One of the most important aspects of reputation management, as seen in public relations literature, is ensuring that the organization has a unified sense of purpose. Because of this, I wanted to see how unified the Crimson Key Society was in our mission. I surveyed 26 Key members. This survey aimed to decipher what the membership believes is the ideal split between the social aspect and the service aspect of Key and what they believe it is presently. This split was in percentages, with 50/50 being an even split between the social and service aspects, whereas 20/80 means that we lean into the social aspect of Key 20% of the time, and service 80% of the time. The results are shown below, and the pattern is quite clear: our members believe we lean more socially, but they would like to lean more toward service.


I then sorted the results by year that each individual joined Key, also known as one’s Key Class, which are numbered from the 1st Key Class to, most recently, the 75th Key Class. Currently, we have members from the 71st to the 75th Key Class, but because the 75th Class entered Key just last month, they were omitted from this survey. Sorting it by Key Class also shows a clear message: we have become more service-leaning throughout the years! This was a deliberate effort of the past Key Boards, so it was great to see that our hard work has paid off. However, our efforts to make Key more service-leaning are still falling short, which is why this project is of so much importance to me and to other organizations attempting to change their image as well.


What pertains to this project, though, is that the level of service that we think the ideal version of Key would do is spread among a wide range. This survey revealed that we, as Key members, are not united in our mission. Therefore, my first action step in this blueprint would be to host a town hall or a meeting where all members can voice their opinions in a constructive and productive environment.

In fact, out of the 26 people that completed the survey, I interviewed 14 of them, and I heard amazing feedback from all of them. For example, one of the interviewees stated, “While I understand why a 50/50 distribution might seem ideal, I actually think it’s natural that this can get skewed when discussing ‘value’ given how much the community means to so many of us. I think as long as the commitment to service and the jobs that we do is not negatively impacted, ‘value’ being slightly different is okay.” This comment made me realize that our balance of social bonding and service does not have to be in conflict with each other. Rather than being a percentage where increasing one aspect’s percentage takes away from the other, our split between social and service should be like a pyramid – they lift each other up!

Another interviewee stated, “I think Key should definitely be more service focused, but it’s hard when we don’t have many service opportunities—and a lot of the service we do is for the University—but I think we can definitely find a way to find more service opportunities while keeping the fun, social community that we have now.” I agreed with this Key member heavily, especially because this survey has shown that many Key members want more service opportunities. This would also be a great step for our reputation management. According to research that has been done, an organization must communicate to the people that they serve clearly and engage in behaviors that reflect the values of the organization (Aula & Mantere, 2013: 347). There is also the concept of insourcing and firewalling a reputation (Mahon & Mitnick, 2010: 294). When insourcing, positive elements are brought into an organization and placed at its forefront in hopes of creating a positive reputational change. For example, CKS can incorporate more service requests from notable Boston service organizations. Firewalling is also essential as it is meant to create conflict between an old reputation and the new one we are trying to form. 

Apart from the proposed action steps above, which can require time to change, there are also ways in which we can enact positive change at a quicker rate. Much literature in the public relations field emphasizes the need for trust in organizations, and one way we can enact an increase in trust is to utilize social media to a greater extent. Indeed, we live in a world where social media carries an immense amount of weight. By creating awareness of our mission and the service that we do on sites like Instagram, we can show our stakeholders the change we are enacting (Aljumah, 2023: 473).

An organization's leadership style is another way to produce positive change. Leadership styles can be considered transformational, transactional, and inclusive. In a transformational leadership style, the leader focuses on the soft skill values of the team; they weigh traits like integrity, the greater good, and innovation. Transactional leadership values hard skills, and traits like adhering to procedures, control, and performance. Finally, the inclusive leadership style respects participation, collaboration, and the sharing of decision-making powers. In a model that tested these three leadership styles against different problem-solving strategies, the inclusive leadership style was shown to increase the effectiveness of solving problems (Werder & Holtzhausen, 2009: 422). Therefore, electing leaders with an inclusive leadership style could immensely help our organization change its reputation.

These action steps are all instrumental and easy to implement on a path to change an organization’s reputation. Although I am graduating this year, I hope to meet with Key’s current board members to discuss these next steps, and I hope to survey the membership next year as well! Obviously, changing one’s reputation is not an overnight process. Because of this, I hope to send out the same survey next year to see how much our organization has changed since the implementation of these ideas.