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African Journal of Agricultural Marketing ISSN: 2375-1061 Vol. 3 (5), pp. 216-223, May, 2015. Available online at 
www.internationalscholarsjournals.org © International Scholars Journals 

 

Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. 

 

 

 

 

Full Length Research Paper 
 

The relationship between corporate reputation and 
consumer brand preferences in the soft drink market in 

Egypt 

 

*1Hisham Heweny, 2Omar K. V. and Abu Ahmed Suleiman2
 

 
1Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management Sciences, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. 

2Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management Sciences, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt. 
 

Accepted 15 April, 2015 
 

Researchers have acknowledged the importance of corporate reputation amongst different fields of study. 

Scolars addressing corporate reputation in the field of marketing have acknowledged corporate reputation 
has a positive effect on customer loyalty and satisfaction. However, there is limited research tackling brand 

preference and also these studies mainly tackled developed markets. The relationship between corporate 
reputation and brand preference is the focus of this research. The researcher focuses on the soft drinks 

market in Egypt; to examine whether a significant relationship exists between corporate reputation and 
consumer brand preference. The researcher used the dimensions in RepTrak™ Model which are: Products 
and Services, Innovation, Performance, Citizenship, Governance, Leadership, and Workplace. The sample 

was 247 respondents mostly Egyptians middle class aged 21-29 years old. Data analyses have been 
conducted using selected statistical tests such as normality, autocorrelation and multi-co linearity tests to 

achieve the research objectives and answer the research questions. The findings showed that there is a 
positive significant relationship between brand preference and corporate reputation dimensions. At the end 
the researcher provides recommendations for further use of the model identified and areas where future 

research is needed. 
 
Key words: Corporate reputation, corporate reputation management, brand preference, stakeholders, soft drinks 

industry. 

 
INTRODUCTION 
 
Day by day the global connectivity is making consumers 
more sophisticated which led to the high importance of    
corporate reputation but also the hardship in its 
management. Corporate reputation has gained significant  
attention over the past two decades: as a concept, its 
measurement,  and  implications  on  organizations 
(Shamma, 2012).   It  has  been  acknowledged to have a  
 
 
 
*Corresponding Author. Email: Hisham13@mans.edu.eg 

positive direct relationship with customer satisfaction 
(Davies et al., 2003) and intent to purchase (Davies et al., 
2003). Recent researches argue that consumers are 
getting more interested in what the companies stand for 
rather than what they sell (Cross and Morsten, 2012). 
After reviewing the literature of corporate reputation, 
studies tackling corporate reputation in the Middle-East 
especially Egypt were minimal. These studies aimed to 
shed light on the importance of corporate reputation and 
factors that influence consumers‟ perception oncorporate 
reputation. A research conducted by Marks  and  spencer 



Hisham  et al.      216 
 
 
 

Table 1. Corporate reputation definitions (Barnett et al., 2006; Walker, 2010). 
 

 Definition group View of corporate reputation Definition group View of corporate reputation 
 Asset Asset of economic value Perceptual Stakeholders‟ perception of a company 
 Assessment Stakeholders‟ evaluation of a firm Aggregate Collective stakeholders‟ perception 
 Awareness Stakeholders‟ perception of a firm Comparative Act as differentiator between corporations 
   Positive/negative Can be a value or a threat to a corporation 
   Temporal Changes from time to time 

 

 
Table 2. Impact of corporate reputation on several marketing parameters. 
 

Focus Interpretation Author 
 
Repeated purchase 
 
 
Customer loyalty 

 
Corporate reputation plays a role in increasing 

customer frequency of visits  
Customers are more secured towards a higher 

reputable company, and hence they trust this company 

more. This strengthens their relationship with the 

company and its associates. 

 
Davies et al., 2003 

 
Walsh and Beatty, 2007; Ferries 

et al., 2003; Lin et al., 2003 

 
Customer recommendation 

Attracting new customers 
 
Perceived quality 

 
Positive corporate reputation can enhance customer 

recommendation  
Corporate reputation attracts new customers  
Customers are more committed with companies that 

possess higher reputation as they perceive higher quality in 

their products/services 

 
Bontis et al., 2007; Groenland, 

2002  
Dalton and Croft, 2003 

 
McMillan and Joshi, 1997 

 

Customer satisfaction 
Corporate reputation impacts positively customer commitment Davies and Chun, 2002; 

 

and satisfaction Richard and Zhang, 2012  

 
 

 

 

Spencer in 2010 found that Egyptian consumers are 

getting more sophisticated in their demands and 

expectation. They look for quality and brand reputation of 

the products they purchase (Al Bawaba Business, 2010). 

