Influence of management style on employee views of corporate reputation. Application to audit firms

In the current economic context where the behaviour of firms is carefully examined by the markets, the corporate reputation which is generated by organisations among their stakeholders may facilitate their success. Since employees are actively involved in its shaping and influence the overall perception of the firm's corporate reputation, the aim of this research is to improve the management of the employee views of reputation in order to increase its global evaluation. To do this, we analyse whether the existence of a characteristic management style influences the employee views of reputation, studying the effect of control variables such as employee age, gender, level of education or job position. Using a sample of 148 employees of Spanish accounting audit firms, we develop a specific tool for measuring the reputation from the employee perspective of service SMEs, as well as confirming that a strong participative management style promotes a better perception of reputation by employees than a competitive style. Hence, this study reflects that men prefer a competitive management style. Also, a high level of education along with job position has a positive impact on the preference of a participative style with the job position being the main moderating variable of the proposed model.