The impact of strategic actions on the reputation building of e‐businesses

A certain number of theoretical trends consider a firm's reputation as valuable intangible assets. For companies in dematerialized e‐commerce, which is not protected by traditional entry barriers, reputation may be one of the key sources of competitive advantage. Assuming that firms’ assets result from flows of strategic actions, this research examines – over the 1999‐2002 period – the strategic actions underlying the reputations of Lastminute.com and Ebookers.com. Relying on an inductive approach, this research shows how Lastminute managed to build up its reputation through three types of actions – symbolical, competitive and relational – on the one hand, and through achieving a balance between those three types of action and the frequency of those actions, on the other hand. Finally, this research suggests a system linking the properties of those strategic actions to the firm's reputation building.