Major global brands have more work to do to close the gap between their performance in the marketplace and their citizenship, according to the inaugural Global Corporate Reputation Index, released by Burson-Marsteller, Landor Associates, Penn Schoen Berland, and BrandAsset Consulting.

The tech industry scored the highest overall, but concerns about its citizenship are masked by its extreme scores on vision and innovation. The apparel industry shows the largest gap between citizenship and performance indicating continuing concerns about how its products are manufactured.

Using a proprietary model, the Global Corporate Reputation Index identifies 25 consumer companies with the best reputations, based on 40,000 consumer interviews regarding the qualities consumers associate with nearly 6,000 companies in six countries.

The Global Corporate Reputation Index focuses on two sets of attributes that drive corporate reputation: performance and citizenship. Performance measures the perceived success of a company's products and services. Citizenship is a measure of the less tangible aspects of a company's reputation. The strongest companies typically rank nearly 30 percent above their industry averages on citizenship, while outperforming their industries on performance by an average of 20 percent. Nevertheless, for most companies, citizenship continues to significantly lag performance, indicating many are still paying inadequate attention to this category, despite the increasing role it plays in today's marketplace.