Assessment of the Impact of HR-Services on the Business Reputation Cost of Large Chinese Enterprises

Abstract

With the intensification of global competition and the rising demands of stakeholders, business reputation has become a core intangible asset for large Chinese enterprises, and reputation cost management is crucial for their long-term sustainable development. HR services, as a key carrier of internal management and external image transmission, directly affect the formation and evolution of business reputation, but the specific impact mechanism on reputation cost and the differences in impact intensity across HR service types and enterprise attributes remain unclear. This study aims to address the key issue of how to optimize HR service strategies to effectively reduce reputation costs for large Chinese enterprises. Based on stakeholder theory and signal transmission theory, we adopted a combination of questionnaire survey, empirical analysis, and numerical simulation, using 58 large Chinese enterprises from four industries as samples. The core innovation is the construction of an integrated HR services-reputation cost evaluation model, realizing quantitative measurement of multi-dimensional HR services’ impact on reputation cost components. The results show that high-quality HR services significantly reduce reputation costs; welfare and training services have the strongest negative impact, while recruitment and performance management services have weaker effects; the impact is more significant in service-oriented enterprises. This study enriches relevant theoretical systems and provides practical guidance for enterprises.