Kfc Reputation Analysis

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and McDonald’s are two representatives of fast food brands from the United States. These international companies have established a strong reputation around the world successfully. Meanwhile, these brands have different ranks in some reputation measurement systems, which caught the author’s attention. Thus, according to this start point, this report attempts to explore and compare the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Reputation (CR) of KFC and McDonald’s and to find out what factors contribute to these companies. After combining findings and analysis, the report discussed implication and limitation of the results.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Corporate Reputation (CR)

Corporate reputation influences

It is the net result of the interaction of a person’s beliefs, ideas, feelings, and impressions about the company. A company will not have a reputation – people hold reputations of the company”(Dowling, 1986).

There are three important aspects of a company that can affect the corporate reputation, which are image, identity and desired identity. It is important to define explicitly that all these three key elements and to know the difference among them.

Image: How external stakeholders see the company

The image is a summary of the impressions held by external stakeholders(Bromley, 1993). The clients are the most important external stakeholders among all stakeholders. So that image is described as what clients consider about the company from their own experiences (Bernstein and Audley, 1986).

Identity: How employees see themselves

Identity is the employees’ perception of the organization(Albert and Whetten, 1985).Meanwhile, the identity can affect other stakeholders behavior and attitudes toward the company through the employees.

Desired Identity: How the company wants external stakeholders to see

The internal perspective, which relates to as an identity, is a concern of human resources management(Chun, 2005). In time aspect, the image more focuses on the public’s latest belief about the company. However, reputation differs from image and builds up through a long time with a company. It has been claimed that a company’s external image commences with a company’s internal stakeholders, its employees, and how they perceive the company(Gray, 1986).

2.2 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

There is no unique definition of Corporate social responsibility (CSR), Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby companies combine social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis(Commission, 2002). “Corporate social responsibility (CSR) involves the conduct of a business so that it is economically profitable, law abiding, ethical and socially supportive. To be socially responsible then means that profitability and obedience to the law are the important conditions when discussing the firm’s ethics and the extent to which it supports the society in which it exists with contributions of money, time, and talent” (Carroll,