The Impact of Corporate Reputation and Information Sharing on Value Creation for Organizational Customers

The importance of corporate communication to build, protect and maintain corporate reputation has been advocated in numerous publications in recent years. The main goal of this paper is to provide an understanding of the impact of corporate reputation and information sharing on value creation. Both reputation and information sharing represent signals that customers observe in the process of value creation, which is seen as the end focus for corporate marketing. The paper draws on signaling theory and corporate marketing literature from the European and American schools of thought.

The empirical test of the hypothesized model focuses on the banking industry. Organizational customers from a South East European country shared their views about banks they currently cooperate with. The research instrument contained multi-item scales adapted from the existing literature. An analysis using structural equation modeling confirmed that corporate reputation positively and significantly influences customer perceived value. The effect of information sharing on customer perceived value is not direct but mediated by corporate reputation. This finding contributes to the existing discussion on the role of corporate reputation and communication as antecedents in the process of value creation.