Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 504
One number cannot carry a reputation
A focused trustworthiness measure can track how stakeholders judge honesty and concern while leaving competence and broader corporate standing separate.
Premise
Reputation becomes unmanageable when one number is asked to represent everything stakeholders think about an organization. The Organizational Reputation Scale developed by W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay offers a narrower instrument. It measures a trustworthiness-centered judgment: whether an organization appears honest, trustworthy, and concerned about its publics. That focus is useful in crisis communication because it can detect movement in a consequential dimension. Competence, broader corporate standing, the reasons a judgment formed, and the choice of response all sit outside that focus.
What the model is: Organizational Reputation Scale in Knowledge →
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- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
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- FamilyTool
- CategoryMeasurement & Assessment Instruments
- DomainRisk, Crisis & Safety
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Tool
In this series, Tool names the editorial family primarily used to act on, examine, measure or organize communication. It includes instruments, methods, practices, protocols, codes and institutional arrangements. Membership does not certify effectiveness, portability or safe use in every setting.
Editorial orientation · Category
Measurement & Assessment Instruments
Produces measures, scores, profiles or assessments through defined items, observations or measurement rules. The entry identifies what is measured and the conditions governing interpretation.
- KnowledgeOrganizational Reputation Scale
- Related briefSCCT: Protect Stakeholders Before Managing Reputation