The Egyptian Carbonated Soft Drinks market is very 

competitive where both Pepsi and Coca-Cola are at very 

similar market shares (AC Nielsen Retail Audit, Dec, 

2011). 
 
 
What is corporate reputation? 
 
The involvement of corporate reputation studies in multi-
ple disciplines has caused it to have numerous definitions 
(Mahon, 2002; Lewellyn, 2002; Barnett et al, 2006). The 
most commonly used and referenced definition was that 
proposed by Fombrum (1996) which composed corporate 
reputation to be of three main characteristics; (1) It is 
based on stakeholders‟ perception. (2) This perception is 
an overall combined perception of multiple stakeholders. 
(3) It is comparative which means that reputation can be 
compared amongst competitors. Several researchers 
analyzed the numerous corporate reputation definitions 
into clusters or groups which align with Fombrum‟s 
definition as illustrated in Table 1.  

Several academics questioned the collectivism of cor-

porate reputation (Smith, 2002; Lewellyn, 2002). Building 

on  that  Walsh  and  Betty   (2007)  developed   customer 

 
 

based reputation which is the overall customer perception 

of a company in a given time. 

 
Importance of corporate reputation 
 
Corporate reputation importance has been the subject of 

numerous academic studies in the fields of finance 

(Davies et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2008; Walker, 2010), 

strategic management (Fombrum and Van Riel, 2004; 

Bloom et al., 2006; Karim, 2006), and marketing. Table 2 

summarizes the researches tackling the impact of 

corporate reputation on several marketing parameters. 
 
 
Measures of corporate reputation 
 
The mounting interest in corporate reputation research 
spurred researchers to develop a variety of different 

construct measures for both academic and practitioner 
use. The common corporate reputation measures have 

treated it as a formative index, however recent research 
in the field of strategy acknowledged modeling intangible 

assets as reflective indicators (Bergh et al., 2010). 
Corporate reputation components and measures were 
firstly initiated by practitioners. The most commonly used 

method of measuring corporate reputation is the Fortune 
Magazine‟s   Most   Admired   Companies   Index (FMAC) 



217       Afr. J. Agric. Mark. 
 
 

 
Table 3. Factors affecting brand preference. 

 
Abdul et al. (2006) 
 
Michael and Nedunchezhian 

(2012) Gopi and Arasu (2012)  
Paracha et al. (2012) 

 
Brand preference is affected by cultural, individual (age, gender), psychological (mood 

changes), and social factors (lifestyle, social status)  
Studied the preference of Coca-Cola in India and Pakistan. They found that its 

impacted by taste, availability, packaging, sales promotions, refreshment and mostly 

advertisement 
 

 
(Fombrum, 1998; Wartick, 2002).  

The academic corporate reputation measures are 
divided into two types; measures that reflect the overall 
perception of stakeholders regarding a company which 
are known as single faceted measures, the easiest way 
to measure overall reputation (Ponzi, Fombrum and 
Gardberg, 2011). The other type of measures is the multi-
faceted, where these measures examine the perception 
of stakeholders for each dimension of corporate repu-
tation. However using a single-faceted general measure 
of corporate reputation limits organizations from 
identifying the factors that affect their reputation either 
positively or negatively. 

One of the highly common multiple facteted measures 
of corporate reputation is the Reputation Institute‟s 
“Reputation Quotient SM (RQ)” developed by Fombrum 
and a market research firm Harris Interactive (Ponzi et 
al., 2011). RQ consists of 22 attributes combined in 6 
dimensions which are (1) emotional appeal, (2) products 
and services, (3) financial performance, (4) workplace,  
(5) vision and leadership, and (6) social responsibility. 
Walsh and Beatty (2007) developed the Customer Based 
Reputation Scale. The scale included the 20 attributes of 
RQ in addition to 8 other attributes added by the 
researchers.  

RepTrak™ is a corporate reputation measure deve-
loped by Reputation Institute in 2006 and is considered 
an adapted version of RQ (Vidaver-Cohen, 2007). 
Corporate reputation is recognized as based on four 
pillars which are trust, admiration, good feelings, and 
overall esteem. These pillars are decomposed to seven 
dimensions for corporate reputation in the RepTrak Index 
and 23 different attributes. The RepTrak™ model has 
inspired several researchers to create reputational 
measurement models derived from its dimensions and 
attributes such as Vivader Cohen (2007) for the 
educational sector and Marchiori et al. (2010) for the 
tourism sector. 
 
