Importance of Managing a Corporation’s Identity and Image in Relation to its Success and Team Member Engagement
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Number and Name
Instructor’s Name
Due Date
Importance of Managing a Corporation’s Identity and Image in Relation to its Success and Team Member Engagement
Researchers have identified the role of corporate image and identity as one of the most crucial elements influencing customers’ and stakeholders’ behavior and attitude towards an organization. Corporate identity or reputation can also increase an organization’s competitive advantage and general improvement of employees. Organizations need to manage their corporate identity and image to survive in the business world by maintaining their clients. A business with poor managerial skills of the corporate image is likely to be defaced in the business sector due to decreased stock value or poor relationship with government officials, vendors, customers, and stakeholders. To achieve an excellent corporate image, companies have adopted the process of evaluating consumer behavior while working towards satisfying their needs. This builds trust from customers about the quality of services and products offered by an organization. Corporate image depends on whether or not customers and stakeholders are willing to support an organization.
Corporate reputation is crucial in the management concept and business ethics. Researchers from communication, sociology, accounting, marketing, and economics background have mentioned corporate reputation as a base for gaining competitive advantages at an organizational level (Leiva, 2016). As an organization’s unique character, corporate identity is determined by numerous factors, including business ethics. Since corporate reputation is established over time, it comes from what an organization is and how it is presented by its employees (Leiva, 2016). Companies that engage in corporate social responsibility to achieve corporate reputation gain benefits such as engaged customers, better work environments, and motivated employees.
Identity and image represent the reputation of an organization that may fail to prosper on its own. Character as a way of identifying the company is dependent on employee motivation and satisfaction, which is a continuous process (Milenkovska, et al., 2019). An organization’s image consists of impressions, beliefs, and ideas about how the public perceives the organization. Therefore, it is essential to consider how managers communicate with the public and employees. The importance of managing corporate image and identity in an organization lies in a mutual corporation where the main element of cooperation is communication (Milenkovska, et al., 2019). Thus, a manager is termed as successful when he has interpersonal communication skills. Interaction between managers and employees through leading employees to achieve the organization’s goals depends on how managers create business
ethics.
The marketing managers of an organization need to establish which messages, channels, and communication tools are suitable in an organization’s stakeholder’s perception. Managing an organization’s identity, including its communication should be focused on the consumer’s response to the company, making it crucial to analyze communication from the viewpoint of the customer (Melewar et al., 2017). According to the norm of corporate identity, interactions of an organization play a significant role in corporate identity and corporate personality (Melewar et al., 2017). A model referred to as the “corporate image management process” attempts to identify the link in image, identity, and personality, which acts as a base for corporate image. Communicators such as corporate logos, among others, determine the customer’s perception towards the corporate image of an organization.
Stakeholder theory plays a part in the logic of corporate marketing, where stakeholders are equally important in the growth and development of a company. Stakeholder theory refers to stakeholders as a group or individual who can impact or is impacted by the success or failure of an organization. Therefore, stakeholder prioritization is important when effecting corporate image, reputation, or identity. When establishing corporate identity, senior managers in an organization should apply legitimacy, efficacy, temporality, and ethicality (Balmer, 2017). According to the stakeholder theory, corporate image is formulated by a company, while corporate reputation comes from stakeholder’s opinions and thoughts towards the company (Balmer, 2017). Thus, corporate status, identity, and image as elements of organizational perception are connected.
Corporate identity can also reflect outcomes that are impacted by Corporate Social Responsibility, such as corporate reputation. Additionally, Brand Identity Management entails some practices that an organization to improve its image to customers (Bravo et al., 2017). Through corporate social responsibility, an organization can determine its clients’ needs by forwarding suggestions and recommendations from customers to managers for further action. Brand Identity Management and Corporate Social Responsibility are essential elements for increasing communication from customers, therefore improving a company’s reputation (Bravo et al., 2017). A proper brand identity equals positivity from employees’ views of their company in terms of stakeholder’s perception.
