Perceived Organizational Reputation and Employee Outcomes: Looking in the Organizational Mirror, What do Employees See?

Abstract

Bureaucratic Reputation Theory focuses on external stakeholders, but it is plausible that reputation also plays an important role for internal stakeholders. This article therefore asks whether employees’ perception of their organization’s reputation matters for their organizational identification and job satisfaction. Based on a balanced panel with 193 employees from three Danish agencies surveyed in 2019 and 2020, the article finds that employees’ perception of their organization’s reputation relates positively to their job satisfaction and that this relation is partly mediated by employee’s identification with their organization. In addition to being important externally, this implies that organizational reputation is also a managerial asset in public organizations.