This study attempts to analyse the role played by reputation as an intangible resource in Spanish SMEs and its reciprocal relationship with organisational performance. The analysis is made from a resource-based view of the firm, which highlights the potentiality of intangible assets like reputation to explain returns above the average of the rivals. A literature review is carried out in order to explore if reputation can be considered a source of competitive advantage in SMEs. A model based on management perceptions is proposed and tested using structural equation analysis on a sample of Spanish SMEs. The results thus obtained, in line with research performed on large firms, seem to confirm in small and medium-sized enterprises the influence of past performance on the present managerial perception of reputation and of this perception on future performance.