Introduction to Reputation in the Cyberworld

Abstract

Reputation is a very familiar phenomenon. Your reputation is who you are held to be by others; it is your social standing. A good reputation is helpful for getting through life, and, in one sense or another, is indispensable for rising through the social ranks. For some career paths, notoriety may actually boost your standing in the world. Your reputation precedes you as the information or narrative in circulation about who you have been, so there is an undeniable connection to the temporal dimension of the past. Your very identity is tied to the reputation you have established or ruined in your personal social world. In business transactions reputation can play a crucial role, especially where credit is required to finance them. A creditor has to trust a potential debtor, thus giving him credit in the double sense. Whether we trust each other in any kind of social interplay depends on each other's reputations in circulation that have come to our ears. Reputations apply to both natural and juridical persons. Any corporate entity will be jealous of its reputa-tion because it has a direct link to commercial success. The growing phenomenon of Corporate Social Respon-sibility evidences how important a company's standing in the community and society has become, including for the bottom line. Companies' reputations have long since been drawn into political struggles over fair corporate practices.