The Art of Corporate Reputation Management in Accommodation Businesses

AbstractUnder conditions of intensive competition, businesses emphasize more on an intangible value of reputation for achieving their aims. Businesses, wanting to have a strong reputation by producing products and services, reliability, transparency, responsibility. In this study, the concept of reputation management was examined, and the scale was created by carrying out the validity analysis of the scale related to reputation management. The findings are based on the reputation perceptions of employees who were working in Ankara. For this purpose, a survey which prepared by using test-retest method, was applied to employees of four and five star hotels in Ankara. In this study we try to offer suggestions towards activities that should be done for reputation management by putting forward the importance of reputation in terms of accommodation businesses in Ankara. In accommodation sector, service quality is one of the most important factors in the creation of reputation. If accommodation businesses want to have strong reputation they should pay more attention to the service quality and the employees who present them.Keywords: Reputation management, corporate reputation, scale development, accomodation businesses.IntroductionIt is found out that businesses in the face of significant changes in the dynamics of the tourism sector, are in an effort to put forward some discrepancies in order to sustain their existence and have a say in this industry. It is assumed that reputation is an important factor in the emergence of these differences.Reputation influences the market position of the enterprise by affecting the stakeholders' decisions (Dentchev and Heene, 2004: 59). Businesses that have a reputation and cannot be replicated, hold the reputation values in the structures (Carmeli and Tishler, 2005: 15).Stakeholders' perceptions and attitudes about the business is important and it should not be left to chance. Along with the effect of globalization, communication between people can be made easier, less expensive and with a broader audience. This communication between people affects the perceptions and attitudes about businesses. The corporate reputation significantly affects the purchase decisions of the people.Due to the increased levels of customers' communication and consciousness, the importance of reputation as an invisible asset is considered to be increasing. Reputation is helping to eliminate the doubt which is created by customers during purchasing products and services.Kadibecegil (2006) in his book "questioning whether the management of reputation is a more important job or not"; also, Fombrun C. and Van Riel (2004:3) "assimilating reputation as the magnet", so they emphasized the significance of reputation. Businesses that have corporate reputation can continue their activities in intense competition conditions. Reputation provides financial facilities to businesses and offers advantages to employ skilled employees. The products and services of businesses that have reputation will be most preferred.The main purpose of this study is to develop a "reputation management" questionnaire that proved its validity to measure perceptions and attitudes about reputation management in the accommodation enterprises. In addition, purposes such as; determining the sub-dimensions of reputation management, the effect of theses subdimensions of reputation and what is the necessary phenomena to create the reputation, establishing the effects of reputation management on accommodation businesses has been seen.Corporate Reputation ManagementAccording to the Turkish Language Institution dictionary, reputation is defined as dignity, to be reliable and paying attention (www.tdkterim.gov.tr). Reputation is tdefined as a whole, formed by the large number of stakeholders' opinions about the general set of a business' values such as; reliability, being trustworthy, responsibility and competence (Dilsiz 2008:71). …