Facets of Corporate Identity, Communication and Reputation

Tc Melewar, Tc Melewar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134136117
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business generale
• Index: Business

Corporate branding and communication is big business. Companies throughout the world invest millions in strategies which aim to reinvent their profile in subtle yet important ways. The investment must be working, but what is it being spent on, and how do these rebranding exercises work?Including contributions from academics and practitioners, this

Part I
Corporate identity

Chapter 1
Explicating the relationship between identity and culture

A multi-perspective conceptual model

Kevin James Vella and T. C. Melewar

AT THE END OF THIS CHAPTER READERS SHOULD BE ABLE TO:

1. Understand corporate identity, related concepts, and benefits of corporate identity management to internal and external stakeholders
2. Appreciate the dire need in the present case of affairs for furthering a unified and multi-disciplinary approach within the parameters set out by leading authors in the field
3. Specify internal corporate identity management dimensions
4. Specify the role of culture within corporate identity and the interplay of related variables in the formation, maturation, and dissemination of identity at the cultural level of analysis

KEY POINTS

• A strong identity is an avenue for achieving positive images among internal stakeholders, a favorable reputation in the labor market, and, thus, a means to secure and sustain competitive advantage
• Practitioners and academics have shown consistency in the concepts of identity for a number of years; however, an impasse has been reached and the area requires a move towards addressing an empirical paralysis
• Central to the identity formation, maturation, and dissemination process, are management and employees
• Organizational culture is central to the study of identity. However, identity literature shows weakness in the treatment of the concept with regard to several aspects including the approach that culture is shared by most, if not
• all, organizational members, thus disregarding aspects of conflict and ambiguity
• Organizational culture is an important frame of reference and an interpretive mechanism also used by all organizational members to translate management-transmitted identity programs into images, perceptions, cognitions, and emotions towards their organization, colleagues, and subordinates. Cultural processes are dynamic and require close attention
• Identity studies necessitate the study of meanings behind all cultural manifestations deposited by management and employees
• An identity formation, maturation, and formation process model is presented and is aimed at galvanizing empirical research

INTRODUCTION

Although not the panacea to modern corporate ills, identity provides managers with a strategic resource for building and delivering value among employees and, consequently, enhancing employee retention, recruitment and loyalty. Over time, such desirable outcomes result in strong and enduring reputations that fuel profitability, growth, and competitive advantage.

Whereas organizations may deploy similar products, marketing campaigns, business strategies, and structural configurations, there exist characteristics that are inimitable elsewhere. These characteristics emerge from the synergic conglomeration of unique individuals who come together, bringing to bear their skills, personalities, expectations, and behavior upon and within organizational life while developing corporate culture through daily interaction. Moreover, from time to time, management make statements to reflect their perceptions of and aspirations for the organization they lead. Managerial influences and frames of reference are diverse and include organizational culture. Managers must expose and present these elements effectively to all organizational members (corporate identity) while attuning themselves closely to how all members perceive, think, feel, and behave towards their organizations (organizational identity). Although formal marketing communications programs may be important, research has shown that external stakeholder images are heavily influenced by interactions with employees.

Internal identity management programs, therefore, should encompass management-initiated efforts to manifest the central characteristics of their organization to its members. Equal attention, on the other hand, should be awarded to employee images of, responses to and affinity with these and other organizational characteristics. Identity programs are developed within and driven by a contextual triumvirate, namely, strategy, structure, and culture, and are brought to life by organizational members through mediated communication and behavior and a wide range of symbolic manifestations ranging from graphic design to office décor to cultural artefacts. Failure or success of identity management programs depends entirely on the resultant perceptions, beliefs, emotions, and behaviour of organizational members. The dynamics of organizational culture are also paramount.

Identity is thus a holistic construct enveloping most salient aspects of organizations. It is strategic in nature embracing all functions and aspects of organizational life.

This chapter aims to provide an understanding of the identity concepts within the context of organizational culture and to fertilize identity studies with the rich perspectives found within cultural theory, thus amplifying present understanding. We propose a conceptual model that explains identity formation, maturation, and dissemination at the cultural level of analysis and that facilitates empirical research.

The chapter is divided into four sections with the first part briefly outlining the main issues within the area and delineating the emergent multi-disciplinary movement that seeks a unified approach to identity. The second part of the chapter applies the unified cross-disciplinary approach to extract, from extant literature, working definitions of the identity concepts sometimes used, and, often confusingly so, interchangeably. We use a functionalist lens when exploring corporate identity, image, and reputation, and an interpretivist one when analyzing organizational identity. In the third part, we explore the nature of organizational culture from a symbolic perspective to address the gaps and weaknesses of extant identity models. The chapter concludes by combining the concepts of identity into a single multi-perspective conceptual model that explains identity formation, maturation, and dissemination at the cultural level of analysis.

A UNIFIED AND MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE

Identity literature is rich with contributions from practitioners and academics and reflects unanimous agreement on the importance of identity to organizations (Balmer and Greyser 2003) and on its instrumental role as a resource of strategic import (Melewar et al. 2005, 2003; Balmer 2001, 1998). However, a set of problems has hampered theoretical growth and empirical progress (Cornelissen and Elving 2003).

Considerable debate surrounds the plethora of definitions of and the relationships between the concepts of corporate identity (Melewar and Jenkins 2002) and the related terms of corporate image, organizational identity and identification, corporate reputation, and corporate branding (Balmer 2001). Although these concepts differ in meaning, often authors use the terms interchangeably and effectively. The consequent theoretical vagueness (Cornelissen and Elving 2003) and fragmentation (Balmer 1998) have created problems in operationalizing the construct and the empirical dimension of identity studies is extremely weak (Cornelissen and Elving 2003).

