José I. Rojas-Méndez receives SSHRC grant to study reputation building for family businesses

Sprott’s José I. Rojas-Méndez, Professor of International Business and Marketing, has received the maximum possible award under the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Partnership Engage Grant program. The SSHRC PEG program provides short-term support to allow researchers and partner organizations to work together to address an organization-specific need, challenge, and/or opportunity.

With his project “Reputation development and signalling in family business organizations,” José will partner with Welch LLP – Chartered Professional Accountants to study how family businesses can improve their marketing communication and reputation building.

Market signalling theory suggests that organizations communicate selectively with their markets, learning over time how to shape their messaging to best suit their needs. However, since most family businesses are small businesses – and thus vulnerable to failure – their owners and managers do not have the luxury of time when deciding upon a marketing strategy. This project will allow José and his collaborators to test and develop a reputational model that will enable small family businesses to signal family ownership effectively while also conveying such key markers as warmth, competence, and status. It will thus help improve the economy by bolstering the success rate of family businesses and will advance the literature by applying current theoretical models to this understudied area of reputation building.