What does it mean to have a "good" or "bad" reputation? How does it create or destroy value, or shape chances to pursue particular opportunities? Where do reputations come from? How do we measure them? How do we build and manage them?

Over the last twenty years the answers to these questions have become increasingly important--and increasingly problematic--for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand the creation, management, and role of reputation in corporate life. This Handbook, developed with support from the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, intends to bring definitional clarity to these issues, giving an account of extant research and theory and offering guidance about where scholarship on corporate reputation might most profitably head. Eminent scholars from a variety of disciplines, such as management, sociology, economics, finance, history, marketing, and psychology, have contributed chapters to provide state of the art definitions of corporate reputation; differentiate reputation from other constructs and intangible assets; offer guidance on measuring reputation; consider the role of reputation as a corporate asset and how a variety of factors, including stage of life, nation of origin, and the stakeholders considered affect its ability to create value; and explore corporate reputation's role more broadly as a regulatory mechanism. Finally, they also discuss how to manage and grow reputations, as well as repair them when they are damaged.

In discussing these issues this Handbook aims to move corporate reputation research forward by demonstrating where the field is now, addressing some of the perpetual problems of definition and differentiation, and suggesting future research directions.