This note summarises key features of the concept of corporate social capital as it has been developed in the recent literature, and argues that corporate reputation is an important form and source of such capital. This argument contrasts sharply with much of the reputation literature of the last decade, which treats reputation either as a characteristic of the firm entirely different from its other features and resources, or as a composite index applying to all of them. We argue here that reputation is a form of capital in itself, created by investment and innovation, and – like other forms of capital – subject to risk, depreciation and obsolescence.
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