This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Power, M. Articles by Sahlin, K. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Reputational Risk as a Logic of Organizing in Late Modernity

London School of Economics, UK, m.k.power{at}lse.ac.uk

Tobias Scheytt

Helmut-Schmidt-University-University of the Federal Armed Forces, Germany, scheytt{at}hsu-hh.de

Kim Soin

King's College London, UK, kim.soin{at}kcl.ac.uk

Kerstin Sahlin

Uppsala University, Sweden, kerstin.sahlin{at}fek.uu.se

This paper argues that it is useful to regard `reputational risk' as a pervasive logic of organizing and organizational attention. First, we suggest that the risk management agenda has expanded from its roots in technical analysis to become a cornerstone of good governance and responsible actorhood. We illustrate this claim in the context of English universities. Second, we suggest that this expansion in the reach and significance of risk management has increased organizational orientations to reputational risk and to more defensively and legalistically framed forms of asset management. Specifically, organizations are responding to the growth of external bodies which evaluate and rank, and thereby generate reputational risk. In the context of universities, we argue that this leads both to specific transformations in organizational practices in response to ranking systems, and also to an increased generalized concern with reputational risk, which is a symptom of late modern insecurity.

Key Words: ranking • risk management • reputational risk • late modernity • regulation • university

Organization Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2-3, 301-324 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840608101482


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?