Corporate governance e reputazione: dallo stakeholder relationship management allo stakeholder engagement

Recent scholarly contributions about corporate responsibility (Ayuso, Argandona, 2007; Waddock, 2004) emphasize the opportunities that business can seize by basing its corporate governance on a stakeholder engagement approach rather than limiting itself to a outlook of stakeholder relationship management. Corporate governance based on the processes of stakeholder engagement leads to a broader concept of corporate reputation as well as a reformulation of the steps necessary to enhance it with the purpose of achieving greater success for the company. This article examines the relationship between corporate governance and reputation from the theoretical framework of stakeholder engagement. In particular, a concept of reputation that serves to exploit the full potential of management and communication is proposed. In the first part, the traditional conceptions of reputation described in the literature on governance are analysed according to their strengths and limitations. In the second part, an alternative approach to reputation is proposed, consistent with the principles of stakeholder engagement. Lastly, the managerial and communication implications of this alternative approach are discussed.