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Government organization is commonly examined through formal mandates, hierarchical authority, specialization, jurisdiction, and coordination. Yet public organizations also operate within reputational environments in which they are continuously evaluated by political principals, peer organizations, citizens, professional communities, markets, and the media. These evaluations affect not only how organizations are perceived, but also how they are structured, connected, and governed. This open panel therefore treats organizational reputation as an organizing force that can shape governmental structures, interorganizational relations, administrative behavior, and strategic communication.
The panel invites papers that explore how reputation influences the organization and operation of government across different institutional, political, and administrative contexts. Relevant contributions may examine, among other issues, agency creation, termination, merger, reorganization, and jurisdictional change; organizational autonomy, authority, legitimacy, and resource acquisition; interministerial and interagency collaboration, coordination networks, and partner selection; organizational identity, image construction, and differentiation; leadership incentives and internal reputation management; strategic communication with political, professional, and societal audiences; and governmental responses to crises, scandals, policy failures, or other reputational threats.
We particularly welcome studies that connect formal organizational arrangements with symbolic, relational, and communicative processes. Papers may investigate how reputational considerations affect vertical relationships between political principals and administrative organizations, horizontal relationships among ministries and agencies, or external relationships with citizens and other stakeholders. Contributions may also address tensions among performative, moral, procedural, and technical reputations, as well as conflicts between political responsiveness, professional credibility, public accountability, and organizational distinctiveness.
The panel is open to comparative, single-country, cross-sectoral, and multilevel research on ministries, executive agencies, regulatory bodies, central banks, local governments, public service organizations, and other governmental institutions. It welcomes diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, including qualitative case studies, comparative institutional analysis, surveys and experiments, network analysis, computational text analysis, and mixed methods. By bringing these strands together, the panel seeks to advance organizational reputation as a bridge between the formal architecture of government and the strategic management of political, interorganizational, and societal relationships.