No abstract

Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.

corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate reputation, labor efficiency, labor productivity, labor cost,

<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;">Investor confidence and the quality of reported information are primary issues in our current financial reporting environment as a result of recent scandals and financial crises. Assessing the quality of reported financial information is an important issue for investors. Can investors use corporate reputation to assess earnings quality? This paper examines the association between corporate reputation and earnings quality. We use a public measure &ndash; &ldquo;America&rsquo;s Most Admired Companies&rdquo; &ndash; as a proxy for corporate reputation. These firms are considered to possess superior reputation. A cross-sectional accruals-based measure proxies for earnings quality. We compare the firms listed on America&rsquo;s Most Admired Companies of 2006 to a sample of control firms and find that sample firms have higher earnings quality than control firms. Our results should be of interest to managers who engage in behavior leading to or maintaining a positive corporate reputation, and to financial analysts who conduct research on the impact of corporate reputation on earnings quality. Moreover, our study can increase individual investors&rsquo; confidence in assessing the earnings quality of companies with a superior reputation. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">Recent financial scandals have created uneasiness in our financial markets. This resulting crisis of confidence increases the importance of reliably assessing firm performance. How can investors and creditors confidently assess firm performance? Can firm reputation provide signals about firm performance and efficiency? The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between corporate reputation and efficiency, a dimension of firm performance. We obtain a measure of a firm&rsquo;s technical efficiency by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a non-parametric technique. We use firms from America&rsquo;s Most Admired Companies list of 2006 as our measure of firm reputation. Results support the hypothesis that firms with superior reputation operate more efficiently than matched firms in the business services (SIC = 73) and chemical (SIC = 28) industries. The results should be of interest to managers who engage in behavior leading to or maintaining a positive corporate reputation. Also, the results can increase individual investors&rsquo; confidence in investing companies with superior reputation. </span></p>