An increasing number of products and services are not differentiated by inherent features but
by the vendors particularly their reputation and marketing commu- cation. Consequently a
positive reputation provides competing vendors with a virtually inimitable competitive
advantage. Contemporary research concerning antecedents and consequences of reputation in the
domain of marketing is dominated by branding and line extension issues. Organizations'
communication efforts and the relation of reputation and the c- munication media are not fully
understood nor have they been challenged up to now. Moreover customers' perception of
reputation is clearly embedded in their cultural context. However contemporary marketing
research restricts both conceptual and empirical considerations to Western-type cultures.
Frequently even the differences in Western-type cultures are neglected. Considering these
shortcomings in contemporary marketing research Dr. Christine Falkenreck investigates the
opportunities and limits and also the potential bene?ts and dangers of transferring a vendor's
positive reputation to product categories never produced or offered by the considered vendor.
Embedding the empirical investigation of both reputation management and reputation transfer in
a coherent theoretical framework which is grounded in the Commitment-Trust theory is her
merit. She derives and validates an integrated model that appears to be valid in all cultures
considered in her study. The results of this analysis contribute substantially to our
understanding of reputation measuring and managing. These results are not restricted to
academic interests and they provided practitioners with a variety of new insights. Thus this
thesis will ho- fully be widely discussed in both academia and management practice.
