The Role of Social Media on Corporate Reputation in the Smartphone Market: A Student Perspective

The Role of Social Media on Corporate Reputation in the Smartphone Market: A Student Perspective

Hilal, ASIL
Derya, OKUMUŞ
Yasemin, TORUN

Shamma (2012) noted that “Corporate reputation is more important than ever”. The highly turbulent business environment aroused different stakeholder groups’ expectations leading to pressure that contributed to the generation of a behavior focusing on examining and managing a company’s reputation. There is an increasing belief among companies in corporate reputation which is an intangible asset. However, this is not only dependent upon the managerial efforts within the newly developing world of social media. As Jones (2009) emphasized in blogs, social Networks, wikis, podcasts, mail groups, news groups, forums and chat rooms, the corporate reputation can easily be either enhanced or permanently damaged. Although management researchers have more interest in social media, there are no sufficient empirical researches that reveal the relationship between social media and corporate reputation. Smartphone which is not much addressed in the literature is one of the fastest growing and developing industries. Because of the target audience of smart phone producer's and sellers are the young people who are at the sometime follow social media and technological advances more closely, university students have been selected as a sample. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of social media on corporate reputation and how this is perceived by the university students. In the study, after reviews the literature of corporate reputation and social media a survey is set out to analyze how the university students who are smart phone users have perceived the relationship between corporate reputation and social media. Two leading companies in smart phone market and the impacts of their social media activities on corporate reputation are examined comparatively. It is empirical evidence that the company which is using social media more actively and effectively has a high perception of corporate reputation. This result indicates the significance of the use of social media to manage the corporate reputation which is regarded as most invaluable asset for the company. The finding might hopefully fill the gap in the literature and prepare the ground for further future research in the field. Keywords: Corporate Reputation, Social Media, Smart phones.

Article
PeerReviewed

ISSN 2303-4564

International Burch University

2014-04-24

2565