effektiver lässt sich auch ein Reputationsmanagement anlegen. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird zunächst in Gestalt des „Reputation Quotien“ (RQ) ein besonders leistungsfähiges Messkonzept vorgestellt, das schon seit mehreren Jahren in zahlreichen Ländern zum Einsatz kommt, um die Reputation von Top-Unternehmen zu messen. Im Anschluss daran werden verschiedene Ansätze zur Weiterentwicklung dieses Messkonzepts kurz angerissen, um zu zeigen, in welche Richtung die aktuelle Diskussion in diesem wichtigen Feld geht.