The popularity of reputation management is growing in the public sector. However, transferring the idea of reputation management from the private sector to the public sector is problematic. The very premise of being unique and differentiating yourself from your competitors rarely holds true in the public sector.
Can a public organization be unique while at the same time offering services that are comparable to those found in other municipalities or regions?
The question is relevant to ask because reputation management is growing in popularity among Danish leaders and organizations, both in the public and private sectors. Theoretically, reputation management has roots in a number of different disciplines. Especially management, organizational studies, communication, marketing and economics are interested in the management direction.
Several basic elements of reputation management originate from the branding literature. Originally, it focuses on private companies in particular. Companies build a recognizable brand by positioning themselves correctly in the market. This is done by separating themselves from their competitors - by differentiating themselves - and creating a recognizable image and impression of themselves. An image and impression that should be unique.
Therefore, private companies like to operate with USPs(Unique Selling Points) for their products and a Unique Organizational Value Proposition for the company itself. The basic premise is that private companies have the freedom to position themselves more or less as they wish.
But what happens when you apply that thinking to the public sector as part of reputation management? Well, we can tell right away that it causes problems, and reputation management has been called an example par excellence of a modern theory that has more or less uncritically made the journey from the private sector to the public sector.
Danish professor Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen writes that common to the management ideas and strategies that move between organizations and sectors is that they are often presented as general approaches that can solve very different challenges. But they rarely do so without being modified according to the demands of the context.
Same shape, different organization
When it comes to the problems that an uncritical import of reputation management into the public sector brings, it is first and foremost interesting to look at the theory called neo-institutionalism. In short, it challenges the idea that uniqueness is desirable - or even possible.
New Institutional Theory argues that organizations must deliver more than good products or services in order to survive and thrive. They must also appear legitimate to the outside world and adapt to the demands of their environment. Only those organizations that signal legitimacy can sell services, get investments or grants, find partners and attract talented employees.
Because of this, all organizations experience pressure to be legitimate by adhering to certain norms and requirements - even if they are not necessarily beneficial or compatible with what else is going on in the organization.
Central to new institutional theory is the concept of 'isomorphism'. It is Greek and means "same form". The theory operates with three different types of isomorphism:
Coercive isomorphism: Other organizations that you depend on put direct or indirect pressure on you. It could be the foundation that provides grants, the government and politicians that create new legislation, or the parent organization that influences the subsidiaries. The coercive isomorphism stems from requirements and legal conditions.
Mimetic isomorphism: There is relatively little variety to choose from to ensure legitimacy. New organizations model themselves after old ones and tend to emulate others that are doing well. Furthermore, most of us consciously look for existing models or strategies to base our decisions on. This creates a mimesis effect where we imitate each other across organizations, leaders and professions. Mimetic isomorphism is especially evident when there is uncertainty about what means to use to achieve your desired goal.
Normative isomorphism: There are two main sources of normative isomorphism. One is education, which shapes the professionalism of employees and managers. When they change jobs, they take their professionalism and experience with them and use it in the new job. The other source is professional networks and ERFA and inspirational groups where best practice methods spread.
Through the three types of isomorphism, you risk becoming blinded in the struggle to gain legitimacy and risk separating language and reality, trying to differentiate and be unique by imitating others. This can create a disconnected management and organizational language that is untrustworthy and weakens trust in the organization.
The conformity trap and the uniqueness paradox
The claims of isormorphia may help explain another possible consequence of importing reputation management one-to-one to the public sector. In an effort to stand out, many leaders and organizations end up choosing the same solutions and formulating themselves in a standardized, predictable and clichéd way. This leads to a "conformity trap", as Danish professor Majken Schultz calls it.
Schultz writes that organizations often find it difficult to express their alleged uniqueness in a way that substantially differentiates them from others, partly because they choose the same values or similar visions and missions that appear more like all-encompassing politically correct truisms than descriptions that actually differentiate them. The conformity trap says that in the attempt to stand out, the exact opposite ends up happening, making it difficult for the organization to communicate who it actually is and what it does.
Schultz goes on to explain that organizations' quest to be unique involves several blind spots. Most interesting when it comes to reputation management:
1
The uniqueness paradox:
Organizations express their uniqueness in similar ways and, in an attempt to differentiate themselves, end up choosing the same tools. One example is a study by Danish professor Mette Morsing, who lists the values of 300 Danish organizations and reveals that they are all pretty much the same.
So the specific characteristics of an organization become boring, conformist and conventional when articulated. Moreover, organizations often experience similar problems - in contexts that aren't that different either - making the idea of being unique difficult to realize
2
Organizational narcissism:
In the pursuit of uniqueness and identity, organizations can become overly self-absorbed, distancing themselves from their stakeholders (customers, citizens, users, patients, politicians, media, etc.) and losing sight of their raison d'être. The more an organization focuses on itself, the greater the risk of becoming self-absorbed.
There is therefore a delicate balance between differentiation and narcissism, and according to Schultz, the attempt to appear unique means that you can develop disconnected and grandiose perceptions of your own capabilities and importance. This is expressed, for example, through autocommunication, which is communication about the organization to the organization itself. In other words, it's implicit, sender-oriented and often self-aggrandizing messages that make the most sense to the organization's own employees - despite the fact that they are aimed at external recipients.
The policy problem
As we have already mentioned, private companies in principle have more freedom to position themselves than public organizations. When public organizations practice reputation management, they do so under certain conditions. The first is what Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen calls the "politics problem", which stems from the fact that public organizations are politically led and must therefore interpret and implement political decisions. This inevitably places certain limits on what reputation you can work towards. The organization's identity is, to some extent, given by the political decisions that underpin the organization's operations.
As a public leader, you can formulate strategy, mission, vision and values, as well as analyze the stakeholders you need to communicate to. However, this is done within the framework of a political and legal mandate that ensures the organization solves its core task for the citizens. The politics problem again narrows down how unique a public organization can really be and how much you can differentiate yourself from other similar organizations, such as another daycare or school.
A final problem with introducing reputation management directly from the private sector has to do with charisma. Organizations with a good reputation often have a kind of charisma that appeals to and appeals to those around them. For other organizations, it immediately becomes more difficult. One example is organizations that deal with wild problems. They are characterized by the impossibility of clearly and simply defining or solving the problem, such as social problems, unemployment and environmental or climate issues. According to Houlberg Salomonsen, when there are no clear and unambiguous solutions, it becomes difficult to build a strong reputation, no matter how well you do your job.
Added to this is the 'negativity bias' that surrounds the public sector, which means that the media, opposition and citizens tend to focus more on the negative than the positive things organizations do. They also tend to punish failure more harshly than they celebrate or reward success. Therefore, it takes more to turn around and maintain a reputation in a public context, and public organizations find it harder to break through with the positive stories.
Given the many problems that arise when reputation management is uncritically transferred from the private sector branding literature to the reality of the public sector, we want to question the very premise of being unique. It is unfortunate and risks resulting in imitation rather than differentiation, self-absorption rather than singularity, conformity rather than core mission. But what can a public organization do instead? We explore this in the article "How do you practice reputation management?"
Want to read more?
Then we can recommend:
- "Offentlig ledelse og strategisk kommunikation" (2013) by Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen (ed.). Jurist- og Økonomiforbundets Forlag: Copenhagen
- "Corporate branding. Purpose, people, process" (2005) by Majken Schultz, You Mi Antorini and Fabian F. Csaba (eds.). Copenhagen Business School: Copenhagen
- "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields" (1983) by Paul J. DeMaggio & Walter W. Powell. American Sociological Review
