Crisis of Character: Building Corporate Reputation in the Age of Skepticism

Reputation matters—now more than ever. Public opinion in the wake of the financial meltdown has revealed the public's abiding mistrust of corporations and the executives who run them. Scrutiny from the Internet and 24-hour cable TV offers companies no place to hide; so they must proactively seek the confidence of their shareholders and the public. In today's economy, reputation is a prime factor in a corporation's bottom line. Via its groundbreaking Seven Strategies of Reputation Leadership, Crisis of Character offers a fail-proof way for executives to immunize themselves and their companies against the breakdowns that can happen to even the most prominent organizations. Using real-life examples (from Merck and Citigroup to Hewlett-Packard and Coca-Cola), Crisis of Character presents concrete ways executives can shape the internal corporate culture to support their business interests. This book's many stories vividly illustrate how corporate strategy must shift to deal effectively with globalization and the new environmental and human rights standards that come with it.

Crisis of Character offers invaluable advice to anyone who operates in the public sphere—and who understands that reputation is the key to survival.