Reputation audit as a tool for management of competitiveness of enterprise

The article notes that the positive reputation of enterprises in an unstable and unpredictable competitive environment becomes an important means of strengthening their market position, as it provides additional competitive advantages, facilitates access to business resources and protects their economic interests. It is emphasized that foreign companies successfully apply reputation management models. It is stated that most Ukrainian enterprises still use only a fragmented system of reputation risk management, which does not allow monitoring promptly them and taking timely measures to prevent or minimize them. The importance of reputational audit as a tool for managing the competitiveness of the enterprise is emphasized. The lack of uniform approaches to the interpretation of the concept of “reputational audit” is emphasized. The diversity of interpretation of the concept of “reputational audit” is unified and the scientific thesaurus is supplemented by the author's definition of this concept, formed by the functional approach, according to which “reputational audit” should be understood as the image study of the life of the reputation entity, aimed at assessing the reputational environment of its operation and identify key factors of reputational risk in order to timely adjust communication methods and make consensus decisions to improve relationships with stakeholders and successful business development. The types of reputational audit are considered and their distinctive features are briefly described. The etapology of reputation audit is offered and the characteristic of each of its stages is given: preparatory (organizational) stage; research stage and the final stage. It is proved that the introduction of the submitted proposals on the stage of reputational audit will contribute to the effective management of reputational risks and, accordingly, the competitiveness of enterprises.