Owl Have You Know

A Scholar of Scandal feat. Professor Anastasiya Zavyalova

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Episode notes

They say all you have in business is your reputation. But in today's rapidly evolving world with social media lending everyone a microphone, who truly controls it?


On Monday, October 24th, 2022, we hosted our first live podcast taping at Rice Business with host Maya Pomroy ‘22, and Rice Business Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Anastasiya Zavyalova. 


Anastasiya is an associate professor of strategic management at Rice Business and an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Center for Corporate Reputation. Anastasiya’s research focuses on socially responsible and irresponsible organizational actions that build, damage, and restore social approval assets, like reputation and celebrity.


During this conversation, we dive into Anastasiya’s research on reputation management, how social media changed the landscape of the field, how that relates to the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as her hopes for the future.

Episode Quotes:

How long is a person's social memory in a crisis?

24:00: With social media, there are two dynamics going in different directions. So, on one hand, our attention span becomes shorter. Like, what happened yesterday? We forget because there's so many more shiny and bright things happening right now. Like you want to be constantly on point, you have to do so much more just to catch up. So that's one thing: attention span may be shorter, but on the other hand, with social media, everything you've posted stays with you forever on the web.


The difference between identity and reputation

39:38: Identity is what internal stakeholders think about who we are as an organization. Reputation is what external stakeholders think about the company. And if there is a mismatch, that's a good recipe for disaster.


On cultural level approach

06:17: So the US seems a much more positive country and culture. So when I teach certain concepts in my class, I come from a positive angle, like look at the success stories. This is what you should do, how they tackled it, and how they came out of a crisis. I think if I were, for instance, teaching this in Russia or another less positive culture, so to speak, things would be like, "Well, what did they do wrong?" Tell me what I should not do. And part of it is that there are certain cultural differences.


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