A second problem relates to the contrasting perspectives and paradigms existing within identity literature (Balmer 2001). Three philosophical underpinnings inform identity scholars, namely, functionalist, interpretivist, and post-modern paradigms (Gioia 1998 as cited in Balmer 2001). Authors writing in the functionalist tradition (e.g., the marketing perspective) frequently regard identity from a management viewpoint, arguing that corporate identity is an objective phenomenon, and, therefore, may be forged and managed. A quantitative research design is preferred with an emphasis on psychometric instruments. Interpretivist studies (e.g., the organizational behaviorist perspective), on the other hand, regard identity as subjective, arguing that employees do not merely react to the cues created by identity management programs. Rather, they actively interpret the environment and their subsequent behavior is based upon these interpretations. Thus, studies focus on interpretations and on how organizational members (predominantly employees) perceive their organizations and what meanings they affix to them (organizational identity) (Balmer 2001). Studies search for “thick descriptions” (Martin 2002: 4) that are provided by ethnographies and other qualitative studies. These contrasting paradigmatic traditions and perspectives, however, should not be viewed as contradictory but rather as complementary (Balmer and Greyser 2003; Martin 2002; Balmer 1998): the individual points of view and paradigms do not provide the powerful perspective needed by academics and practitioners to understand fully the identity taxonomy (Balmer and Greyser 2003, 2002; Martin 2002). Rather, together they provide a depth of understanding that neither alone could ever reach (Martin 2002).

A third problem relates to the anthropomorphization and the indiscriminate use of metaphor (Cornelissen and Harris 2001). Through metaphor analysis, numerous authors have drawn analogies from some of the concepts used to describe humans to endow organizations with identity, character, and personality by drawing generally from psychology (Cornelissen and Harris 2001). The main use of metaphors is to describe complex ideas and abstractions in more easily understood and common terminology, and for conjectural reasons. However, metaphor analysis is dangerous (Balmer 1998; Cornelissen and Harris 2001; Albert and Whetten 1985). Cornelissen and Harris (2001) argue that when used figuratively and to draw similarities from human and social psychology, such terms as corporate identity and personality have been reified, thus creating distortions in our views and limiting our understanding. This has given rise to multiple perspectives and definitions. Identity theories proposed through analogies drawn from “human identities” may be “conceptually flawed and empirically false” (Cornelissen and Harris 2001: 50) since there is no agreement within the source domain on the concepts of identity and personality. The main arguments in the source domain revolve around whether or not identity is an inner property, a product of the mind; whether identity is an inherent physical characteristic; or, whether identity emerges through behavior. Similarly, the authors conclude, the corporate identity metaphor may face grave difficulties when used to describe and explain company behavior and communications. To promote clarity and coherence in the field, we have abandoned the metaphorical use of such concepts as corporate personality and refer to terms in their literal meaning or as “a convenient label for a particular set of variables” (Nunnally and Bernstein 1994: 104).

This necessitates an interdisciplinary approach (for example, Balmer and Greyser 2003; Balmer 1998; Melewar et al. 2003; Hatch and Schultz 1997) harmonising and combining the various perspectives with a drive to be holistic (Melewar 2003; Melewar and Jenkins 2002) and eclectic (Balmer and Greyser 2003). Such a perspective takes stock of a variety of disciplines including marketing, public relations, graphic design, organizational behavior studies, strategic management, and corporate communications within one area of study (Balmer and Greyser 2003, 2002; Melewar 2003; Balmer 2001). More recently, Hatch and Schultz (2000) suggest the idea of “combining the understanding offered by all contributing disciplines into a single concept of identity defined at the organizational level of analysis” (Hatch and Schultz 2000: 19). Few multidisciplinary models of identity have been proposed, and, with the growing importance of the area, the need to have such frameworks is becoming increasingly felt (Balmer and Greyser 2002).

The remainder of this chapter is written in the spirit of a unified and cross-disciplinary approach to identity studies while a combined concept of identity is also proposed.

IDENTITY, IMAGE AND REPUTATION

A resource-based view

Sustainable competitive advantage may be built by managing how an organization is perceived (Aaker 1996 as cited in Simões and Dibb 2002) and corporate identity is an important avenue to achieve this (Melewar et al. 2005; Simões and Dibb 2002).

Through corporate identity, organizations manifest salient characteristics to all their stakeholders and develop a strong channel for differentiation (Balmer 2001; Abratt 1989), an instrument for creating enduring and reliable relationships (Melewar et al. 2005) and a robust mechanism for delivering value. By building, maintaining, and enhancing this value over time through a strong, distinct, inimitable, and immediately recognizable identity, firms attain their strategic objectives and gain sustainable competitive advantage over rivals.

Corporate identity is transmitted to various stakeholders who then formulate images that, in turn, form the basis of the company’s reputation (Melewar 2003). Stakeholders include all organizational members (internal), customers, shareholders, and investors, financial institutions, suppliers, government, industry associations, and non-government organizations and the community at large (external). By extending the marketing concept to corporate identity, it is reasonable to conclude that corporate identity managers require the focus to be on individual stakeholder target groups at a time to deliver superior value. Hence, by focusing on transmitting corporate identity to employees, a number of key outcomes accrue. Qualitati...