 
What is brand preference? 
 
The most recent definition was by Singh et al. (2008) 

where they described brand preference as the ordering of 

the brand or its hierarchical prioritization in the mind of 

the consumers based on their understanding of what the 

brand stands for and whether he supports it or not. 

Positive feelings towards a brand are found when positive 

 

 
preference is noticed and vice versa (Singh et al., 2008) 

and capitalizing on these positive feelings might lead to 

customer loyalty. Brand preference is a driver for higher 

sales and revenues, and can later yield a loyal consumer 

or customer (Bailey and Ball, 2006). Customers will 

always have more options to choose from due to the 

increase in competition, and hence their preference can 

change over time (Marthur et al., 2003). 
 
 
Factors affecting brand preference 
 
Several studies tackle the factors that affect or impact 

brand preference especially in the soft drinks industry. 

Table 3 illustrates these studies and the factors 

influencing brand preference in each. 
 
 
Corporate reputation dimensions and consumer 

preference 
 
Corporate reputation is a significant influencer of whether 
prospective consumers evolve to being customers for a 
certain firm (Helm, 2007). In their latest press release, the 
Reputation Institute issued their latest study (Cross and 
Morsten, 2012) stating that the decision for a consumer to 
purchase or an investor to invest or an employee to 
choose to work for a certain company is driven 60% by 
his perception of this company and what it stands for, and 
40% by the products it sells.  

Consumers now are becoming more ethically con-
scious in their consumption (Hines and Ames, 2000). 
Research acknowledged the significance of quality in the 
consumer purchase decision and comparing products 
versus others (Olorunniwo and Hsu, 2006). Akram (2008) 

studied the impact of perceived risks on purchase 
intention. He argued that consumers‟ perceived financial 
risk and performance risk affect negatively their choice of 

product and its purchase in the online industry. Authors 
acknowledged that consumers would prefer a product 
originating from a recognized company rather than an 
unknown one (Dinlerosz and Peireira, 2007). 
 
 
The soft drinks market in Egypt 
 
Pepsi Cola Egypt (PCE) leads the Egyptian CSD market 

with   a   value   market share of 47.4% followed by Coca- 



Hisham  et al.      218 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Products and Services 
 
Financial Performance 

 
Citizenship 
 
Innovativeness 

 
Governance 
 
Workplace 
 
Leadership & Vision 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dependent Variable 

 
Brand Preference 

 
Figure 1. The theoretical model of the study. 

 

 
Table 4. Limitations of corporate reputation measures. 
 

Measure FMAC Reputation quotient Customer based reputation scale (CBR) 
 

Limitation 
Doubted validity for scientific Innovation is only recognized as a single attribute 

 

CBR has been only applied for the service industry (Walsh and  

research (Deephouse, 2000)  

 
Beatty, 2007)  

 

   
 

 

 
Cola (KO) (41.1%) and Al Ahram Beverages (9.9%). The 

rest of the companies contribute 1.6% of the total 

Egyptian CSD market. Pepsi Cola is the brand that has 

the highest market share. The Colas segment is the 

largest segment in terms of value contributing 33% of the 

total CSD market. Also the importance in the Cola‟s 
sector is that it includes the biggest brands in the market 

such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola which carry the 

company names (Nielsen, 2011; Retail Audit, 2012). 

 
RESEARCH DESIGN AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 
 
The purpose of the research is to examine the relationship between 
independent variables “dimensions of corporate reputation” and the 

dependent variable “brand preference” on target consumers of the 
carbonated soft drink Egyptian market. The model was inspired 
from the RepTrak ™ Model developed by Reputation Institute 
where it measures the overall reputation of companies and the 
impact of each dimension of corporate reputation on it (Global 
RepTrak ™ Annual Report, 2012, Reputation Institute). Figure 1 
illustrates the theoretical model of the study. 

 
Dimensions of corporate reputation 
 
The researcher will use the multiple facetted specific approach to 
shed light on each dimension for a clearer picture on the construct. 
This provides a more in-depth examination of the specific dimen-
sions of corporate reputation that needs to be better managed and 
those that need to be retained (Shamma and Hassan, 2009). The 
researcher chose to examine the most commonly used measures 
that were used in both academic and practitioner studies in Table 4.  

