• May 7, 2009

IKEA and Johnson & Johnson follow Italy's Ferrero as the most reputable companies, according to Reputation Institute's 2009 Global Reputation Pulse.

While in 2008 Toyota and Google were Nos. 1 and 2, they now rank 59th and 23rd, respectively, out of the largest 600 companies in the world. AIG lost the most reputation capital with a drop of 27.52 points.

The Global Reputation Pulse measures the corporate reputations of the world's 600 largest companies based on consumers' trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling about a company across seven dimensions of reputation in 32 countries.

The study was conducted online in late January and February 2009. A Pulse score is a measure of corporate reputation calculated by averaging perceptions of four indicators -- trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling -- obtained from a representative sample of at least 100 local respondents who were familiar with the company. A report on the 2009 Global Reputation Pulse findings can be downloaded at www.ReputationInstitute.com. --Tanya Irwin