Building internal reputation from organisational values

Abstract

The paper enhances micro-cognitive understandings of how organisational values can build internal reputation. Drawing-on a multi-method case study of a private hospital in Malaysia, we show the process of how values are internalised within organisations. We illustrate how different internal actors are important for embedding organisational values at various stages, and show the interplay between them. We show leaders are important for role modelling and engaging, managers are important for embedding and reinforcing, and employees are important for empowering and reciprocating. We argue that in order for values to be internalised, leaders, managers and employees need to effectively create, communicate and enact those values. Rather than values being imposed by a single dominant internal actor, we show that they can be diffused by internal stakeholders at different hierarchical levels. We find that the internalisation of organisational values helps to form positive perceptions of the values and creates individual behaviours that correspond to those values. While the literature has focused on what dimensions and which stakeholders influence reputation building, we show how micro-cognitive processes build internal reputation from organisational values.