Anadolu University's corporate reputation according to the views of internal and external stakeholders

The need of getting respect from others and building reputation has always been important throughout the history. The concept of corporate reputation, which started with studies on companies, has become an issue in literature since 1990s. It has been investigated for public and private sector companies that have operations in different sectors. In today?s conditions in which changes and development happen rapidly and continuously in many sectors, it has been expressed that having good reputation is important for sustainability and getting competitive advantages. Within this context, it has been suggested that as educational institutions, universities? reputation should be high.General purpose of this study is to reveal the views of internal and external stakeholders of Anadolu University about its level of institutional reputation. The study was performed in survey model, during which first, the conceptual framework put forward by the existing literature review and then toward the purpose of the study a Likert-type scale was developed and implemented. The scale consisted of two parts. The first part included demographic information about participants. The second part consisted of a total of sixty four items associated with the dimensions of: Management and leadership, employees, workplace, corporate culture, products and services, social responsibility. The Cronbach?s Alpha coefficient was calculated as .89 for the whole scale. In the population of research, internal stakeholders consisted of students and employees of the university which are sub-groups of academic staff, administrative staff and blue-collar workers. The external stakeholders consisted of tradesman, merchants, manufacturers, managers of professional institutions, representatives of non-governmental organizations, press members and employees of public organizations that have close relations with the university.Results showed that generally the stakeholders have positive views about Anadolu University?s reputation; but according to evaluation of reputation, some differences of opinion exist when comparing internal and external stakeholders and between their sub-groups. Participants did not have positive opinions about Anadolu University?s reputation in the dimensions of management and leadership, employees, products and services. However, they have positive opinions in the dimensions of workplace, corporate culture, social responsibility. Workplace was perceived as the best dimension of the reputation while management and leadership was the worst. It appears that Anadolu University should determine insufficient components in the dimensions which have been criticized negatively, and some initiatives are necessary for improving the reputation in related areas.