Structuring identity work among managers is done through training, socialization, and appraisals, which leads to regulated identity. For employees to be subjective to customers, their mindset is changed through a company’s normalization and surveillance of the activities undertaken to satisfy customer’s needs (Bardon et al., 2017). Such activities include promotional events meant to raise awareness of new or existing products and services to customers. It is the role of managers to ensure that the company’s rules should be followed, and the collective interests of the company are protected (Bardon et al., 2017). Therefore, managers among other employees will get a chance to further socialize with customers while recording their behavior, which will help establish and manage corporate image and identity.
Employees also play a significant role in strategizing brand identity management. The services sector is the central part, where employees get to interact with customers directly. When providing services, employees’ commitment to and knowledge of the service and how they interact with customers is the primary determinant of the viewpoint of customers towards an organization (Bravo et al., 2017). Having brand recognition internal activities such as advertising is essential for confirming the delivery of quality services to customers. Since employees’ perception may influence their behavior and attitude, thereby affecting the experience of the customer, it is crucial to determine the effect of brand management activities in the eyes of employees (Bravo et al., 2017).
Good corporate reputation and corporate identity are essential tools for acquiring new customers while retaining other customers after conducting business with a company. For instance, when offering intangible services such as the banking sector, the image of the organization should be uniquely formulated positively to entice customers and give them the pride of acquiring services in the organization. In the 19th century, corporate identity was established by having portraits of essential members of an organization, such as bank managers (Barnes and Newton, 2017). As a form of building a reputation, the images or portraits acted as a simple medium of communicating ideas while being the pride of an institution’s achievement through its senior employees.
To build a strong corporate identity, social media, and television advertisement is crucial when forming marketing strategies. Branding is essential for endowing services and products to distinguish between a seller’s products and other products in the market. Social media program affects brand loyalty through positive impact on the relationship between the brand and the customer. Therefore, social media, as a channel where consumers encounter various brands, has made it possible for customers to participate in the process of brand building (Berz, 2016). It is crucial to investigate how social media has affected the relationship of the consumer and the brand, which, in most cases, proves an increase in the number of consumers that recognize a reliable brand in the market (Berz, 2016). Consequently, brand recognition through social media advertising improves the corporate image of an organization.
In the clothing industry, the media and supermarkets concentrate on the content of the fashion of value brands and the clothing value. The influence and role of supermarkets in the clothing sector have contributed to a change in consumer behavior concerning value fashion brands (Ross and Harradine, 2011). Value branded clothing has given supermarkets the chance to build their fashion credibility by selling renowned fashion products. This creates the image and reputation of supermarkets that offer quality clothing brands that many young consumers prefer (Ross and Harradine, 2011). Further, consumers would opt for such clothing brands regardless of the prices because they follow the value of the brand. Therefore, the value of a brand is associated with the brand image, which results in an organization’s reputation in this case, supermarkets that deal with clothing brands.
Strategic management of corporate identity and image involves targeting the right group when marketing products and services. For instance, most organizations that target young people relate their brands and products to what young people like. Since young people are attracted to celebrities and like emulating their lifestyle, it is wise for an organization to choose a brand advertisement that focuses on the interest of its consumers, in this case, the young people (Holt, 2016). Using celebrities to market products in an organization will attract consumers, making it possible for a brand to be recognized. A personality can be used as a brand ambassador to boost the image of an organization.
The reputation of a corporate brand is linked with the “image concept”, referred to as the latest perception of an organization’s image over a duration of time. The image of a brand is likely to change faster than its reputation (Urde and Greyser, 2016). Reputation is seen as an organization’s past results or actions that show the company’s ability to give quality services to customers and returns to stakeholders. Reputation also measures an organization’s stand with stakeholders and employees in institutional and competitive environments (Urde and Greyser, 2016). The reputation perceived by a stakeholder in an organization is different from the reputation of the organization’s services and products.
