Reputation management in turmoil – an analysis of the clashing narratives in introducing a ‘salmon tax’ in Norway

This paper asks to what extent public organizations are successful in cultivating support from their audiences, illustrated by the salmon tax case in Norway. One of the fiercest political debates in Norway the last years has been the ongoing conflict on establishing a so-called ‘ground or base rent’ tax, meaning taxing extra income related to ownership to natural resources, on fish farming and windmills. Norway have had that for many years on oil and gas, but also hydroelectric power plants and their electricity production. In this paper the focus will be on the so-called ‘salmon tax’, because the conflicts have been so strong, the narratives so confrontational and the consensus so low. The government’s proposal and connected use of reputation symbols has primarily been based on a collective argument, meaning that the sea inside the territorial waters belongs to the collectivity and actors using the sea for salmon farming should be taxed and contribute to society like similar actors regarding other natural resources. This narrative is supported by a professional narrative, presented in a report from an economist-dominated public expert commission and supported by the Ministry of Finance. Against this political-professional alliance, the salmon farmers, dominated by big multi-national companies and supported by local salmon farming companies, which have earned a lot of money the last years, have mounted a rather complex lobby- and PR-campaign. Also the salmon farmer’s interest organization is an active actor in this reputation management process. They say that the government has introduced the tax from Jan.1., 2023 through unusual methods, for example deciding on the tax without clarifying the tax model in practice or without waiting for the broad hearing round to finish. An argument on destroying local communities and undermining employment has also been used, supported by the local labor unions, local parties and municipalities in which the salmon farms are located. The salmon farmers have said that they accept some kind of tax, but most of their actions seem to speak against that. The paper will analyze these contrasting narratives based on reputation management theory in general (Wæraas and Maor, 2015), and Carpenter and Krause’s (2012) reputation categories (performative reputation, moral reputation, procedural reputation and technical reputation) more specifically. What especially interesting with this case is that, different from many analyses of reputation management, seen mostly from the sender of symbols (Christensen and Gornitzka, 2019; Christensen and Lægreid, 2020, Maor 2022, Rimkute 2020), it will analyze the dynamics of symbols and counter-symbols. Reputation management can be seen as the government’s overall strategy for intervening in reputation creation and maintenance processes through external communication and meaning-making (Christensen and Lægreid 2015). But in this paper we will also examine reputation management as seen from the audience, the receivers’ and stakeholders’ point of view and how the interaction between these two sets of actors develops over time in a tension between policy over-reaction and policy under-reaction (Maor 2021). We ask reputation for what, to whom and in what task environment? (Boon et al . 2019).