Researchers have validated the importance of innovation 

especially in highly competitive high  pressure  markets  (Aghion et 

 

 
al., 2002) and oligopoly markets (Chen et al., 2005). For that the 
researcher will use the dimensions of corporate reputation identified 
in the RepTrak ™ model which is considered an adapted version of 
RQ (Vindaver-Cohen, 2007). The model has been globally tested 
and validated across 27 different countries and 1000 companies 
(Global RepTrak™ Report, 2012).  

The researcher omitted some attributes from the original 
RepTrak™ based on the interviews with marketers that are detailed 
later. The measure is open to adjustment according to the type of 
study and the targeted stakeholders (Groenland, 2002). The 
definitions or attributes for each dimension are shown in Table 5.  

For measuring the dependent variable, “Consumer Brand 

Preference” the researcher adopted a series of five Likert scale 

questions to measure the consumer brand preferences from Chang 

and Liu‟s (2009) study of measuring the impact of brand equity on 

brand preference. 

 
Research hypotheses 
 
The research alternative hypotheses are formulated to test the 

relationships between the dependent and independent variables 

under study illustrated in Table 6. 

 
Data collection and sampling 
 
The questions of the survey were adopted from RepTrak attributes 

tested. The researcher used judgmental sampling and targeted an 

estimated sample of 900 where he succeeded to collect 306 

respondents. 
 
Qualitative interviews with industry experts 
 
The researcher interviewed Mr. Fadl Abowafia Pepsi brand 

manager   and   Mr.   Mohamed  El Mahdy Coke brand manager  



219       Afr. J. Agric. Mark. 
 
 

 
Table 5. RepTrak ™ dimensions and attributes used in the study. 
 
Innovation Workplace environment       Products and services 
 
Innovative rewards employees fairly 
 
First to market Employee well-being 
 
Adapts quickly to change     looks like it has good employees  
Citizenship Performance  
Supports good causes       Profitable  
Environmentally responsible   Better results than expected  
Positive influence on society   Strong growth prospects  
Vision and Leadership  
has a clear vision for the future 

 
stands behind products/services; offers high 

quality products/services  
offers products/services that are high value for 

money  
meets customers‟ needs 

Governance  
Behave ethically 

Open and transparent 

 
Source: Marchiori, 2010 after adapting it by researcher. 

 

 
Table 6. Research hypotheses. 

 
There is a significant relation relationship between corporate reputation dimension and consumer brand preference  
H1 Financial performance H2 Products and services offered 
H3 Innovativeness H4 Workplace 
H5 Governance H6 Citizenship 
H7 Leadership   

 

 
Table 7. Attributes omitted from RepTrak as a result of qualitative interviews. 
 
Attribute omitted Dimension   argument  
“Company is fair in the way they do business”  Governance  
“appealing leaders” Leadership  
“Well Organized” Leadership 

 
Information not available for consumers. Respondent must be 

in direct contact with the company e.g. supplier, customer, 

emlpoyee..etc 
 

 
Each for 30 min, asking them a series of open ended questions to 
uncover their opinion on the industry, its consumers, and what 
influences them. The main purpose of the interviews was to get a 
closer look in the industry from experts‟ point of view.  

The cola‟s marketers acknowledged the importance of corporate 
reputation and also the possible influence of the dimensions and 
attributes on brand preference. However they recommended that 
some attributes should be omitted as the study aims to measure 
corporate reputation from the consumers‟ perception and each 
stakeholder will have a different perception and expectation than 
other (Walsh and Beatty, 2007). After consolidating the qualitative 
interviews results the researcher omitted the attributes listed in 
Table 7 that were not acknowledged by both interviewees. 

 
Scale reliability 
 
Table 8 represents the internal consistency of the questions used to 

measure the variables. The leadership variable will not be 

presented in the reliability test because this variable is composed of 

only one question (Hinton et al., 2004). 
 
 

Sample demographics 
 
The sample was composed of 306 respondents; out of 247 were 

 

 
carbonated soft drinks drinkers, 50% males and 50% females. The 

dominant age group for the respondents is 21-29 years old (80%). 
70% of the respondents have a bachelor degree and 24% have a 

master degree. They are mostly Egyptians (87%) and reside in 

Egypt (74%) and few living in the MENA region (13%). When asked 

what is their preferred cola soft drink brand 68% answered Pepsi 

while the rest answered Coke. 

