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The purpose of this paper is to conceptually and empirically explore and challenge the dogma of Corporate visual identity (CVI) consistency. The goal is to nuance the current polarized debate of consistency or no consistency.

A qualitative research strategy is employed in this paper. Specifically, the empirical work rests on an interview study with strategists from ten different CVI agencies. The interview transcripts are analyzed using template analysis.

In terms of findings, both empirical and conceptual arguments for and against CVI consistency are presented. Many of these arguments rest on conflicting assumptions of CVI communication, CVI authenticity and CVI management, which all influence the debate of CVI consistency.

CVI practitioners are presented with a more reflective approach to dealing with consistency and hands on examples for inspiration.

This paper offers alternative and more nuanced conceptualizations of CVI consistency. This includes seeing consistency and inconsistency as ends of a spectrum to be balanced rather than mutually exclusive and by differentiating between consistency across platforms and consistency over time – coined CVI continuity. Furthermore, several future research areas that can help to further develop the field of CVI are suggested.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model to investigate corporate visual identity (CVI) management from an organisational perspective. It is assumed that characteristics of the organisation and of the way a CVI is managed will affect consistency of CVI.

The model was tested in a survey carried out among employees in 20 Dutch organisations. Structural equation modelling with AMOS was conducted to get insight into the various influences and relationships.

CVI management characteristics – socialisation processes related to CVI, knowledge of CVI strategy, and CVI tools and support – have a strong impact on the consistency of CVI, and organisational characteristics affect the way CVI is managed. With the exception of the openness and dynamics of an organisation, no supporting evidence was found for a direct relationship between organisational characteristics and CVI consistency.

CVI has been measured by the judgement of the respondents, all employees of the organisation concerned. Therefore the measure was the perceived consistency of CVI. Further research could include a visual audit and the perception of external stakeholders towards the visual identity. There was no distinction examined among the main corporate visual identity and sub‐ or product brands. The study was conducted in the Netherlands, where the Dutch term huisstijl is unambiguous and clearly related to the corporate brand or identity. Future research can take different brands into account or can broaden the concept of CVI (including cultural aspects, language, rituals, myths, etc.).

The results indicate that CVI management matters, that CVI management is related to more general organisational characteristics, but that communication managers nevertheless have a considerable amount of freedom in determining the way they manage their CVI.

Corporate visual identity has received little attention in research and hardly been studied at all from the perspective of this paper. This paper has value to both researchers in the fields of corporate identity and organisational identity, as well as professionals involved in managing the corporate identity.

Corporate visual identity (CVI) comprises all the symbols and graphical elements that express the essence of an organisation. Although it is by far the most visible and tangible asset in the armoury of tools used by the majority of organisations in their interaction with the outside world, the role of CVI is scarcely mentioned in studies on corporate reputation. Despite the growing interest in measuring reputation and brand values, little is known about the role of CVI. This article aims to explore the relationship between CVI and five general dimensions of reputation: visibility, distinctiveness, authenticity, transparency, and consistency.

This paper explores the relationship between corporate visual identity and reputation. In which ways and to what extent can CVI support a corporate reputation? This exposition of the relationship between reputation and CVI is based on the framework established by Fombrun and Van Riel and the reputation model they present, which consists of five dimensions: visibility, distinctiveness, authenticity, transparency, and consistency. This relationship is explored by investigating these dimensions.

It is concluded that CVI can, in principle, support each of these dimensions, through the quality of the design, the range of its application, and the condition of carriers.

CVI must be considered a useful tool that can be successfully applied to managing the reputation of any organization.

The results will be helpful to communication professionals who deal with integrated communication and aim to enhance the consistency of messages – both written and visual – within their organisation.

Addressing the unique challenge facing emerging-market firms (EMFs) of branding and marketing in their foreign subsidiaries, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the foreign subsidiary’s corporate visual identity (CVI) transitions during the post-acquisition period.

Data on 330 cross-border acquisitions from five emerging markets, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) are used. The cross-sectional multivariate analyses are used to test the hypotheses.

