Reputation and social construction - L'Oreal and former CEO Owen-Jones

An intriguing example of the social construction of reputation can be seen in a recent interview in the weekly French business magazine, Le Point of the former, highly regarded CEO of L'Oreal, Lindsay Owen-Jones.  In the article, he talks of his concerns how the Bettancourt affair which has been a powerful back-drop to French politics over the last year, may have impacted on the L'Oreal brand internationally.  However, the social media comment underneath the main piece (and other media which have covered the story)  suggests his own reputation as receipient of a £90M gift from the Bettancourt family which was undeclared until recently, may be more on trial than that of L'Oreal.  However, in the developing online debate, former employees have also come to his rescue, so giving readers the chance to consider a wide range of perspectives.  

Corporate Reputation gains Oxford Professor

PR Week reports that Said Business School at Oxford University has appointed a visiting professor for corporate reputation.  It  doesn't say but I assume it will probably be the first in this area appointed by the university.  Can we say that in terms of the professionalisation of PR, and as an indicator of the growth of the profession this is an important milestone, after all PR has probably been the most active management discipline to date in its use of reputation as a core part of the corporate communications skillset?   Well in practice yes; but not necessarily in terms of academic research and I think there are some opportunities being missed on all sides.

We can see this in the Said Business School at Oxford which also hosted last week its first reputation symposium with some leading names presenting such as Charles Fombrun.  Looking through the programme and abstracts there is no mention of public relations and no speakers from the PR academic community which seems to be a somewhat perplexing trend in the subject. 

In terms of organisational practice PR would seem to be the leading management discipline in its involvement with the concept of corporate reputation.  But in terms of academic work and papers this is not the case.  I am not sure why this is the case, but there may well be an element of academic snobbery after all PR is a very young academic discipline and as the University of Bounemouth Conference this summer on PR history highlighted with a fair few skeletons in the cupboard.  But I think there is a need for openness from other disciplines in this respect particularly as issues such as social construction and legitimacy are ones which PR academics have been doing some good work, such as Jensen.   I would also suggest that Revealing the Corporation an important early work in the development of corporate reputation, one of the best chapters in the book was by James Grunig, a well known and now retired PR academic.