Corporate brands are aimed at numerous stakeholders, which include local communities, partners, suppliers, investors, customers, and employees.in the nonprofit sector, stakeholders refer to corporate partners, beneficiaries, donors, and trustees. Nonprofit organizations that have established hybrid identities show different perceptions and expectations for stakeholders. While activities of rebranding focus on the goal of increasing financial performance, nonprofit rebranding does not focus on financial improvement (Lee and Bourne, 2017). The reason why nonprofit rebrand is because of re-analyzing their identity, values, and mission to establish their identity against other organizations. Therefore, the role of the corporate brand and identity in nonprofits is to guide its members’ actions and behavior (Lee and Bourne, 2017).
Corporate identity, image, and reputation are also crucial for family-owned firms. The involvement of a family in the management of a firm contributes to establishing its identity (Sageder, 2018). The name of a family-owned organization is connected to the name of the family. Due to the family interests towards the organization, non-financial and financial problems will not only damage the invested capital and returns but will also affect the reputation and image of the organization (Sageder, 2018). The decision made by family firms enhance financial performance and socio-emotional goals, including managing a positive image to maintain the organization’s and family’s reputation. Such goals motivate family organizations to perform activities targeted towards the interest of non-family stakeholders.
Organizational identification as a form of social identification among employees is also an essential factor that determines effective employee behavioral outcome. Although corporate identification is noted to show results for individuals and organizations, research on its connection with attitudes at work including job satisfaction is still being developed (Karanika-Murray et al., 2015). However, organizational identification gives the employee a sense of social belonging with the organization which maintains a strong and positive employment relationship reflected to the customers through positive attitude and feedback. The extent which employees identify with the goals and values of an organization where they work is crucial for both customers and the organization (Karanika-Murray et al., 2015). Ultimately, organizational identification leads to building corporate image and identity from how employees handle customers when offering services.
Although organizations make strategic choices when establishing corporate identity, the environment of the organization may be difficult to control. Some companies may fail to react to environmental changes while other do it gradually and others adopt rapidly to environmental changes. Therefore, corporate identity should change according to environmental changes. However, the pace of an organizational change may affect its survival and growth (Mingione and Abratt, 2017). Elements that cause a change in an organization are legal, political, technological, economic, and social. Manufacturers have started seeing the impact of using environmentally friendly raw materials. Many companies have adopted social responsibility by offering environmentally friendly products to their consumers. This improves the corporate identity of an organization by attracting more customers due to the organization’s quality of products.
Organizational opinion leaders and decision-makers attest to the ethical and moral rationale of having a diversity of balanced gender in a company. Politicians are also encouraging markets to embrace gender diversification. For instance, the government of Germany recently gave a go-ahead for organizations to allow gender diversification for supervisory boards in public organizations (Windscheid et al., 2018). Having a gender diversity within the workforce is essential for an organization’s competitive advantage and improving financial performance and overall productivity. Providing equal opportunities for both genders in an organization is a suitable way of building the image of potential employees who in turn give positive outcomes in terms of service delivery.
Organizational identity is used to demonstrate the relationship between investors and an organization as perceived by members of the organization. Organizational identity orientation is grouped in three forms, which are collectivistic, relational, and individualistic orientation (Wickert et al., 2017). The three orientations predict how organizations build references and interpret the social meaning of their activities. Organization orientation shows a company’s mission statement, procedures, rules, policies, strategies, agendas, concerns, and mutual goals (Wickert et al., 2017). Thus, the orientation is connected to the nature of a company’s practices and its protocol of doing things.
Identities are personal interpretations of who people are, according to their socio-demographic roles, group memberships, and personal characteristics. Together with self-esteem, a person’s multiple identities constitutes their self-concepts. Likewise, in an organization, identity can be connected to entrepreneurship, ethnicity, emotions to politics, among others (Caza et al., 2018). Work identities are connected to work activities, such as role, occupation, and organizational identities. For occupational identities, the managerial team is affected in terms of having to maintain the standard of services preferred by customers through empowering the employees towards better customer service and satisfaction (Caza et al., 2018).
