Investing in Reputation
Keywords:
business, economics, corporate reputation, Harris Poll Reputation Quotient, trading strategy, Fama and FrenchAbstract
This paper examines whether consideration of corporate reputation is useful in forming investment portfolios. Portfolios are constructed using the Harris Poll Reputation Quotient and rebalanced periodically. We find that an equally-weighted allocation consisting of stocks with high corporate reputation outperformed those with low reputation and benchmarks. Individual investors can incorporate these findings in making portfolio decisions that consider social values as well as in generating wealth and managing risk.
References
Beck, K.L., Chong, J., & Niendorf, B.D. (2022). Investment returns from reputation investing: Do good firms provide good returns? American Journal of Business, 37(3), 109–119.
Black, E.L., Carnes, T.A., & Richardson, V.J. (2000). The market value of corporate reputation. Corporate Reputation Review, 3(1), 30–42.
Brown, K.C., Tiu, C., & Yoeli, U. (2020). The decision to concentrate: Active management, manager skill, and portfolio size. The Journal of Portfolio Management, 46(5), 41–62.
Carhart, M.M. (1997). On persistence in mutual fund performance. The Journal of Finance, 52(1), 57–82.
Carhart, M.M., Carpenter, J.N., Lynch, A.W., & Musto, D.K. (2002). Mutual fund survivorship. The Review of Financial Studies, 15(5), 1439–1463.
Chang, Y., & Cheng, H. (2015). Information environment and investor behavior. Journal of Banking & Finance, 59, 250–264.
Choi, N., Fedenia, M., Skiba, H., & Sokolyk, T. (2017). Portfolio concentration and performance of institutional investors worldwide. Journal of Financial Economics, 123(1), 189–208.
Chong, J., & Phillips, G.M. (2013). Portfolio size revisited. The Journal of Wealth Management, 15(4), 49–60.
Cohen, J.R., Holder-Webb, L., & Zamora, V.L. (2015). Nonfinancial information preferences of professional investors. Behavioral Research in Accounting, 27(2), 127–153.
Deephouse, D.L. (2000). Media reputation as a strategic resource: An integration of mass communication and resource-based theories. Journal of Management, 26(6), 1091–1112.
DeMiguel, V., Garlappi, L., & Uppal, R. (2009). Optimal versus naive diversification: How inefficient is the 1/n portfolio strategy? The Review of Financial Studies, 22, 1915–1953.
Duchin, R., & Levy, H. (2009). Markowitz versus the Talmudic portfolio diversification strategies. The Journal of Portfolio Management, 35(2), 71–74.
Eckert, C. (2017). Corporate reputation and reputation risk: Definition and measurement from a (risk) management perspective. Journal of Risk Finance, 18(2), 145–158.
Evans, J.L., & Archer, S.H. (1968). Diversification and the reduction of dispersion: An empirical analysis. The Journal of Finance, 23(5), 761–767.
Fama, E.F., & French, K.R. (2015). A five-factor asset pricing model. Journal of Financial Economics, 116(1), 1–22.
Fama, E.F., & French, K.R. (2018). Choosing factors. Journal of Financial Economics, 128(2), 234–252.
Farago, A., & Hjalmarsson, E. (2023). Small rebalanced portfolios often beat the market over long horizons. The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, 13(2), 307–342.
Fiske, S.T., & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill, New York.
Fulkerson, J.A., & Riley, T.B. (2019). Portfolio concentration and mutual fund performance. Journal of Empirical Finance, 51, 1–16.
Gatzert, N. (2015). The impact of corporate reputation and reputation damaging events on financial performance: Empirical evidence from the literature. European Management Journal, 33(6), 485–499.
Gelmini, M., & Uberti, P. (2024). The equally weighted portfolio still remains a challenging benchmark. International Economics, forthcoming.
Glosten, L.R., Jagannathan, R., & Runkle, D.E. (1993). On the relation between the expected value and the volatility of the nominal excess return on stocks. The Journal of Finance, 48(5), 1779–1801.
