Abstract
PurposeThis paper aims to introduce a new integrated strategic framework entitled, “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum” and elucidates the central and strategic importance of corporate identity apropos corporate communications, corporate image, attributed stakeholder identifications and resultant behaviours. The strategic importance of corporate identity is noted. The continuum incorporates a variety of disciplinary/theoretical perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThe paper/framework is informed by corporate marketing and strategic perspectives; legal theory of the firm; social identity branch theories; and stakeholder theory. The effects and management of corporate identity are seen as a continuum. The framework accommodates Tagiuri’s (1982) scholarship on corporate identity.FindingsThis paper formally introduces and explicates “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum”. Corporate identity management is an on-going strategic senior management/strategic requisite. Notably, the legal theory of company law – routinely overlooked – and its impact on corporate identity management is accepted, acknowledged and accommodated. The importance of stakeholders and stakeholder identification (a derivative of social identity theory) is underscored.Practical implicationsVia the explication of the continuum, managers can comprehend the nature and importance of corporate identity; appreciate that corporate identity adaptation/change is on-going; comprehend its interface/s with corporate communications, stakeholder attributed identities, identifications and the business environment; understand the need for on-going fidelity to an institution’s legally based core purposes and corporate identity traits (juridical identity); cognise the efficacy of constant stakeholder and environmental analysis. Corporate identity sustainability requires corporate identity to be advantageous, beneficial, critical, differentiating and effectual. Stakeholder prioritisation is not solely dependent on power, legitimacy and urgency but on legality, efficacy, ethicality and temporality.Originality/valueThe resultant framework/approach, therefore, aims to make a meaningful advance on the territory and, moreover, seeks to be of utility to scholars and practitioners of corporate marketing, strategy and company law. Arguably, therefore, the framework is more ambitious than extant framework on the domain. The resultant framework/approach, therefore, aims to make a meaningful advance on the territory and seeks to be of utility to scholars and practitioners of corporate identity, communications, images, identification, stakeholder theory, company law and, importantly, corporate strategy.
Highlights
Corporate identity, for all its strategic significance, is habitually overlooked, disregarded or narrowly conceived by scholars and managers alike
This paper formally introduces and explicates “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum”
The ambitions of this article/schema are broader than hitherto seems to be the case apropos corporate identity scholarship
Summary
For all its strategic significance, is habitually overlooked, disregarded or narrowly conceived by scholars and managers alike. Adopting the orthodox school of thought apropos corporate identity (Balmer et al 2016), organisations are viewed as having a tangible essence and distinctiveness, and this perspective informs the schema. The above being noted, given the legal imperatives apropos an organisation’s corporate identity traits, it is the role and responsibility of senior managers to take cognisance of strategic, stakeholder, corporate marketing, corporate positioning and environmental requisites. The legal theory of the organisation and corporate identity The juridical (legal) theory of the corporation is of importance to senior managers in comprehending both the orthodox understanding of corporate identity and represents a key philosophical perspective apropos the nature of organisations (Balmer, 2008). Trait classification (A-E) A: ADVANTAGEOUS B: BENEFICIAL C: CRITICAL D: DISTINGUISHING E: EFFECTUAL
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