Stakeholders including government officials, senior business executives and NGOs across eight regional markets participated in the study, and neither Western MNCs nor Asian entities lived up to characteristics including "offers top quality products or services", "listens to customer attitudes and opinions" and "operates in an open transparent fashion".
On a mean scale, homegrown MNCs underperformed against their Western counterparts.
Attributes that respondents ranked as vital for a "good" corporation - those related to products and services, management, business performance and employee development - dominated. Half or fewer of respondents rated communicating openly with employees, corporate citizenship and community welfare as important.
"The key today in using communications as an enabler of business outcomes is adopting a view that places the imperative for open and interactive relationships over the execution of ad hoc business communications or campaign-driven executions," Edelman Asia-Pacific president, Alan VanderMolen said.