The Expressive Organization: Linking Identity, Reputation, and the Corporate Brand

European Journal of Marketing

ISSN: 0309-0566

Article publication date: 1 August 2003

1694

Keywords

Citation

Dinnie, K. (2003), "The Expressive Organization: Linking Identity, Reputation, and the Corporate Brand", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 7/8, pp. 1147-1150. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090560310477735

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited


This excellent book focuses primarily on the issue of how identity and reputation are linked to the corporate brand, exploring the multidimensional nature of this question from an interdisciplinary perspective. The three editors have assembled a wide range of different authors who each contribute one chapter on topics such as rethinking identity, reputation as strategy, and organizations as brands. Some of the well known names in the field who share their thoughts on how companies might aspire to become an “expressive organization” include Wally Olins, Paul Argenti, Charles Fombrun, Cees van Riel, and Kevin Lane Keller.

Schultz, Hatch and Larsen, the book's editors, take as their starting point the view that “once dominant only in the minds of consumers, brands are increasingly taking over the minds of all stakeholders”. This standpoint implies the need to take a holistic and integrative approach to the management of identity, reputation and corporate branding issues. In their own chapter on the theme of rethinking identity, “Scaling the Tower of Babel: relational differences between identity, image, and culture in organizations”, Hatch and Schultz acknowledge the danger of conceptual confusion arising from adopting such a broad perspective, while at the same time maintaining that the variety and richness that comes from such diversity provide valuable input to their theorizing.

One of Hatch and Schultz's most important observations concerns the concept of identity, which cannot, they claim, be understood simply as a projection of an organizational self but rather must be conceived of in terms of the perceptions others have of us and that we have of others. Although that may sound like a statement of the obvious, it is probably worth articulating in order to emphasise to company executives that a new “identity” cannot be conjured up by a designer, since identity is not just a visual projection but rather a complex interaction of the self and the other.

An interesting departure from the widespread understanding of identity from a purely visual viewpoint is provided by Jay Barney and Alice Stewart in their chapter on “Organizational identity as moral philosophy: competitive implications for diversified corporations”. Barney and Stewart argue that, as the level of diversification in a corporation increases, OI must be defined in increasingly abstract terms. The authors’ contention is that one way firms can define an abstract identity is as moral philosophy, “statements of right and wrong around which employees can rally and which can influence a broad range of business decisions”. Clearly the danger here is that the more abstract the identity becomes, the more scope there is for differing interpretations of what is right and wrong in terms of the firm's adopted moral philosophy. This is acknowledged by Barney and Stewart when they point out that the problem within diversified firms is that the values‐based OI must be broad enough to signal convergent goals while clear enough to support a wide variety of knowledge‐based means (i.e. core competencies) to achieve those goals.

One of the major strengths of The Expressive Organization lies in the richness of the sources from which the different authors draw. Almost every chapter has a page or two of references at the back, thus making it possible for the reader to follow up topics of interest quickly and without having to commit to a time‐consuming literature search. An exception to this is Wally Olins’ chapter on “How brands are taking over the corporation”, which has no references at all and which reads more like a verbal presentation rather than the more studied academic tone of other chapters.

Olins is well known for his refreshingly candid take on identity and branding, and his chapter offers an elegant overview of the place of branding in contemporary society. He describes the iconic status that many brands have now acquired in the following terms: “Nike and brands like it appear to have this kind of spiritual power. They seem, in an individualistic, materialistic, acquisitive, egocentric era to have become some kind of replacement for, or supplement to, religious belief. Why else, one has to ask, are individuals prepared to demonstrate their allegiances to brands of soft drinks, cigarettes, and training shoes, by draping the insignia of these products all over their person? What satisfaction do they derive from it?” Answering his own rhetoric, Olins goes on to posit that an attempt at self‐definition is what drives people to become “perambulating advertisements” for brands; the affiliation that the individual makes with the brand is, he claims, a unique and amazing characteristic of our time, which is what makes brands unstoppable.