 
Correlation analysis 
 
Both of Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic and Shapiro-Wilk test were 
used to test data normality (Sekaran, 2003). All variables are not 
normally distributed as their sig value is less than 0.05; hence 
spearman rank correlation test was used and results are illustrated 
in Table 9.  

The sig value for all variables is less than 0.05 or less than 0.01 

except for workplace and leadership. There is a relationship 

between brand preference and all of the independent variables 

except workplace and leadership. 

 
Regression analysis 
 
It was performed to test the research hypotheses. Linear regression 

or multivariate analysis is based on the assumption of normality. 



Hisham  et al.      220 
 
 
 

Table 8. Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient. 
 

 Variables Cronbach's Alpha Variables Cronbach's Alpha 
 Brand Preference 0.743 Workplace 0.813 
 Financial Performance 0.862 Governance 0.902 
 Products and Services 0.781 Citizenship 0.825 
 Innovation 0.762   

 

 
Table 9. Testing independent variables correlation with dependent variable. 

 
 

Independent variables 
Y1:Brand Preference Sig. 

 

 
Correlation coefficient (2-tailed)  

  
 

 X1: Financial Performance .173
**
 0.006 

 

 X2: Products and Services .307
**

 0 
 

 X3: Innovation .260
**

 0 
 

 X4: Workplace 0.08 0.208 
 

 X5: Governance .163
*
 0.01 

 

 X6: Citizenship .186
**

 0.003 
 

 X7: Leadership 0.103 0.107 
  

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 

0.05 level (2-tailed). Source: SPSS Data Analysis. 
 
 

Table 10. The model summary statistics of the regression model. 
 

 R Square Adjusted R square Sum of squares F Sig. 
 .117 .106 13.881 10.723 .000

p
 

 

 
Table 11. The evaluation of the significance of the B weights. 
 
  

Model 
Unstandardized coefficients Standardized coefficients 

T Sig. 
 

 

  
B Std. Error Beta  

 

      
 

  (Constant) 2.227 0.32  7.061 0  
 

 

H1 X1: Performance 0.122 0.06 0.132 2.112 
 

Reject Ho 
 

 0.036 
 

 

H2 X2: Products and Services 0.207 0.07 0.209 2.983 
 

Reject Ho 
 

 0.003 
 

 

H3 X3: Innovativeness 0.114 0.06 0.12 1.775 
 

Reject Ho 
 

 0.077 
 

 H4 X4: Workplace -0.028 0.07 -0.027 -0.393 0.694 Fail to reject Ho 
 

 H5 X5: Governance -0.003 0.07 -0.004 -0.05 0.96 Fail to reject Ho 
 

 H6 X6: Citizenship 0.048 0.06 0.058 0.816 0.415 Fail to reject Ho 
 

 H7 X7: Leadership -0.029 0.06 -0.034 -0.512 0.609 Fail to reject Ho 
 

 

 
Researchers have argued that this assumption can be violated if a 
moderate or large sample size is present (Sekran, 2003; Field, 
2005) (Table 10). 

The R square value is approximately 12%. The model is highly 
significant which proves that the variation explained by it is not by 
chance. 

When studying the effects of all the independent variables on the 

dependent variable, only three variables were found to have a 

significant effect. X2 (Products and Services) is significant at the 

0.01 level, X1 (Performance) is significant at the 0.05 level, and X3 
(Innovation) is significant at the 0.1 level (Table 11). They all have a 

positive  effect  on  the  dependent  variable  Y  (Brand Preference). 

 

 
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 
 
The linear regression analysis found that there is a 

significant positive relationship between firms‟ X1 (perfor-

mance), X2 (products and services), X3 (innovativeness) 

and Y1 (consumer preference). The model was highly 

significant and the relationships were significant at 0.05, 

0.00, and 0.07 respectively. This answers the first three 

minor research questions identifying that a relationship 

exists  between  the  variables.  The   following   equation  



221       Afr. J. Agric. Mark.
 
 
 

 

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Products and  
 

Services Dependent Variable  

 
 

 

Innovativeness Brand Preference 
  

  

Financial  

Performance  
  

 
Figure 2. Proposed Theoritical Framework. 

 

 
explains the relationship between the dependent and 

independent variables after eliminating the non-significant 

variables found through the analyses:  
Y=α + β1 X1 + β2 X2 + β3 X3 + ε 

 
Where:  
Y is Brand Preference, α is the constant term, β is a 

vector of regression slope, X1 is the Performance 

variable, X2 is the Products and Services variable, X3 is 

the Innovativeness variable, ε is the disturbance term. 

