Explicating corporate heritage, corporate heritage brands and organisational heritage

Abstract

Recently, considerable academic and management interest has focussed on corporate heritage and, in particular, on the corporate heritage brand notion. This article provides a thorough overview of the field and includes latest developments in the territory including the formal introduction of the organisational heritage concept. Drawing on the extant literature, the article explores five themes relating the broad corporate heritage field: contexts, foundations, fundamentals, advances and empirical insights. This overview also examines key constructs within the domain including corporate heritage brands, corporate heritage identity and organisational heritage. Both theoretical and managerial aspects of the field are addressed. Reference is made to recent empirical contributions and to prominent case study research from Great Britain and China, namely Shepherd Neame (Britain’s oldest brewery with an official founding date of 1698) and Tong Ren Tang (the renowned traditional Chinese medicine corporate brand dating back to 1669).