A more specific demonstration of the practical procedures involved in creating an expressive organization is provided by Charles Fombrun and Violina Rindova in their chapter, “The road to transparency: reputation management at Royal Dutch Shell”. It would be hard to think of a more challenging assignment for an identity/reputation consultant than that described here, namely to rebuild the Royal Dutch/Shell Group's reputational capital with its key stakeholders following the events of 1995 – the proposed maritime sinking of the Brent Spar offshore drilling platform, and the execution by the ruling military junta in Nigeria of Ken Saro Wiwa, the representative of the Ogoni people who were protesting against the exploitation of their lands by Shell in collusion with the Nigerian government. Fombrun and Rindova say that Shell's experience is particularly conducive to developing a framework for understanding reputation management because it represents a rare and comprehensive effort to manage corporate reputation in the multicultural environment faced by global companies today.

The introspection, analysis and change conducted by Shell in the aftermath of the events of 1995 centered on two key projects initiated by the company:

  1. 1.

    assessing society's changing expectations; and

  2. 2.

    becoming WoMAC (the world's most admired corporation).

As a result of this analysis – belated, many would claim – the company introduced a commitment to fundamental human rights and also to sustainable development. The company also sought to institutionalize reputation management organization‐wide, based on the premise that companies with the most resilient reputations appeared to follow an identity‐centered model of reputation building rather than the reactive, impression‐management view of the world characteristic of Shell's traditional corporate communications. This point is reiterated towards the end of the chapter: “A primary mechanism for achieving ‘transparency’ is expressive communication with stakeholders: expressive communications seek to represent the organization's identity rather than to grab attention and favourable impressions”.

Kevin Lane Keller addresses the issue of organizations as brands in his chapter on “Building and managing corporate brand equity”, providing language, concepts and guidelines designed to improve the understanding of corporate brand equity management. Keller defines corporate brand equity as “the differential response by consumers, customers, employees, other firms, or any relevant constituency to the words, actions, communications, products or services provided by an identified corporate brand equity”, and he concludes that since it is not difficult for rival firms to copy products, a strong corporate brand allows a firm to express itself in terms of “who it is” and “what it is about” and therefore provides a means to transcend the types of associations found for products alone.

Four chapters of The Expressive Organization are devoted to the theme of “The value of storytelling”. Cees van Riel weighs in with a chapter on corporate communication orchestrated by a sustainable corporate story, arguing that communication will be more effective if organizations rely on a so‐called sustainable corporate story as a source of inspiration for all internal and external communication programmes, since stories are hard to imitate and they promote consistency in all corporate messages.

In what is perhaps the most stimulating chapter in the whole book, van Riel elaborates ways in which a sustainable corporate story may be built up, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative research conducted among all the company's stakeholder groups. Several useful tables and figures are provided, more than enough material to enable any competent consultant to set about drafting a sustainable corporate story.

The final section of the book features three chapters on the topic of “Communicating organizations”, a slightly limp designation for the closing section given that the whole book is about “communicating organizations”. A fine contribution is made by Lars Thoger Christensen and George Cheney in their chapter on “Self‐absorption and self seduction in the corporate identity game”, in which they put into perspective the true importance of corporate identity: “Corporate self‐absorption is manifested in a number of different ways: on the one hand, as a growing preoccupation with ritualistic expressions of identity; on the other hand, as a previously unseen vanity with respect to the signifiers that organizations themselves choose to manufacture.… While the recurring articulation of identity and community is essential to the organization itself, the ‘environment’ does not necessarily share the exuberance.” An example the authors give of this phenomenon of vain corporate self‐absorption is the proliferation of pointless, redundant Web sites created by companies who “now feel a strong need to ‘be’ on the Internet, even when they have nothing to say … communication is existence, even when the message is only relevant to the sender”.

The editors of The Expressive Organization are to be congratulated on not only putting together such an eclectic, thought‐provoking book, but also for feeling secure enough in the status of their chosen field to include the sting in the tail supplied by Christensen and Cheney's sharp observations on the potential for over‐exaltation of corporate identity and reputation.

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