America's Most Reputable Companies

Which businesses are America's Most Reputable Companies?

(Hint: Some of them are right here in Washington state!)

That's the latest parlor game published by Forbes.com, based on research conducted by a group called the Reputation Institute, the self-proclaimed "leading international organization devoted to advancing knowledge about corporate reputations and to providing professional assistance to companies interested in measuring and managing their reputations proactively."

For the survey, companies are evaluated based on consumers’ trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling about a company across seven dimensions of reputation. The resulting figures are compiled into a "Reputation Pulse" which is used to rank 153 U.S. corporations.

Top honors this year go to Johnson & Johnson, a company whose name and brand is synonymous with safe, reliable family care products. Much of Johnson & Johnson's solid reputation has to do with its now legendary, proactive response to the Tylenol tamperings back in the 1980s. The company's commitment to product safety has become the gold standard for crisis communications worldwide. Interestingly, the survey suggests that 54 percent of consumers would give the most reputable U.S. companies the benefit of the doubt in a time of crisis and that perception of a company’s ethical behavior and transparency in business dealings holds the most weight in influencing their willingness to do so.

Last year's winner, Google, dropped to number eight on the list. On the local front, Kirkland-based Costco and Redmond's Microsoft came in at 10 and 11, respectively. Amazon.com rounded out the top 20; Boeing placed 51st.

Here's the top 10:

1. Johnson & Johnson
2. Kraft Foods
3. UPS
4. General Mills
5. FedEx
6. Whirlpool
7. Walt Disney Company
8. Google
9. Caterpillar
10. Costco Wholesale

Read the Reputation Institute's April 29 press release on the survey here.