Utilizing a sample of worldwide acquisitions conducted by EMFs originated from BRICS, this study establishes that various cross-national distances do not consistently cause the targets to take on the parent’s CVI. While economic distance and formal institutional distance increase the likelihood of an acquired subsidiary’s CVI change, cultural distance decreases the likelihood of CVI change.

Lacking international experience and shaped by national differences between the host and home markets, EMFs often grant foreign subsidiaries substantial autonomy to respond to diverse stakeholder demands in subsidiary branding. Contrary to extant literature, the findings show that some distances are more pertinent to CVI transformation in the subsidiaries than others in the context of the EMFs.

This research shows that the formal institutional distance and economic distance will increase the likelihood of CVI changes in the subsidiaries, whereas, the cultural distance requiring soft skills like the cultural adaptability from the EMFs will decrease the CVI change possibility. The findings presented in the paper have significant implications for future research and strategic application.

This paper aims to present the process of construction and content validity of flood disaster preparedness action (FDPA) items to measure flood preparedness characteristics and activities among the small and medium enterprises (SME).

The content validity process involved the act of conceptualization, development and validation. In short, it was implemented to develop the FDPA items that were used to measure flood preparedness at the SME level. The steps began with literature review (adopt and adapt) and judgment of expert panel on the item development process. The list of 54 items was developed. A panel of eight experts rated its content validation during a focus group discussion.

In total, 52 items were acceptable to be passed on to the next stage of data collection. The items content validity (I-CVI) measurement of the items was within an acceptable range of more than 0.75, except for two items: Q38 and Q39. The scale content validity (S-CVI) value gave an excellent score of 0.95. Several items with low I-CVI score values for relevancy and clarity were subject to modification.

Content validity ensured accurate interpretations of results. To support the construct validity of an instrument, documenting findings from content validity was essential.

This paper demonstrated the initial phase of scale development on FDPA items. This newly developed item allows the integration of several flood disaster preparedness activities construct by review and judgment process by the panel of experts in the field.

This chapter provides a rich and thick description of a collaborative, place-based, interorganizational process in the domain of social, ecological, and economic sustainability. Governmental agencies, businesses, philanthropic organizations, NGOs, consulting firms, and private citizens tried to move from an underorganized and tacit set of ineffective relationships toward a structural collaboration in service of a “place” known as the Cuyahoga River Valley. While the process built momentum and expectations among its participants and other stakeholders, an important outcome of the collaboration did not materialize as planned. The leading actors struggled with scaling a “negotiated order” and leveraging the high levels of commitment among the participants. Despite the setback, many of the aims of the collaboration continue to be achieved, albeit at a slower pace and without a high regional priority. The chapter explores whether the trans-organization development (Cummings, 1984) perspective is a useful model for intentionally intervening in a multi-stakeholder collaboration and the roles that negotiated order (Nathan & Mitroff, 1991) and referent organizations (Trist, 1983) play.

The aim is to review and discuss main conceptualizations, themes and assumptions within organizational-level visual identity (VI) in order to identify potential avenues of theoretical advancement of VI as an independent construct.

An integrative review approach offers a structured, nuanced perspective on the concept by synthesizing extant literature through an iterative, critical and qualitative process.

The synthesis identifies three overlapping terms [corporate visual identity (CVI), visual brand identity (VBI) and VI] and two main themes (visual consistency and authenticity). The dominant assumptions underpinning consistency and authenticity are challenged by alternative understandings, which provide a platform for perceiving visual consistency and authenticity in new ways.

The review offers an overview of organizational-level VI that helps define the concept as well as critical reflections which open up for additional research avenues that may develop it and point to potential areas for exploration.

The review provides practitioners with a platform for discussing how to approach visual identities with regards to consistency and authenticity.

The review contributes with a synthesis of VI literature covering 50 years. It offers a structured presentation of and critical discussion on the underlying, dominant assumptions. By challenging these dominant assumptions, a palette of future research opportunities, with potentials to nuance and develop the concept as a unique construct, are presented.

