Chief executives expect a good reputation on social issues to be as important to a company’s overall standing as financial credibility, a global survey suggests.
The poll of 163 multinationals by the Judge Institute of Management Studies asked chief executives to rank seven elements of reputation in terms of their importance in maintaining a positive corporate image.
They put a company’s social credibility on a par with its financial standing as the third most important factor, slightly above environmental credibility, which ranked fourth. ‘Leadership and vision’ was deemed most important, followed by ‘quality’ and ‘knowledge and skills’, which were ranked second equal.
The respondents headed Global Fortune 500 companies, mostly headquartered in Europe in sectors ranging from banking to mining. European CEOs tended to assign a higher place to social and environmental credibility than their North American counterparts. The Judge Institute is the University of Cambridge’s business school.