1.3. Reputation Takes Place Within a Context

Bill praises Harvard for its generally excellent reputation, but that is not what’s led his family to choose the school: it was Harvard’s reputation as a law school in particular. Reputation is earned within a context. Sometimes its value extends outside that context (for example, Harvard is well regarded for academic standards in general). And reputations earned in one context certainly influence reputations in other contexts.

Things can have reputations in multiple contexts simultaneously. In our example, domains of academic excellence are important contexts. But geography can define a context as well, and it can sway a final decision. Furthermore, all of an item’s reputations need not agree across contexts. In fact, it’s highly unlikely that they will. It’s entirely possible to have an excellent reputation in one context, an abysmal one in another, and no reputation at all in a third. No one excels at everything, after all.