Although the prominence of social media for companies is widely acknowledged, a close examination of the literature reveals a lack of empirical research pertaining to the effect of consistency specifically on social media. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to fill the gap in social media communication concerning the effect of consistent visual identity on social media users.

The study executed an experiment 2 (corporate visual identity condition) × 2 (organization type) between subjects design to map the effects of consistent visual identity on social media users appreciation of the visual identity, attitude toward the company, reputation and intention to commit to a company on social media.

The results of the study indicated the significant effects of consistent visual identity on social media users over the inconsistent conditions of visual identity on all dependent variables. Furthermore, there were insignificant main effects of organization type on general judgment, credibility, distinctiveness and reputation of the company.

This study presents the effects of consistent visual identity on social media platforms. The research will help marketing academicians, graphic designers and social media practitioners in online marketing by using its practical implications to strategically positioning their corporate brand in a social media environment.

This study provides novel insights on the impact of consistency on social media users. This is the first study to determine the role of consistent visual identity in the social media environment. It thereby adds to the literature of visual identity by developing the sphere of influence of consistency and its effects toward the user’s attitude.

The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of validity process in survey questionnaire instrument development. It is to confirm all items chosen are valid in the context of study, especially in assessing municipal website Web user behaviours. The quality of measurement also can be assured.

Several methods used to assess validity of the survey instrument in this study, such as face validity, content validity index (CVI) and construct validity. CVI assessment is widely used to examine each item in the survey instrument exact measures what is supposed to be measured. Prolific items used to evaluate web aesthetic, usability, navigation, content organization, interactivity and user engagement.

Several items were rephrased and simplified during face validity assessment, while three items from user engagement construct were excluded after the CVI assessment. Reliability and redundancy analysis had shown good results for each item and construct for both dependent and independent variables. None of the items in any construct need to be eliminated.

The face validity, content validity and construct validity assessments are sufficient to assure the consistency of the conceptual framework, the content of items and overall measurement approach reflecting the setting or context of study which are web users.

The validated survey instrument provides practical guidelines for government municipal website owners on how to stimulate website user to keep engaged on the government municipal website. Identified website content that acts as credibility cues can be as object attention when planning the strategy of Web content management. Through proper design and attracting touch up, the credibility cues can attract website user and force the user to engage deeper on the government municipal website content, believe it as the main source of information and recognize it as authoritative organization.

The measurement model of this study that consists of formative construct of surface credibility, and user engagement is proposed to be tested in a different context of this study.

The Customary Land Delivery Institutions (CLDIs) provide the platform for the supply of developable land in most cities in sub-Saharan African countries. While there is a need to measure the effectiveness of CLDIs to compare their performance with others or themselves over time, there is however a dearth of evidence-based frameworks that could be adopted for such an assessment. This study developed a framework for the evaluation of the effectiveness of CLDIs. This is with a view to providing a tool for measuring the performance of land governance.

A total of 46 good governance criteria for measuring the various dimensions of CLDIs generated from the literature were transformed into a measurable scale which was validated by a panel of 16 experts through a modified Delphi approach. A pilot study was also conducted on 42 land-based professionals to assess the reliability of the framework. Content Validity Index (CVI) was calculated for relevancy scores while clarity was measured by clarity score. Cronbach alpha was also employed to measure the reliability of the framework.

The result of the 46 criteria validated by the experts revealed that 89.5% of items in the developed instrument have a content validity index (I-CVI) equal to or greater than the 0.85 threshold and a mean I-CVI of 0.90. With the CVI score and the analysis of the comments made by the experts, six items were removed from the instrument and a total of six new items were added. The final corrected instrument after a further iteration had a total of 46 items. The reliability test also revealed a Cronbach alpha score of 0.82.

This paper provides a framework useful for developing countries, especially in the development of land delivery policies and provides a framework for the analysis of the important aspects thereof.

This paper demonstrates the development of a holistic framework for the assessment of CLDIs which hitherto were not in existence.