Corporate Reputation, Information Asymmetry, and Performance: An Analysis of International Container Ports

This study aims to analyse the relationships between corporate reputation, information asymmetry, and performance in the international container ports. Corporate reputation has been examined from the views of many interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives. This study examines corporate reputation from the perspective of the signaling theory. Dealing with information asymmetry is crucial for developing a sound signaling environment between the companies and their stakeholders, since corporate reputation can act as a positive or a negative signal. Because of their roles in critical supply chains, the container ports have dynamic and complex structures, and the importance of corporate reputation is increasing day by day amongst the international container ports. The data consists of information about container throughput, market share, sustainability projects, awards and existence of official reports from the world’s leading container ports in the Europe, Red Sea and Persian Gulf. A panel regression analysis was applied on data collected from container port websites, annual reports, sustainability reports, environmental reports, and sectoral reports over 4 years (2016–2019). Findings revealed the existence of a relationship between corporate reputation and information asymmetry variables; however, the results for port performance variables were not consistent throughout the tested models. Results suggest that the disclosure of an annual report on the port web site affects corporate reputation significantly positive.