Companies constitute people who are social by nature. It is, therefore, crucial to empower employees in an organization by setting up informal structures where employees can socialize and get to identify their strengths and weaknesses. An organization can rely on its employees in terms of service delivery to different customers with different personalities (Welbourne et al., 2017). Self-image is a reflection of the current self-esteem state of an employee, which is required in an organization (Burke et al., 2016). Self-image boosts the self-esteem of an employee, especially when describing a product or service offered by an organization. Consequently, a company’s overall image is partly built by employee behavior and reaction towards consumers.
Organizational identity is the answer to the question of who individuals are and their role in an organization. Thus, corporate identity is the main concern in the overall behavior of an organization (Wan et al., 2015). This is because it examines the role of shared norms that defines an organization’s character. Organizational identity is also flexible and is made up of members of an organization who are related to formulating identities through self-categorization. Organizational identity can also be seen as a system of shared values, norms, stereotypes, traditions, and behaviors of individuals in an organization (Wong and Dhanesh, 2017).
Loss of trust in leaders and managers has brought negative perception from consumers towards organizations. Consumers take precautions to invest their resources towards an organization and demand honesty and transparency when transacting with the organization (Tran et al., 2015). A company such as Daewoo has shown that corporate reputation and image may take longer to build but can take a short time to be destroyed. To avoid such instances, an organization develops an assessment system targeted towards the perception of people and situations in a company (Martin and Burke, 2016). Currently, an organization’s motivation lies in the importance of maintaining business ethics and corporate social responsibility among employees and towards the customers. Maintaining corporate image and reputation allows a company to attract more customers and investors but it also helps the company stay afloat in the competitive environment. However, many companies fail to recognize the importance of managing a corporate image where they end up becoming bankrupt.
Corporate image and identity are vital in any type of organization, including the nonprofit industry. Managing a corporate identity not only focuses on financial prosperity but also on the reputation of the company’s employees in the way they interact with customers. A proper corporate identity entails the ability of an organization to evaluate consumer behavior and improve its products and services according to the needs of consumers. Corporate image and reputation can also be achieved through brand recognition on social platforms to enable consumers to identify with a specific brand in the market. It is the work of managers to ensure effective communication between them, employees, and customers to improve their reputation and image while maintaining employee motivation and satisfaction. Therefore, corporate identity, image, and reputation are dependent on how employees are motivated to deliver quality products and services.
References
Bravo, R., Buil, I., Chernatony, L. d., & Martínez, E. (2017). Brand identity management and
corporate social responsibility: An analysis from employees’ perspective in the banking
sector. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 18(2), 241-257.
doi:10.3846/16111699.2016.1209785
Berz, J. (2016). Managing TV brands with social media: An empirical analysis of television
series brands (1st 2016. ed.). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
doi:10.1007/978-3-658-14294-0
Bardon, T., Brown, A. D., & Pezé, S. (2017). Identity regulation, identity work, and phronesis.
Human Relations, 70(8), 940-965. doi:10.1177/0018726716680724.
Balmer, J. M. T. (2017). The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’
attributed identities, identifications, and behaviors continuum. European Journal of
Marketing, 51(9/10), 1472-1502. doi:10.1108/EJM-07-2017-0448.
Bravo, R., Buil, I., de Chernatony, L., & Martínez, E. (2017). Managing brand identity: Effects
on the employees. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 35(1), 2-23.
doi:10.1108/IJBM-10-2015-0148.
Barnes, V., & Newton, L. (2017). Constructing corporate identity before the corporation:
Fashioning the face of the first english joint-stock banking companies through portraiture.
Enterprise & Society, 18(3), 678-720. doi:10.1017/eso.2016.90.
