Corporate Identity
Literature Review
Corporate Identity
What is corporate identity?
The task of defining corporate identity is challenging. Different views and definitions were introduced to the concept. The first time the “corporate identity” term was used was in 1957 by Lippincott and Margulies (Cornelissen & Elving, 2003). It was constrained by the visual representation of the organization by which means it identify itself.
The understanding of the concept has expanded later to include all the characteristics that gives the organization its specificity, stability, and coherence (Larcon and Reitter 1979; Reitter and Ramananrsoa 1985 in (Moingeon & Ramanantsoa, 1997)) which includes culture, strategy, and core competency (Cornelissen & Elving, 2003), this supports Balmer & Gray (1999) argument that corporate identity can be a source of competitive advantage. Although the concept has expanded to include more than the visual representation, visual cues still are assigned a great value in terms of communicating the corporate values and ethos rather than being a means of increasing the corporate visibility (Balmer, 1998). Balmer argues that the visual identity can play an important role in communicating strategic change and thus can be powerful.
Albert and Whetten’s (1985) in (Cornelissen & Elving, 2003) have defined identity as the organization character that is central, enduring, and distinct. Tsai (2008) adds to the previous definition that corporate identity is also of collective nature (Tsai, 2008).
Olins (1989) discuss that all outputs of an organization contributes to the construction of its identity (van Rekom, 1997). Olins (1995) has defined corporate identity as “the explicit management of all the ways in which the organization presents itself through experiences and perceptions to all its audiences”. Therefore, corporate identity is not concerned only with customers; rather it handles perceptions and identification of corporation to all stakeholders
Corporate Identity
What is corporate identity?
The task of defining corporate identity is challenging. Different views and definitions were introduced to the concept. The first time the “corporate identity” term was used was in 1957 by Lippincott and Margulies (Cornelissen & Elving, 2003). It was constrained by the visual representation of the organization by which means it identify itself.
The understanding of the concept has expanded later to include all the characteristics that gives the organization its specificity, stability, and coherence (Larcon and Reitter 1979; Reitter and Ramananrsoa 1985 in (Moingeon & Ramanantsoa, 1997)) which includes culture, strategy, and core competency (Cornelissen & Elving, 2003), this supports Balmer & Gray (1999) argument that corporate identity can be a source of competitive advantage. Although the concept has expanded to include more than the visual representation, visual cues still are assigned a great value in terms of communicating the corporate values and ethos rather than being a means of increasing the corporate visibility (Balmer, 1998). Balmer argues that the visual identity can play an important role in communicating strategic change and thus can be powerful.
Albert and Whetten’s (1985) in (Cornelissen & Elving, 2003) have defined identity as the organization character that is central, enduring, and distinct. Tsai (2008) adds to the previous definition that corporate identity is also of collective nature (Tsai, 2008).
Olins (1989) discuss that all outputs of an organization contributes to the construction of its identity (van Rekom, 1997). Olins (1995) has defined corporate identity as “the explicit management of all the ways in which the organization presents itself through experiences and perceptions to all its audiences”. Therefore, corporate identity is not concerned only with customers; rather it handles perceptions and identification of corporation to all stakeholders