The Contribution Of Text Analysis To An Understanding Of Constructs In Academic Literature: The Case Of Corporate Reputation

Transcription

1 The Contribution Of Text Analysis To An Understanding Of Constructs In Academic Literature: The Case Of Corporate Reputation Stephen Lloyd, Kathy Mortimer, Auckland University of Technology Abstract Large amounts of text can contain many kinds of knowledge. In the past, text analysis has been used quantitatively. This paper shows how different styles of text analysis can be used qualitatively, within a content analysis methodology, to contribute to an understanding of a construct and its relationship to its components. The corporate reputation literature provides the context for this study. Despite continued interest in corporate reputation, confusion continues as a result of a lack of agreement on its definition and on its key components, and their inter-relationships. The study identifies main orientations in the literature and the most important relationships between corporate reputation and corporate identity, image, brand, management and performance; it provides insights into the structure of their relationships. The study suggests that text analysis is a pluralistic concept and is a useful tool which can be utilsied to explore the structure of the relationship between concepts. Key words: text analysis, corporate reputation, constructs Purpose of the Paper There has been a growth of interest in a company s intangible assets (Srivastava 1998) such as corporate reputation (Herbig and Milewicz 1993). The corporate reputation literature reflects positive contributions and a growth of interest (Deephouse 2002). Earlier comprehensive reviews of the corporate reputation literature have made significant contributions to an understanding of the concept (Gotsi and Wilson 2001). They have not, however, solved the problem of ambiguity, the result of having adopted, over the years, different definitions of the concept. There remain conflicting views about what reputation is and about what are its key components. A recent article (Deephouse and Carter 2004) indicates that definitions of reputation have been assessed in terms of relative standing or desirability, quality, esteem, and favourableness. Reputation has been equated also with image, prestige, and goodwill (Shenkar and Yuchtman-Yaar 1997). There is a need for a way to handle ambiguous terms such as corporate reputation and its key components; for elucidation of the relationships between terms relevant to corporate reputation. There is a need for a perspective based on a way of thinking and talking about intangibles. The material for this study is what has been written about corporate reputation: what is in the heads of academics. While a range of other qualitative approaches was available, it was decided for this study to focus on an understanding of the substantive content of their thinking as expressed through what they have written. Nasukawa and Nagano (2001) have observed how large text databases can contain many kinds of knowledge. Text analysis uses human analysis (through) text mining technology to extract knowledge from very large amounts of textual data (Nasukawa and Nagano, 2001, p. 967). In the past, text analysis has been used quantitatively to measure word count, lexical density, sentence length, occurrences, frequency, rank, word phrase frequency and prominence; to extract business advantage from enterprise data (Cody et al. 2002); to mine knowledge from biomedical documents (Uramoto et al. 2004); and for knowledge discovery in the life sciences (Mack et al. 2004). Here it is ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 8

