Prior work suggests that employee views of corporate reputation can influence a firm’s future financial performance and that previous financial performance can also influence employee views of reputation. What is not known is which is the greater effect, or whether the virtuous circle this implies might exist, particularly in smaller firms. The aim of this paper is to test the idea of a virtuous circle linking employee views of reputation (at two levels in the organization, senior managers and front-line employees) to firm performance. Data from a survey of employees in SME Spanish accounting audit firms were used to test a model derived from theory and prior work. We find that managers’ and employees’ views of reputation are each influenced by prior financial performance, employees more indirectly via the views of their managers. The influence of managers’ views on those of employees was in turn significant. However, the influence of both on future performance was less significant, with the views of managers having the greater effect.

先前的研究表明，员工对公司声誉的看法会影响公司未来的财务业绩，而以前的财务业绩也会影响员工对声誉的看法。目前尚不清楚哪个效果更大，或者这意味着是否可能存在良性循环，尤其是在较小的公司中。本文的目的是检验将员工对声誉的看法（在组织的两个层面，高级经理和一线员工）与公司绩效联系起来的良性循环的想法。来自西班牙中小企业会计审计公司员工调查的数据被用来测试从理论和先前工作中得出的模型。我们发现经理和员工对声誉的看法都受到先前财务业绩的影响，员工更间接地受到经理观点的影响。管理者的观点对员工的观点的影响反过来是显着的。然而，两者对未来业绩的影响都不那么显着，管理者的观点影响更大。