There is an almost continuous flow of news about firms and other organizations in media for things they have done that is not accepted by customers, personnel, shareholders, the general public, regulators and other stakeholders, often with severe negative consequences. It may concern negative environmental impact; deficient handling of consumer data, child labor, or personnel management; distributed bonuses, corruption, misleading communication, tax planning etc.

One reason is that the decision makers are lacking numerical information about the reputation risks they are taking with a certain decision, or just oblivious to the existence of any such risk. At the same time, many firms or organizations miss out of acting in a way that could be advantageous to them by positive reactions from stakeholders, for the simple reasons of lacking indicators of such possibilities.

The awarded research is a theoretically based method to measure such risks and opportunities, which has been tested on many different types of firm behaviors or decisions, and also applied by firms. The idea is that the method should be used before decisions are made in order to avoid costly behaviors, or to discover opportunities.

The full title of the research:
Sustainable business: Reputation risks and opportunities from media expo­sure and how to manage such.

The full list of awared research projects, all focusing on sustainable emergency preparedness (51 projects in total 2021): https://www.iva.se/projekt/research2business/ivas-100-lista-2021/