Learning about reputational risk in the era of Covid-19: disinformation as corporate risk

Abstract

When communication professionals were still asking themselves how companies could survive and prosper in the era of hyper-transparency while keeping all reputational risks under control, an unexpected situation appeared that is now generating two problems that were still in the process of being addressed in terms of how to integrate such risks into corporate reputation management. One difficulty is incorporating reputational risk into the corporate risk architecture; the other involves addressing the risks induced by disinformation, which is a new setback for corporate reputation. This study investigates the planning that takes place in Spanish companies regarding the effects of media disinformation on corporate reputation and the perception of such disinformation as a corporate risk to be included among all other reputational risks. As such, our intention is to confirm the extent to which Spanish companies accept the danger of disinformation, and the degree to which they consider the latter to be a new reputational risk that may be more urgent and serious when a situation such as the current worldwide pandemic occurs without warning. The main conclusion is that the risks related to disinformation reinforce the gap between professional perception and organisational priorities.