2 used qualitatively, to understand the structure and meaning of corporate reputation, and its relationship to its key components. The focus of this study is on linguistic knowledge using natural language processing, visualization and interactive analysis (Nasukawa and Nagano 2001); what Strauss and Corbin (1990) in their discussion of grounded theory refer to as capturing phenomenon and identifying patterns of potential relationships (Strauss and Corbin 1990). While content analysis has been considered to apply to all examinations of message content (Neuendorf 2002), this study incorporates Weber s (1990) approach which sees content analysis as a research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid inferences from text (Weber 1990). There is no evidence in the literature of the incorporation of text analysis into content analysis methodology. This paper explores such an approach, utilising the academic literature on corporate reputation published between 1985 and 2005 to provide empirical insights into intangible marketing assets that the Marketing Science Institute (2005) has designated as a top tier research priority. The central research question guiding this study is: Can text analysis within a structured content analysis framework provide the basis for a new empirical perspective and a better understanding of the corporate reputation construct and its relationship to key components? Methodology Analytical induction (Denzin 1970; Eisenhardt 1989) and phenomenology provide the qualitative research orientation for this research. The verstehen approach of Max Weber, which emphasizes the significance of meaning and understanding, to understand both the intention and the context of human action (Weber 1947), has an important contribution to make. In this study the objective is not to provide content or semantic analysis of key concepts appearing in specific journal articles, but to examine the patterns and interaction governing each key concept in the entire knowledge base of which each article is a part. Research has been conducted in two stages (See Table 1). Table 1: Content and text analysis framework Step Stage 1 Theory and rationale - What content to examine and why? Document selection and sampling (1) - Publications, source Computer coding scheme Initial reliability Approach Lack of agreement on definition of corporate reputation and key components. Text analysis identified as a way of exploring academics thinking as expressed through what they have written. Articles needed to come from credible sources; therefore impact rankings analysed for academic articles; selection from on-line databases (from which text files could be extracted). Key words from ABI/INFORM, EBSCO and individual articles combined into a search dictionary. Approach yielded 135 articles with a corporate reputation focus. Using TextAnalyst 2.1 a semantic network of concepts was developed from the text of journal articles. A knowledge base was constructed and frequencies and semantic weights recorded. A dictionary was created from key words relevant to reputation. Because TextAnalyst 2.1 provides no visualization, matrix of key concepts and semantic weighs developed using Ucinet 6.0 network analysis software ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 9

3 Stage 2 Document selection and sampling (2) Validation of coding Tabulation and Reporting Retrieval from coded text (Borgatti et al. 2002); visualization developed using NetDraw 1.0 a programme for drawing social networks. Key words reviewed by academics. Literature identified identity, image and the brand as key components of corporate reputation. Literature search expanded to cover these concepts and yielded 435 articles. A total of 375 articles selected for further text analysis. A dictionary was applied to sample text (word-article), refined and yielded 108 key words. Potential constructs explored using semantic weights and key word frequency. Enabled identification of key passages in the body of text of articles. Initial insights into the structure of the relationship between reputation, image, identity, and the brand achieved. Visualization of results using graphs and maps aided intuitive understanding and represented relationships. TextAnalyst 2.1 limited in that it would not enable analysis of co-word relationships. An algorithm was written to provide word-by-word analysis. Range of window sizes analyzed, a matrix based on the frequency of key words developed. Visualization provided using NetDraw 1.0 at a range of cut off points and based on co-occurrence or combination of categories and words. Self organizing mapping (using Viscovery SOMine 4.0) helped confirm observations. Self-organizing maps (SOMs) are a type of unsupervised learning that helps discover a topological mapping that preserves neighbourhood relations and contributes to human-computer interactive knowledge discovery (Wang and Wang 2002). Observations from the Text Analysis The following has been observed from visualization of text analysis using NetDraw: 1. Corporate reputation has direct relationships with: identity (Balmer and Greyser 2003); brand (de Chernatony 1999); ethical management and leadership(kartalia 2000; Lewis 2001; Trevino et al. 2000); and through corporate with image (Hatch and Schultz 2003) and performance (Roberts and Dowling. 2002; Szwajkowski and Figlewicz 1999) (See Figure 1) 2. Stepping through different levels of ties, K-Cores analysis indicates strong cohesion in the relationship between corporate reputation, and performance and the social dimension of ethical and operational dimensions (leadership, management, global and financial). (See Figure 1- Clique A) 3. Identity, brand and image appear to be distinct components that are related to, but not synonymous with, reputation. (See Figure 1- Clique B) 4. While effective branding may contribute to a company s reputation, there is no evidence to suggest that reputation is a subordinate component of the corporate brand (See Figure 1- Clique B). Brand ties are distinct from those of the key operational concepts: management, leadership, ethical, financial. (See Figure 1- Clique C) ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 10

