Harris and Partner Launch Corporate Reputation Tool

In the US, The Harris Poll and marcoms firm Finn Partners have teamed up to launch the Societal Return on Investment (SROI) Index, designed to measure a company's corporate reputation for social good.

The SROI Index, drawn from interviews with 25,800 US adults, brings together elements of leadership, citizenship and real-world engagement to assess perceptions across many demographics including age, gender, region, income and party affiliation. It can be applied to any company and was developed to show the causal relationship between how a company performs in these areas and how they may influence business outcomes. The index scores and ranks 1000 of the most 'visible' companies according to the public's perception of their impact on society.

Wendy Salomon, MD of Corporate Reputation at The Harris Poll said the new metric provides business leaders with an 'unprecedented read' on what aspects of their social good performance might be most helpful or harmful to their growth. Amy Terpeluk, Senior Partner in the CSR & Social Impact practice at Finn Partners, added: 'Our new data shows that the public has a definite opinion about what issues they feel companies should address and the social impact bar has been set high'.

Web sites: www.harrisinsights.com and www.finnpartners.com .