Each year, corporations are ranked according to how people perceive them. The Reputation Institute conducts an annual research study focusing on the most reputable company (this year it was Ferrero Rocher). Other studies look at corporations in terms of how they are perceived as being trustworthy, having good relationships with their employees, and good social media campaigns to name a few.
However, there have been recently many studies that have focused on the level of privacy that corporations have over information from their key stakeholders, and how that impacts their level of trustworthiness with the corporation. A recent research study conducted by The Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe that specifically looked at the privacy policies and practices of leading consumer brands.
The top ranked corporation was eBay, followed by Verizon, UPS, WebMD, and IBM to name the top five. What was interesting was the fact that there were many online corporations and brands that were in the top 10 in this study, including Facebook (#10). Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, stated the following about the main results from this research study:
“With the banking industry at the center of a national financial crisis, it’s no surprise to see a loss of trust reflected in the rankings of even those top performers on this list. Meanwhile, the continued strong showing of e-businesses such as eBay, WebMD, Yahoo!, and Facebook seems to demonstrate consumers’ growing comfort with doing business online.”
This is indeed an interesting case for public relations professionals. In many ways, our communication and management practices rely heavily on the hard work and effort it takes to establish a mutual and long-term focused relationship with our stakeholders. Being consistent with our professional and personal practices establishes a level of credibility with the stakeholders, and they are then more trusting of what the corporation is doing in terms of not only their business practices, but how they are handling information regarding specifically these individuals.
Plus, this study does show that more people are doing business and communicating online – which is interesting to know for PR professionals. However, what is surprising is to see that there are other corporations that are virtually iconic online that are not present in this study. What this shows is that there are some corporations and brands that are successful online, but they are not viewed as trustworthy when it comes to privacy and having information about stakeholders. This is an interesting situation to consider for public relations practitioners both conducting research in this particular area (ex. corporate reputation) as well as those practicing in the field.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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