4 Figure 1: Graphical visualization of the structure of relationships between key concepts B A C In the SOM shown in Figure 2, components have been selected from the 108 key words referred to above, and are displayed in their respective cluster locations. Clusters are map areas containing similar entities. Separators show cluster boundaries and are drawn between 2 nodes if they are in different clusters (e.g., identity and ethical ). Proximity between nodes indicate a likelihood of common neighbourhood membership. The following has been observed from Figure 2 which shows self organizing mapping of key concepts. 1. Reputation is seen again to be quite distinct from brand and branding. 2. There are indications of stronger neighbourhood membership for reputation and reputational amidst performance, ethical, identity, capital, leadership and social, than there are for brand. 3. For brand and branding there are indications of greater neighbourhood membership among corporate, product, customer and management. 4. There are indications of three orientations towards corporate reputation in the literature: towards company (performance, financial, management, company, business); towards customers (customer, consumer, brand, brands, product) and towards community (social, leadership, organization, reputation, reputational, ethical). Summary and Implications Text analysis is a pluralistic concept. Different styles of text analysis can be used, qualitatively and within a content analysis methodology, to contribute to an understanding of a construct and its relationship to its components. From the corporate reputation literature that provides the context for this study, text analysis has identified important relationships between corporate reputation and corporate identity, image, brand, management and performance; it provides insights into the structure of their relationships, and indicates that ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 11

5 image, identity and brand are distinct, yet related concepts. They are neither interchangeable nor synonymous. Figure 2: Self Organizing Mapping Showing Clustering of Key Concepts Visualization of the structure of relations between concepts suggests a lack of fit between the brand concept and operational concepts that include management, leadership, ethical, and financial: concepts that are an included in the corporate reputation construct. The study suggests the possibility that the brand construct may have greater relevance to consumers, as distinct from stakeholders. The challenge remains: to build on this text analysis and to address what has been seen (Bromley 2001) as the need for an operational definition of corporate reputation: clarification, definition and a shared meaning. The building of an ontology of corporate reputation will contribute greatly to this goal. As an initial step, further research needs to be conducted among stakeholders (for example using the nominal group technique) to explore each stakeholder group s perspective on the key components of corporate reputation. The authors acknowledge the contribution of Associate Professor Brett Collins. ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 12

6 References Balmer, J. and S. Greyser (2003), Revealing the Corporation: Perspectives on Identity, Image, Reputation, Corporate Branding and Corporate-Level Marketing,. London: Routledge. Barich, H. and P. Kotler (1991), "A framework for marketing image management," Sloan Management Review (Winter), Borgatti, S.P., M.G. Everett, and L.C. Freeman (2002), "Ucinet for Windows: Software for Social Network Analysis." Harvard: Analytic Technologies. Bromley, D.B. (2001), "Relationships between personal and corporate reputation," European Journal of Marketing, 35 (3/4). Caruana, A. (1997), "Corporate reputation: concept and measurement," Journal of Product and Brand Management, 6 (2), Cody, W. F., J. T. Kreulen, V. Krishna, and W. S. Spangler (2002), "The integration of business intelligence and knowledge management," IBM Systems Journal, 41 (4). de Chernatony, L. (1999), "Brand management through narrowing the gap between brand identity and brand reputation," Journal of Marketing Management, 15 (1/3), Deephouse, D. L. (2002), "The term 'reputation management': Users, uses and the trademark trade-off," Corporate Reputation Review, 5 (1), 9. Deephouse, D.L. and S.M. Carter (2004), "An examination of differences between organizational legitimacy and organizational reputation," Journal of Management Studies, Forthcoming. Denzin, Norman K. (1970), The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. Chicago: Aldine. Dowling, G. (1993), "Developing your company image into a corporate asset," Long Range Planning, 26 (2), Eisenhardt, K. (1989), "Building theories from case study research," Academy of Management Review, 14 (4). Fombrun, S. and V. Rindova (2000), "The road to transparency: Reputation management at Royal Dutch/ Shell," in The Expressive Organization, Hatch Schultz M., MJ., and Holten Larsen, M., Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gotsi, M. and A. M. Wilson (2001), "Corporate reputation management: living the brand," Management Decisions, 39 (2), Greyser, S.A. (1999), "Advancing and enhancing corporate reputation," Corporate Reputation Review, 4 (4), ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 13

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8 Weber, M. (1947), The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: The Free Press. Weber, R.P. (1990), Basic Content Analysis (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies (qualitative) 15