Goetzmann, W.N., & Kumar, A. (2008). Equity portfolio diversification. Review of Finance, 12(3), 433–463.
Helm, S. (2005). Designing a formative measure for corporate reputation. Corporate Reputation Review, 8(2), 95–109.
Helm, S. (2007). The role of corporate reputation in determining investor satisfaction and loyalty. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(1), 22–37.
Huang, Y., Yang, S., & Zhu, Q. (2021, November). Brand equity and the Covid-19 stock market crash: Evidence from U.S. listed firms. Finance Research Letters, 43, 101941.
Hwang, I., Xu, S., & In, F. (2018). Naive versus optimal diversification: Tail risk and performance. European Journal of Operational Research, 265(1), 372–388.
Ivković, Z., Sialm, C., & Weisbenner, S. (2008). Portfolio concentration and the performance of individual investors. The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 43(2), 613–656.
Israel, R., & Ross, A. (2017). Measuring factor exposures: Uses and abuses. The Journal of Alternative Investments, 20(1), 10–25.
Kim, D., Kim, H.-D., Joe, D.Y., & Oh, J.Y.J. (2021, June). Institutional investor heterogeneity and market price dynamics: Evidence from investment horizon and portfolio concentration. Journal of Financial Markets, 54, 100604.
Kirby, C., & Ostdiek, B. (2012). It’s all in the timing: Simple active portfolio strategies that outperform naïve diversification. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 47(2), 437–467.
Kritzman, M., Page, S., & Turkington, D. (2010). In defense of optimization: The fallacy of 1/N. Financial Analysts Journal, 66(2), 31–39.
Krueger, T.M., & Wrolstad, M.A. (2007). Corporate reputation and investment value. Journal of Contemporary Business Issues, 15, 37–45.
Krueger, T.M., & Wrolstad, M.A. (2016). Impact of the reputation quotient on investment performance. Corporate Reputation Review, 19(2), 140–151.
Krueger, T.M., Wrolstad, M.A., & Van Dalsem, S. (2009, Summer/Fall). Do changes in corporate reputation impact subsequent stock price performance? Journal of the Academy of Finance, 176–185.
Krueger, T.M., Wrolstad, M.A., & Van Dalsem, S. (2010). Contemporaneous relationship between corporate reputation and return. Managerial Finance, 36(6), 482–490.
Lhabitant, F.-S. (2017). Portfolio diversification. Elsevier, Oxford.
Manabe, T., & Nakagawa, K. (2022, May). The value of reputation capital during the COVID-19 crisis: Evidence from Japan. Finance Research Letters, 46, Part A, 102370.
Markowitz, H. (1959). Portfolio selection: Efficient diversification of investments. John Wiley, New York.
Naveed, M., Ali, S., Iqbal, K., & Sohail, M.K. (2020). Role of financial and non-financial information in determining individual investor investment decision: A signaling perspective. South Asian Journal of Business, 9(2), 261–278.
Riley, T., & Yan, Q. (2022). Maximum drawdown as predictor of mutual fund performance and flows. Financial Analysts Journal, 78(4), 59–76.
Roche, H., Tompaidis, S., & Yang, C. (2013). Why does junior put all his eggs in one basket? A potential rational explanation for holding concentrated portfolios. Journal of Financial Economics, 109(3), 775–796.
Sarstedt, M., Wilczynski, P., & Melewar, T.C. (2013). Measuring reputation in global markets—A comparison of reputation measures’ convergent and criterion validities. Journal of World Business, 48(3), 329–339.
Schwaiger, M. (2004). Components and parameters of corporate reputation—An empirical study. Schmalenbach Business Review, 56(1), 46–71.
Tu, J., & Zhou, G. (2011). Markowitz meets Talmud: A combination of sophisticated and naive diversification strategies. Journal of Financial Economics, 99(1), 204–215.
Walsh, G., & Beatty, S.E. (2007). Measuring customer-based corporate reputation: Scale development, validation, and application. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 35(1), 127–143.
Zakamulin, V. (2017). Superiority of optimized portfolios to naive diversification: Fact or fiction? Finance Research Letters, 22, 122–128.