Measuring corporate personality: A critical review and new insights

Abstract

This article aims to explore the perceived ‘personality’ of marketing objects and reveal new insights in the search for universal dimensions of corporate personality traits. A critical review of the literature sheds new light on the theoretical and methodological reasons for discrepancies in previous research results. In order to verify the reasons for the discrepancies, multi-stage qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted by applying a theoretically and methodologically well-grounded psycho-lexical procedure and multilevel approach. The comparison between our results and the results obtained in previous studies enabled identifying four universal personality dimensions in the perception of companies: Innovativeness/Enterprise, Openness to Others, Stability and Machiavellianism. Newly developed scales enable the measurement of these dimensions on both a company (for between-company comparisons) and an individual (for between-customer within-company comparisons) levels.