Burke, R. J., Martin, G., & Cooper, C. L. (2011;2016;2012;). Corporate reputation: Managing
opportunities and threats. Farnham, England; Burlington, Vt: Gower.
doi:10.4324/9781315574295.
Caza, B. B., Vough, H., & Puranik, H. (2018). Identity work in organizations and occupations:
Definitions, theories, and pathways forward. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(7),
889-910. doi:10.1002/job.2318.
Holt, D. (2016). Branding in the age of social media. Harvard Business Review, 1.
Karanika-Murray, M., Duncan, N., Pontes, H. M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Organizational
identification, work engagement, and job satisfaction. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 30(8), 1019-1033. doi:10.1108/JMP-11-2013-0359.
Lee, Z., & Bourne, H. (2017). Managing dual identities in nonprofit rebranding: An exploratory
study. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 46(4), 794-816.
doi:10.1177/0899764017703705.
Leiva, R., Ferrero, I., & Calderon, R. (2016). Corporate reputation in the business ethics field: Its
relation with corporate identity, corporate image, and corporate social responsibility. Corporate Reputation Review, 19(4), 299-315. doi:10.1057/s41299-016-0008-x.
Milenkovska, V., Petrovska, J., & Stoilkovska, A. (2019). positive attitude towards business
ethics and social responsibility for improving corporate image. UTMS Journal of Economics, 10(1), 97-107
Martin, G., & Burke, R. J. (2016). Corporate reputation: Managing opportunities and threats
Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781315574295.
Mingione, M., & Abratt, R. (2017). Corporate identity, strategy, and change. Journal of Brand
Management, 24(2), 129-139. doi:10.1057/s41262-017-0026-8
Melewar, T. C., Foroudi, P., Gupta, S., Kitchen, P. J., & Foroudi, M. M. (2017). Integrating
identity, strategy, and communications for trust, loyalty, and commitment. European
Journal of Marketing, 51(3), 572-604. doi:10.1108/EJM-08-2015-0616
Ross, J., & Harradine, R. (2011). Fashion value brands: The relationship between identity and
image. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 15(3), 306-325. Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/10.1108/13612021111151914
Sageder, M., Mitter, C., & Feldbauer‐Durstmüller, B. (2018). Image and reputation of family firms: A systematic literature review of the state of research. Review of Managerial Science, 12(1), 335-377. doi:10.1007/s11846-016-0216-x
Tran, M. A., Nguyen, B., Melewar, T. C., & Bodoh, J. (2015). Exploring the corporate image
formation process. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 18(1), 86-114. doi:10.1108/QMR-05-2014-0046
Urde, M., & Greyser, S. A. (2016). The corporate brand identity and reputation matrix – the case
of the Nobel Prize. Journal of Brand Management, 23(1), 89-117.
doi:10.1057/bm.2015.49
Wan, W. P., Chen, H. S., & Yiu, D. W. (2015). Organizational image, identity, and international
divestment: A theoretical examination. Global Strategy Journal, 5(3), 205-222.
doi:10.1002/gsj.1101.
Wong, J. Y., & Dhanesh, G. S. (2017). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) for ethical
corporate identity management. Corporate Communications: An International
Journal, 22(4), 420-439. doi:10.1108/CCIJ-12-2016-0084.
Welbourne, T. M., Rolf, S., & Schlachter, S. (2017). The case for employee resource groups: A
review and social identity theory-based research agenda. Personnel Review, 46(8), 1816-
- doi:10.1108/PR-01-2016-0004
Wickert, C., Vaccaro, A., & Cornelissen, J. (2017). “Buying” corporate social responsibility:
Organizational identity orientation as a determinant of practice adoption. Journal of
Business Ethics, 142(3), 497-514. doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2740-z.
Windscheid, L., Bowes-Sperry, L., Jonsen, K., Morner, M. (2018). Managing organizational
gender diversity images: A content analysis of German corporate websites. Journal of
Business Ethics, 152(4), 997-1013. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3292-6.