• This paper extends prior research on the reputation of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) by investigating the moderating role of socio-demographic characteristics in forming NPO reputation and reputation's effects on donating and volunteering behavior. The findings offer new insights into the role an NPO's reputation plays and its effects on key outcomes such as willingness to donate and work as a voluntary member in specific subgroups. The results show that successful reputation management is specifically important for male, older, highly educated, and affluent respondents. Communicational measures aimed at strengthening an organization's social responsibility are particularly promising regarding triggering favorable donor behavior and voluntary support.

As a result of the increasing adoption of private sector firms' values and concepts, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are becoming more and more aware of intangible assets' importance for achieving competitive advantages. Even though reputation can be considered an organization's central intangible asset, there is still no appropriate measurement approach for reputation in this context. In this paper, we identify the dimensions of NPO reputation and develop indices to measure these components. We develop a model by means of a qualitative inquiry and a quantitative study using a large-scale sample from the German general public. We find support for a two-dimensional measurement approach comprising an affective and cognitive component as well as four antecedent constructs (''quality,'' ''performance,'' ''organizational social responsibility (OSR),'' and ''attractiveness''). The results of a second quantitative study in which we examine NPO reputation's relationship with important outcome variables, such as willingness to donate or work as an honorary member, provide support for the measurement approach's stability as well as criterion validity. Furthermore, the results reveal the affective dimension's importance regarding positively influencing donor behavior. IntroductionNon-profit organizations (NPOs) are increasingly operating in a competitive environment that is characterized by stronger needs in their target communities, and a generally tighter funding environment with growing competition for donors and grants (Weerawardena and Mort, 2008). This specifically holds for the current recession, which is strongly affecting NPO income and volunteer support (Ainsworth, 2008). In this context, many NPOs have adopted more commercial practices and values to improve their strategic performance, particularly competitive positioning for donor appeal, staff retention as well as service strategy and delivery (Weisbrod, 1998;Goerke, 2003;Hume and Hume, 2008). This trend towards market orientation (Roper and Cheney, 2005;Kerlin, 2006;Dolnicar et al., 2008) has been accompanied by increasing concerns regarding the effective management of an NPO's intangible assets (Venable et al., 2005). Assets that are intangible by nature can -from a resource-based view -be a strategic success factor for organizations, since these assets cannot be easily imitated by competing organizations (e.g., Barney, 1991). Consequently, NPO managers are becoming progressively more aware of marketing concepts such as organizational identity (Cornelissen et al., 2007), image (Grounds and Harkness, 1998), and brand personality (Venable et al., 2005; Sargeant et al., 2008a, b). In particular, an organization's reputation, generally understood as its overall evaluation by its various stakeholders (Fombrun, 1996), has been identified as its most important intangible asset (Hunt and Morgan, 1995). This is due to reputation capturing the effects that brands and images have on stakeholders' evaluation of an organization (Van Riel and Fombrun, 2007). In this regard...

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald 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. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the value-relevance of corporate reputation during times of crisis. The paper seeks to extend the view beyond the traditional focus on the cognitive component of reputation, shed light on its affective component, and integrate the perceptions of different stakeholder groups. Design/methodology/approach -The paper uses two large-scale surveys, one from before and one from after the financial crisis year of 2008, to ascertain the reputation evaluations of the largest publicly listed corporations in Germany. The paper employs a model augmented with standard accounting variables (i.e. sales, return on assets, etc.) to analyse the link between corporate reputation as noted by different stakeholder groups and future firm value. Findings -Even though corporations are not able to elude the overall negative impact of an economic crisis, the magnitude of influence depends on the individual firm dynamics as related to the firm's reputation. In particular, firm value dynamics are significantly associated with a reputation's affective component as perceived by the general public and its cognitive component as perceived by opinion leaders.Research limitations/implications -The paper analyses only very large corporations in Germany over a limited period of time. Practical implications -Managers cannot influence the course of a trans-national crisis, but they can immunise their company against its impacts by managing financial and non-financial drivers of firm reputation within the various stakeholder groups. Originality/value -The paper extends previous research on the value-relevance of corporate reputation by exploring the roles of different stakeholder groups' perceptions of the affective and cognitive component of reputation.

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