High/low reputation companies' dialogic communication activities and semantic networks on Facebook: A comparative study

•This study compared corporate reputation scores and their online interactions in social media space.•Semantic network analysis of Facebook posts and comments revealed the difference in communication.•Companies with high reputation scores were not necessarily active in social media space.•Companies with low reputation scores had diversity in the way of communicating in social media.•Future study should examine the relationship between reputation and cyber-communication further.

The present study aims to examine whether there is a significant difference between the level of activity and semantic networks of the Facebook pages of highly reputable and less reputable companies of the same industry. Applying the dialogic communication theory, the present study conducted a semantic network analysis. Samples used in the study include a total of five technology companies: Google, Sony, Dell, Fujitsu and Lenovo. Various elements, such as word clusters, co-occurring words and visual representation, were carried out through NodeXL, WORDij and UCINET software. The results show that high reputation score companies are not necessarily more engaged in direct interaction with its publics than low reputation score companies. In addition, high reputation score companies had positive words, whereas low reputation score companies had mixed results.