Abstract

Organizational reputation theory suggests reputational threats can induce public organizations to change their behavior. However, it offers few insights into how organizations in contexts of high audience heterogeneity prioritize between conflicting threats, or how they ensure reputation-seeking signals reach their intended audiences. This article seeks to close these knowledge gaps. It expects organizational threat prioritization to be shaped by the centrality of the threat to the organization’s distinct reputation, and by differences in audiences’ capacity to put pressure on the organization through mobilization. Moreover, it argues that public organizations strategically vary the observability and costliness of outgoing reputation-seeking signals in response to shifts in the balance of reputational threats they face. It finds support for these expectations in the context of the European Commission, a supranational organization operating in a context of high audience heterogeneity and severe reputational threats. The empirical analysis is based on the Bayesian longitudinal modeling and simulation of Commission decision-making and applies a novel dataset on fiscal rule enforcement in the European Union (EU). The findings have important implications for organizational reputation theory and call for a renewed focus on the mechanisms underlying audience-induced organizational behavior.

中文翻译：

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受众异质性，代价高昂的信号发送和威胁优先级划分：欧盟官僚声望的建立

摘要

组织声誉理论表明，声誉威胁会诱使公共组织改变其行为。但是，对于在高受众异质性的情况下组织如何在冲突威胁之间确定优先级，或者如何确保寻求声誉的信号到达目标受众方面，它提供的见解很少。本文旨在弥补这些知识鸿沟。它期望通过对组织独特声誉的威胁的中心性以及受众通过动员向组织施加压力的能力的差异，来决定组织威胁的优先级。此外，它认为，公共组织从战略上改变了传出的寻求声誉信号的可观察性和成本性，以响应其所面临的声誉威胁平衡的变化。它在欧洲委员会的背景下找到了对这些期望的支持，欧洲委员会是一个在听众异质性和严重声誉威胁的背景下运作的超国家组织。实证分析基于委员会决策的贝叶斯纵向建模和模拟，并在欧盟（EU）的财政规则执行中应用了新颖的数据集。这些发现对组织声誉理论具有重要意义，并呼吁人们重新关注受众引起的组织行为的机制。实证分析基于委员会决策的贝叶斯纵向建模和模拟，并在欧盟（EU）的财政规则执行中应用了新颖的数据集。这些发现对组织声誉理论具有重要意义，并呼吁人们重新关注受众引起的组织行为的机制。实证分析基于委员会决策的贝叶斯纵向建模和模拟，并在欧盟（EU）的财政规则执行中应用了新颖的数据集。这些发现对组织声誉理论具有重要意义，并呼吁人们重新关注受众引起的组织行为的机制。