Corporate Branding and Issues Management - Integrating Two Concepts to Enhance Corporate Reputation (2007).

Issues management can help to meet important challenges which companies face by managing their corporate brand. Firstly, issues management helps to identify issues that are of particular relevance to corporate stakeholders in order to strengthen the corporate brand identity. Secondly, it can enhance integrated communication by supporting internal coordination processes. Those contributions of issues management to corporate branding are important to strengthen the corporate reputation. We present findings from a qualitative study on the issues management practice of eleven multinationals. The results show that the importance of issues management for proactive corporate brand and reputation building is acknowledged. However, only few firms have actually implemented adequate processes and structures to support corporate branding with the help of issues management. Suggestions for potential improvement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]