Netzwerk-Kommunikation als Bedingung von Identitätsbildung in Unternehmen

Abstract

The starting point of my thesis is the Corporate Identity Approach. The Corporate Identity Approach originated in the 1970s and many people in leading positions, consultants and managers considered it to be a type of "strategic wonder weapon" for positioning one's own company in increasingly hard-fought markets: new developments in global competition relating to the distribution of markets and further technological developments in modern communication channels via digital transmission meant new challenges at both the national and international level. Behind this Corporate Identity Approach an attempt is made to help companies to establish a recognisable identity. However from a sociological point of view an important question is raised: Can a company, if it is defined as a social system, develop an identity at all which is analogous with the personality of an individual. The founders and consultants of Corporate Identity claim that this is possible. When examined closely from a sociological point of view the Corporate Identity Approach indicates a lack of scientific foundation: With this thesis I would like to close this gap by carrying out a sociological classification of companies and by establishing the scientific communication pre-requisites to generate company identity. This will lead to a sociological and scientific communication projection to management literature on Corporate Identity, since the basis for the subject of company identity needs sociological classification which matches the requirements of modern company structures. In doing so I will fall into line with Peter Hejl and Heinz Stahl, who demand a positioning of the social system from a constructivist point of view. In this thesis I will focus on the significance of communication in everyday corporate life for generating identity in a company because for social systems it is necessary that they be built up by means of communication and that their actions be agreed upon by communication. Thus it follows that communication in a company becomes the basis for generating identity in a company. As will be shown by various examples in the course of this thesis, this pre-requisite has been disregarded in previous identity concepts. However, above all, the significance of the individual in a company remains unheeded in the Corporate Identity Approach. Inevitably the lack of sociological basis for the Corporate Identity Approach is apparent in its theoretical execution. In the Corporate Identity Approach it is assumed that the perception of "the company", both internally and externally, that is the perception held by the employees as well as the system-related environment (customers, business associates, suppliers, associations and the like), can be influenced by certain developable images and that one identity can be formed on the basis of the defined behavioural and representation forms. This assumption contradicts the epistemological questioning of past decades, which, with the position of radical constructivism, led to the assumption that cognition and knowledge cannot be considered as "discovery" or "depiction" of reality and that they are independent of perceiving systems (e.g. people). In order to outline the scientific contribution of my work clearly I would like to conclude with a brief summary of the object of research and the questions pertaining to it: The Corporate Identity Approach is a management concept which I would like to examine from a scientific perspective. The objective of my work is the Projection to Management Literature. Various questions arise from this: What can be expected from the Corporate Identity Approach? What should it achieve? How is Corporate Identity defined? Which assumptions and definitions is this approach based on? From attempts at defining Corporate Identity and descriptions of the approach I have raised questions concerning the scientific basis, for clarifying the central concepts company, communication and identity: How should companies be classified sociologically? Which con-sequences are there if the company is regarded as a social system? Which understanding of communication and identity can be derived from classifying companies? From a sociological point of view I place the individual in the company at the centre of my case study in order to examine whether significance should be attached to individuals within the framework of generating identity in companies and if so, in which form. The focal point of the examination is the classification of large company groups, in order to establish a basis for classifying the company examined in the case study. This leads to a particularity relating to the network structures which have been formed in companies in the last few years, for example within the framework of alliances. Here I will deal with the following questions: How can organisation and market networks be classified sociologically? If networks are defined as social systems what does this mean for generating identity? Finally I will combine the results of the theoretical part of my work together with the results of the case study.