Center for Corporate Reputation Management Scholars Recognized

Research published by Dr. Daniel Korschun, assistant professor of marketing and a Fellow in the Center for Corporate Reputation Management at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, has been listed among the Top 50 articles worldwide, and Dr. Elliot Schreiber, the recently retired founding executive director of the reputation center, was recognized as an international thought leader in the field of branding.

“These recognitions are a testament to the quality of Drexel LeBow’s faculty research and the real-world applicability of that research,” said Interim Dean Frank Linnehan, Ph.D. “We are at the forefront of thinking in the fields of reputation management and branding.”

Korschun’s article, “Using Corporate Social Responsibility to Win the War for Talent,” was published in 2008 in MIT Sloan Management Review. Korschun and co-authors C.B. Bhattacharya, Ph.D., and Sankar Sen, Ph.D., analyzed how employees interpret corporate social responsibility. Their article was selected from among more than 300,000 articles appearing in 300 publications worldwide.

“One of our major recommendations is that companies need to tailor corporate social responsibility to align with he psychological benefits employees get from CSR,” he says. “For example, we found that for employees at a manufacturing plant, CSR helped them feel connected to headquarters, while for those in a foreign office -- where there was considerable negative sentiment towards the company -- CSR helped employees defend the company against criticism. With this knowledge, the company configured and communicated CSR in very different ways towards each of these employee groups.”

Korschun called it a “pleasant surprise” to learn that this article has been so useful to so many people. “As a scholar, and in particular a scholar at Drexel, my greatest reward is seeing my research have an impact, that is applicable in the real world. That is why I always try to partner with companies on my research. This award is a great honor because it suggests that my work is having a tangible effect on business practice.”

Korschun adds that he is always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with companies for new research studies.

The Top 50 designation was awarded by Emerald’s Management Reviews, an abstracting and indexing database that covers every article in the top 300 business, management and economics journals worldwide.

Schreiber received a “Global Brand Leadership Award” from the World Brand Congress, which recognizes “individuals who are doing things ‘differently’ and providing thought leadership in branding.”

The World Brand Congress is an annual meeting that brings together the “best brains behind some of the world’s most successful and sought-after brands.”

Schreiber founded Drexel LeBow’s Center for Corporate Reputation Management, the first of its kind at the U.S. academic institution. He recently retired from the role of executive director but remains in a thought-leadership role as a member of its advisory council.