On Tuesday 20 January Brand South Africa will host a live Twitter chat on reputation management and competitiveness with Media Tenor founder and CEO Roland Schatz, live from the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Managing a country’s global reputation increases its competitiveness, which attracts new investment and in turn creates jobs. (Image: Brand South Africa)
 Roland Schatz |
Join the conversation from 17h00 CAT (16h00 CET) by sending your questions on South Africa’s reputation and global competitiveness to @Brand_SA using the hashtag #SAinDavos.
The context
Roland Schatz is the CEO and founder of Media Tenor International. He is a leading scholar in the field of media impact research and global media content analysis.
What is reputation management?
• Reputation management is the influencing, regulating and guiding of the reputation of an individual, organisation or country. It relates to how various stakeholders in the public sphere perceive that particular individual, organisation or country.
• Reputation management was originally a public relations term that has gained popularity in the 21st century with the rise of the internet and social media, where users can freely disseminate information and opinion that can negatively impact a particular business.
• One of the basic principles of reputation management is decreasing or eradicating negative sentiment about a particular organisation or country, leaving mainly positive perceptions, thus attracting more business and, in the case of a country, investment.
• Reputation is at the heart of a company and a country’s success. The philosophy of reputation management is to match the external perception of an organisation or state and what these external stakeholders value to the internal perception and their organisational or national values. Only when these two are harmonised can an organisation or country be truly competitive.
What is competitiveness?
• The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report defines competitiveness as “the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country. The level of productivity, in turn, sets the level of prosperity that can be reached by an economy. The productivity level also determines the rates of return obtained by investments in an economy, which in turn are the fundamental drivers of its growth rates. In other words, a more competitive economy is one that is likely to grow faster over time.”
• Competitiveness therefore concerns attracting international investment and business to a particular country, as well as ensuring productivity in various sectors and industries in that that country, which will promote international trade and investment, therefore creating a healthy market economy both within that country and globally.
How does reputation management relate to competitiveness?
• The perception that international investors have of a particular country can either encourage them to invest in that country or deter that investment.
• It is important for a country to positively portray and position itself internationally in order to attract international business, investment and trade. By doing this productivity will increase within that country, and in turn the overall economic health will improve. One of the ways economic health is measured is the rate of employment and job creation.
• It is important for country to manage its international reputation, to ensure it is positively positioned internationally. It improves the country’s competitiveness, which in turn will attract investment, business and trade, which are tied to job creation.
In brief
• Reputation management is the influencing, regulating and guiding the reputation of an individual, organisation or country.
• Reputation management deals with how people perceive a particular person, organisation or country, and thus assign a value to that perception.
• The primary aim of reputation management is to decrease or even eradicate negative sentiment.
• By decreasing negativity you are able to attract more business and investment.
• Competitiveness concerns attracting international investment and business to a particular state, and increasing international trade.
• Improved competitiveness creates a healthy market economy both within a country and globally.
• A healthy national economy is linked to job creation because national productivity increases
• Countries must manage their international reputation, to ensure positive positioning, to attract investment, business and trade and improve competitiveness.
• Improved competitiveness is tied to job creation. Therefore, a good international reputation can create jobs.
About Roland Schatz
Roland Schatz is the founder and CEO of Media Tenor Ltd, the research institute of InnoVatio Verlags AG. With over 120 employees and offices in Beirut, Boston, Hanoi, London, New York, Pretoria, St Petersburg, Tianjin, Vienna and Zürich, Media Tenor is the leading provider of ongoing international media content analysis, including in-depth analysis of new and traditional global media.
Schatz has a Master’s degree in philosophy, economics, history and political science from the University of Fribourg and Bonn. Aside from a background in journalism and numerous entrepreneurial ventures, Schatz has served as trustee for the Education Africa Foundation in Johannesburg, the Innovation Institute in Pretoria and the Board of E-Standards in New York. In 2008 the UN High Advisor President Sampraio appointed Schatz as Global Media Expert. Together with Prince Ghazi of Jordan he founded the C1 World Dialogue Foundation in 2009 . In 2010 Schatz launched the Global Media Impact Centre in Boston, enabling PhD students to write their thesis based on the more than 100 Mio datasets of ongoing media analysis.
Schatz has taught strategic communication management and perception change at universities in Augsburg, Atlanta, Berlin, Bonn, Lugano and Prague, since 1990. He publishes regularly on reputational risk, financial sentiment and media impact, recently in the Washington Post, Harvard Business Review and Business Day. Since 2009 he has hosted together with the UN Academic Impact the Unlearning Intolerance Masterclasses.
