Abstract: Corporate reputation has been the focus of academics and practice. It is the overall perception of a corporate from the public. Numerous studies have confirmed that a good reputation will bring about many benefits. Nevertheless, a high reputation will raise the expectation of the society, while high-reputation companies will face severe penalties when they violate public expectations. Based on manually collected 3845 rumors of China’s A-Share Listed Companies from 2007 to 2019, this paper investigated the effect of corporate reputation on the stock reaction generated by market rumors and clarification announcements. The results indicate that when market rumors are disseminated, high-reputation companies suffer more from negative rumors and benefit less from positive rumors than low-reputation companies. High-reputation companies will be more willing to use strong denial towards negative rumors while less willing towards positive rumors. After clarification, the influence of negative rumors on high-reputation companies remains stronger, and the influence of positive rumors on high-reputation companies remains weaker. Further analyses show that negative rumors from new media will do more harm to high-reputation companies, and high-reputation companies can achieve a better clarification effect by using strong denial to negative rumors and worse clarification effect when lagging more time to make clarifications.

Key words: corporate reputation, market rumor, clarification strategy, clarification effect

摘要： 作为重要的资产和积极的信号，高声誉对企业而言一定是百利而无害吗？研究基于中国股票市场“传闻满天飞”的场景对此问题进行回答。通过手工收集并整理中国A股上市公司2007~2019年3 845个传闻，研究发现：相比低声誉企业，高声誉企业受到消极传闻的负面冲击更大，受到积极传闻带来的正面提升更小；高声誉企业应对消极传闻更愿意使用强否定，而应对积极传闻更不愿意使用强否定；在澄清之后，传闻带来的影响依然继续存在，高声誉企业受到消极传闻带来的负面影响依然更强，而受到积极传闻带来的正面影响依然更弱。进一步研究还发现，来自新兴媒体的消极传闻会给高声誉企业带来更大的伤害，高声誉企业应对消极传闻使用强否定时澄清效果更好，应对积极传闻滞后时间更长时澄清效果更差。该研究凸显了企业声誉是一把“双刃剑”，企业在关注其优势的同时，不能忽视其可能成为负担的另一面，应积极建立维护企业声誉的长效机制，形成良好声誉与企业发展互动的良性循环。

关键词: 企业声誉, 市场传闻, 澄清策略, 澄清效果