The attention of a society towards corporate brand name and its determinants within the information-rich economy

Corporate reputation can be a valuable corporate asset but a complicated concept to measure. Similarly, it is difficult to identify and quantify the determinants of corporate reputation. Considering the information rich economy and cognitive limits of economic agents (limited attention), ability to identify the effective channels of corporate communication can be a significant advantage for a corporation. This paper contributes with the methodology that enables to evaluate the attention of a society towards corporations and its determinants. The paper proposes the Google’s search volume for the specific corporation as a proxy for the attention of a society towards that company. To identify determinants of attention, the paper employs qualitative approaches Corporate Reputation QuotientTM and RepTrak®, that defines the dimensions of corporate reputation. Further, the paper employs Bayesian model averaging (BMA) to handle the uncertainty in a choice of particular determinants. Set of variables identified by BMA is estimated in a linear dynamic panel environment. Delivered results enable to evaluate the current channels of corporate communication with customers and its costs.