CORPORATE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT AND THE GROWTH OF COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The ideal approach of corporate reputation management possesses essential tools and strategies that can transform challenged image and public perception of any organization including self-help and profit-oriented organizations such as cooperative societies. The rising reputation related challenges of cooperative organisations due to official corruption, leadership tussles and other issues of mismanagement have continued to undermine their productivity and growth in Nigeria; these challenges are issues that corporate reputation management (CRM) can manage especially from the perspective of reinforcing the shared values and principles it has with cooperative organization that include integrity (honesty, truthfulness), character and trust, equality, economic democracy and social responsibility. On the premise of this concord of values, the paper explores how CRM tools, particularly via its priorities, can be activated and institutionalized into the affairs of cooperative societies, which hitherto lacked effective application of such tools, in order to forestall and control the effects of poor reputation that jeopardize their growth and success in Nigeria. This paper, therefore, recommends the introduction of corporate reputation management skills through workshops for elected  executives and officials of cooperatives, and the incorporation of the firm principles and values of CRM as invaluable corporate asset in the constitution of cooperative organizations in Nigeria.