By Martin Vogel

Amazon tops the Reputation Institute’s 2011 survey of the most reputable American companies. Google leads the global survey.
In relation to the US study, the RI found that the excellent companies were:
- 2.5 times more likely to have the CEO set the strategy for their enterprise positioning
- 1.5 times more likely to include reputation metrics as part of their senior management “dashboard”
- 15 times more likely to manage corporate reputation across company functions
- 1.7 times more likely to use an outside partner to assist with corporate reputation management
There’s some interesting detail on how reputation affects consumers’ buying decisions. The RI found that people take into account their whole impression of a company, not just their view of its products or services, when deciding whether to buy: