Organizational Reputation in the Public Administration: A Systematic Literature Review

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Edgar O. Bustos
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13363

Organizational Reputation in the Public Administration: A Systematic Literature Review 731

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 4, pp. 731–751. © 2021 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13363.

Edgar O. Bustos

Public Administration Division, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

Organizational Reputation in the Public Administration:

A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract: Despite the increasing number of publications on organizational reputation in the public administration

throughout the last two decades, no systematic review has been conducted to synthesize the current state of

the literature. This article contributes to this issue by bringing together empirical and theoretical academic

research—119 articles and seven books—to analyze five critical aspects of this scholarship: conceptualization, types

implemented, antecedents, outcomes, and multidimensionality. This work provides an overview of the field while

identifying five critical areas for further research: reputational audiences, public leaders’ impact on reputation,

development of typologies based on the characteristics of reputation, the use of standardized methods to conduct more

cross-country studies, and research on a wider variety of cultural and organizational contexts.

Evidence for Practice

• Reputation management in public administration adds value to organizations by improving relationships

with their audiences.

• Public managers can use a positive reputation to handle internal and external threats that may affect the

organizations.

• Reputation can improve other vital assets for the legitimacy of organizations, such as brand, trust, image,

identity, prestige, or status.

Over the past two decades, scholars from

different disciplines have shown the impact

of organizational reputation (OR) in public

administration, making it an area of research that has

received growing scholarly attention (Lee and Van

Ryzin2019; Overman, Busuioc, and Wood2020).

OR is an intangible asset that plays a critical role in

public organizations by strengthening bureaucratic

power and autonomy, as well as reducing threats to

their legitimacy (Carpenter2001, 2010; Carpenter

and Krause2012). Furthermore, reputation helps in

explaining the behavior of public organizations as a

response to threats and opportunities conditioned

by a set of different audiences (Maor 2015;

Rimkutė2018). Despite the increasing relevance posit

on the subject in the last years, no systematic review

has been conducted to examine the state of literature

and its development as a valuable area of research with

high applicability for public administration. Thus,

this article presents an overview of OR in the public

administration literature by analyzing 126 empirical

and theoretical studies published between 2001 and

2020.

A crucial question for practitioners interested in

this topic is: how do public organizations improve

their relationships with their different audiences

to achieve a positive reputation? To answer this

question, public managers have focused on

reputation management as a matter of strategic

importance (Wæraas and Byrkjeflot2012; Wæraas

and Maor2015). Reputation management

helps build and maintain a favorable OR; it

works to protect organizations against damages,

attain superior outcomes, or increase trust in

administrative institutions and actors (Capelos et

al.2016; Carmeli and Tishler2004; Christensen

and Lægreid2020). On the contrary, poor

reputation management has significant negative

consequences that could lead a public entity

to a crisis of legitimacy or even its termination

(Etienne2015; Luoma-aho2007). Therefore,

public managers need to pay close attention to

their various audiences by attending meetings,

cultivating expert advice, or improving strategic

communication (Carpenter2004b; Maor, Gilad,

and Bloom2013).

Since OR literature is in a developing stage and

reputation is considered a strategic asset for public

organizations, this paper aims to review and

synthesize research findings on the topic in the last

Edgar Oliver Bustos Pérez is pursuing

the PhD degree in public policy at Centro

de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

(CIDE), Mexico City. His primary research

interests are human resources and

intangible assets management in the public

sector. He is currently studying reputational

audiences and the effect of organizational

reputation on employee retention in the

Mexican public administration. He was an

ASPA Founders’ Fellow (2019).

Email: edgar.bustos@alumnos.cide.edu

Symposium Article

732Public Administration Review • July | August 2021

two decades. The article primarily focuses on the following research

questions:

1. How is OR in the public administration conceptualized?

2. What types of OR have been implemented?

3. What are the antecedents of OR in the public

administration?

4. What are the outcomes of OR in the public administration?

5. Which dimensions influence the reputation process in the

public administration?

The answers to these research questions are expected to contribute

to understanding this literature by providing an in-depth analysis

of this body of knowledge. This article is relevant in several ways.

