A Strategic Management Approach to Reputation, Relationships, and Publics: The Research Heritage of the Excellence Theory¹

The Excellence theory developed from a program of research conducted from 1985 to 2002 on 327 organizations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Today, Excellence theory has evolved into a strategic management theory of public relations, which contrasts to the symbolic-interpretive paradigm that characterizes many theories of reputation. Research based on this strategic management paradigm shows that reputation is largely a byproduct of organizational behaviors and organization-public relationships-the well-known idea that actions speak louder than words. Both relationships and reputation differ for low-involvement and high-involvement publics, and strategic communicators should emphasize experiential relationships with high-involvement publics more than reputational relationships with low-involvement publics when they participate in organizational governance.