 
The R square for the model was 12% and this shows that 
although corporate reputation has a significant impact on 
consumers‟ brand preference, it resulted in explaining 
only 12% of its variation. Hence there are other factors 
that influence brand preference in addition to reputation.  

Hence the model is adjusted from the tested model 

shown in Figure 2 to the adjusted model shown in Figure 

1. However, there was a relationship that was found to be 

significant between other dimensions that are not in the 

model such as governance and citizenship. These 

relationships were found significant when testing each 

dimension separately using Spearman correlation. 
 
 
Conclusion 
 
Innovation as argued by the experts is essential for 
consumers nowadays. Consumers demand more from 
the company and its brands. Fadl Abou Wafia stated that 
innovation reflects the modernity of the brand, and 
associate the brand with a personality that fits with the 
personality of the target consumers. Experts stated that a 
performance of a company can reflect positively on their 
products perceived quality and hence their preference. 
Also in the economic downturn that Egypt is facing, 
consumers might prefer companies that contribute 
positively to their economy. Also when a firm with solid 
financial results and strong performance is perceived to 
be of our higher quality and lower risk, hence consumers 
will prefer to purchase their products (Akram, 2008).  

The products and services variable showed the highest 

 

 
coefficient in the model variables. Competition is driving 
consumers to ask for more, companies must strive to 
produce products of high quality and value for money. 
The relationship between corporate citizenship and brand 
preference is validated by the qualitative interviews. 
Companies in Egypt are starting incorporate corporate 
citizenship or CSR in their marketing campaigns. Pepsi 
did it in Ramadan in 2012 and 2011, as well as 
McDonalds and others. A positive relationship has been 
identified between brand preference and governance 
through the analyses. This is consistent with Hines and 
Ames‟s (2000) study.  

The model that resulted from the analysis had an R 
Square of 12%. They can be due to the dependence of 
brand preference on other factors than corporate 
reputation. This may reflect that the Egyptian consumer is 
not as sophisticated as the developed countries‟ 
consumers. The aim of the study was not to study these 
factors but was to establish corporate reputation as one 
of those factors. The findings from this study have 
justified that there is a positive relationship between 
corporate reputation and brand preference. Literature 
states that brand preference in soft drinks is driven by 
numerous other factors such as taste, advertisement, 
packaging, brand reputation…etc. (Paracha et al., 2012; 
Gopi and Arasu, 2012). 
 
 
RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
Soft drink companies should focus on their reputations 
and their relationships with different stakeholder groups. 
They should leverage their resources to earn a positive 
reputation as this reputation impacts positively financially 
and non-financially  

The companies must ensure that their communications 
reflect their true values, and their customers alongside 

other stakeholders understand those values. Innovation is 
imperative for success in the beverage industry, and 

companies have to position themselves not as imitators 
but as trend setters. Companies should focus on 
contributing positively to the society by supporting good 

causes and also being environmentally responsible. 
Capitalizing on these contributions in their communication 



Hisham  et al.      222 
 

 

 

 

will impact positively on their brand preference. 
Companies should focus on communicating their financial 
results, growth prospects, and always strive for optimum 
performance. They must always be open and transparent 
with their customers and other stakeholders. Ethical 
behavior is noticed and valued not only by internal 
stakeholders, but external stakeholders and customers 
as well. Companies must always behave in an ethical 
manner in their communication, marketing strategies, 
business relationships, and public relations. Customer 
focus is essential to maintain a sustainable profitable 
business. The most important is that companies should 
act proactively towards the evolvement of the Egyptian 
consumers. 
 

Limitations and future work 
 

The research has the following limitations: 
 

L1: This research is limited to Egypt and mainly 
Egyptians. 
 

L2: This research is limited to the carbonated soft drinks 
industry. 
 

L3: The researcher targeted a specific age group and 
socio economic class in his sample. 
 

There are several opportunities to apply the model 
identified in this study across different contexts; it can be 
tested on different industries and on different stakeholder 
groups. Also, the model can be tested on different 
cultures and socio-economic classes. The study also has 
highlighted an area that requires future research which 
the difference between developed and developing 
markets, in terms of consumer preferences, perceptions, 
and expectations. This area will shed light on the 
applicability of numerous literature and previous studies 
on different markets. Corporate reputation is based on 
perceptions and they are liable to differ; international and 
multinational firms have to digest that and build on it. 
 

 

Conflict of Interests 
 

The authors have not declared any conflict of interests. 
 

 

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