First, this scholarship has not been developed coherently (Wæraas

and Maor2015). Thus, this review helps in tying some loose ends

in the literature and shows several payoffs for practitioners. Second,

given the increasing importance placed on the relationship between

audiences and public organizations, this article is relevant for public

managers considering it presents an overview of the reputation

process, antecedents, and outcomes. Finally, to improve the quality

of future studies in the field and to benefit administrative practice, it

analyzes five broad areas that need further attention in the literature:

reputational audiences, public leaders’ impact on reputation,

development of typologies based on the characteristics of reputation,

use of standardized methods to conduct more cross-country studies,

and research on a wider variety of cultural and organizational contexts.

In addition to this introduction, the structure of the article is

as follows. The first section describes how research on OR has

developed in the public sector. Then, it reports the methodology

used to conduct the review. After that, the article presents the

characteristics of the records analyzed, and provides the answers

to the research questions. Finally, the paper poses some ideas for a

future research agenda on OR in public administration.

Reputation and Public Administration

Studies regarding corporate reputation appeared in the early 1990s,

several years before the term arose in the public administration

literature. Research on corporate reputation has mainly focused

on the financial performance of firms (Ryan2007). For instance,

corporate reputation management can lead to different benefits,

such as increasing profitability or lowering costs (Fombrun1996;

Roberts and Dowling2002).

Whereas corporations are expected to manage their reputation to

pursue as much profitability as possible, public organizations need

to engage a set of economic, political, and social audiences to fulfill

the public interest (Wæraas2018). It is necessary to emphasize

that OR is a concept with characteristics different from corporate

reputation since public administration functions, scope, audiences,

and objectives differ from firms (Luoma-aho2007). Therefore,

public organizations cannot automatically implement corporate

management practices and need a specific framework for this.

Although the works of Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson(1950),

Derthick(1979), Kaufman(1981), and Wilson(1989) had briefly

elaborated on this topic (Carpenter2015; Carpenter and Krause2012),

it is not possible to establish the foundations of reputation theory in

the public sector until 2001 with Daniel Carpenter’s book The Forging

of Bureaucratic Autonomy. In his seminal research, Carpenter found

that the autonomy of certain American agencies was generated from

their differentiation capabilities, which allowed them to be perceived

in a positive light in front of different audiences. Consequently,

the developed reputation granted them the opportunity to remain

independent despite the pressures of the political sphere.

From that moment on, a theoretical framework has been shaped

by the systematic production of theoretical and empirical studies in

public sector research. Furthermore, the emergence of OR is visible

not only in the production of scholarly knowledge but also in the

practice of public administration. For instance, the Norwegian

Ministry of Municipal and Regional Development initiated the

“Norwegian Reputation School” in 2008 with the intention that

mayors and chief administrative officers learn how to manage the

reputation of their municipalities (Wæraas2015; Wæraas, Bjørnå,

and Moldenæs2015). In addition, public organizations are funding

specialized research on reputation. An example of this is the

“EURICA project” (European Union Reputation, Independence,

Credibility, Accountability), funded by the European Research

Council, which aims to apply the reputation theory lenses to study

the regulatory state in the European Union1.

Methodology

We conducted a systematic review of the literature following the

PRISMA statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic

Reviews and Meta-Analyses) to identify the body of knowledge on

OR in the last two decades. The choice to conduct a systematic

review is fundamentally based on the fact that this type of

research helps to present the current body of knowledge in a more

transparent and reproducible way (Moher et al.2009) (PRISMA

checklist is given in appendix A).

The period reviewed includes studies published from 2001 to

2020. The year 2001 is chosen as a starting point because of the

publication of Carpenter’s book mentioned above (complete

eligibility criteria section in appendix B).

Search Strategy

In this review, we considered three search strategies (complete

search strategy in appendix B). First, the bibliographic databases

Web of Science and Scopus were consulted to access the number

of publications related to the research object in all the disciplines

of study. Second, a search of records was conducted within some

journals considered among the most prominent in the study of public

administration2. Finally, an inquiry in Google Books was performed.

Record Selection

Figure 1 (PRISMA statement diagram) reports the selection process

(full description of the records selection and full list of records are

given in appendices B and C).

Characteristics of the Sample

Journals and Books

Nine journals contain 47.90 percent of the total number of articles.

The remaining 52.10 percent is distributed among 51 journals

with one or two papers each (full list of journals is in appendix D).

Table1 shows the distribution of records and the journals’ academic