Search results

In this paper, we discuss how “cultural capital” and “symbolic capital,” understood as specialized subsets of intangible resources and capabilities, enable firms to achieve valuable strategic positions in ways that are currently underexplored by mainstream strategy literature. We articulate the similarities and differences between cultural and symbolic capital and the intangible assets that have been the focus of mainstream strategy researchers, such as intellectual, social, and reputational capital. Our theoretical arguments build on insights from a number of studies conducted primarily in non-North American settings that have shown how symbolic properties of products create value. We conclude by delineating future avenues of research that strategy scholarship should consider in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the relationships between intangible resources and capabilities, and value creation.

The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally explore the symbolic and substantive ideological strategies located in ENGIE’s environmental discourse while considering the specific negative media context surrounding the company’s environmental activities.

Thompson’s (2007) and Eagleton’s (2007) theorizations are used to build an extended ideological framework to analyze ENGIE’s environmental talk from 2001 to 2015.

ENGIE drew extensively on a combination of symbolic and substantive ideological strategies in its annual and sustainability reports while ignoring several major issues raised in the press. Its substantive ideological mode of operation included actions for the environment, innovation, partnerships and educating stakeholders/staff, while its symbolic ideological mode of operation used issue identification, legal compliance, rationalization, stakeholders’ responsibilization and unification. Both ideological modes of operation worked synergistically to cast a positive light on ENGIE’s environmental activities, sustaining the ideology of a company that reconciles the irreconcilable despite negative press coverage.

This paper develops the notion of environmentally friendly ideology to analyze the environmental discourse of a polluting company. It is the first to use both Thompson’s and Eagleton’s ideological frameworks to make sense of corporate environmental discourse. Linking corporate discourse with media coverage, it further contributes to the burgeoning literature that interpretively distinguishes between symbolic and substantive ideological strategies by highlighting the company’s progressive shift from symbolic to more substantive disclosure.

Notes how many products are purchased due to their symbolic significance to important reference groups. Discusses the concept of symbolic interactionism and considers this with regard to consumerbehaviour. Suggests that marketing practitioners can develop symbolic relevance via marketing strategy. Makes recommendations for target market definition and marketing mix options.

This study aims to examine the impact of perceived institutional force on environmental strategy, and the moderating role of institutional incompleteness.

This study tests hypotheses employing hierarchical regression model based on a survey of 317 Chinese manufacturers.

The results reveal that perceived business and social force have positive impacts on symbolic environmental strategy. Perceived social force has a positive impact on substantive environmental strategy and a negative impact on greenwashing. Further analysis suggests that perceived social force has a stronger effect on substantive environmental strategy than perceived business force. Moreover, institutional incompleteness strengthens the impact of perceived business force on substantive environmental strategy, and the impact of perceived social force on symbolic and substantive environmental strategy.

This study establishes a framework integrating distinct types of perceived institutional force and environmental strategy and provides a new perspective on measuring greenwashing to extend environmental strategy literature.

Considers the concept of symbolic interactionism within the context of consumer behaviour. Examines the implications for market strategy through segmentation variables, consumer and group characteristics, and general exemplary concepts. Surmises that marketers can create a product′s symbolic image, and should manage that image through a clear and consistent marketing program.

This paper aims to explore how a Malaysian palm oil company responded to the pressure for change towards sustainability in their sustainability reporting of negative incidents and in actual sustainability practices.

The study used qualitative methodology through an interpretive case study of a palm company. The study gathered primary and secondary data via semi-structured interviews with key organisational members and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), informal conversations, focus groups, document/annual report content analyses and observations. Symbolic and substantive management was used as the theoretical lens to explain the findings.

After experiencing a series of negative events regarding their social and environmental performance, the case company responded by using selective disclosure and a symbolic/legitimising strategy to address the majority of recurring negative events. In actual practice, the company changed structurally but policy-implementation gaps remain despite these changes. Strategically, the company changed in terms of its expansion policy but remained unchanged in traceability issues. The increased awareness of sustainability in the company’s culture appeared to suffer in favour of profit and cost/efficiency considerations that remain prominent. Both substantive and symbolic changes were found in both reports and practice but were more inclined to be symbolic.

The study provides guidelines for companies changing towards sustainability in both practice and reporting, in their effort to contribute to sustainable development goals.

The study provides evidence of symbolic and substantive changes as complementing activities instead of a dichotomy, which was mostly assumed in previous literature and suggests companies adopt a combination of these depending on the severity of sustainability-related issues, level of scrutiny and cost/efficiency considerations.

As the cost of completing a transaction, the green merger and acquisition (M&A) premium paid on mergers can influence whether the acquisition creates value or not. However, studies linking M&A premiums to firm value have had mixed results, even fewer studies have examined the effect of green M&A premiums on bidders’ firm value. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how green M&A premiums affect firm value in the context of China’s heavy polluters.

Using 323 deals between 2008 and 2019 among China’s heavy polluters, this paper estimates with correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.

Green M&A premiums are negatively associated with firm value. The results are more significant when firms adopt symbolic rather than substantive corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Robustness and endogeneity tests corroborate the findings. The negative relation is stronger when acquiring firms have low governmental subsidy and environmental regulation, when firms have overconfident management, when firms are state-owned and when green M&A occurs locally or among provinces in the same region. This study also analyzes agency cost as an intermediary in the relationship between green M&A premium and firm value, which lends support to the agency-view hypothesis.

This study provides systemic evidence that green M&A premiums damage firm value through agency cost channel and the choice of CSR strategies from the perspective of acquirers. These findings enrich the literature on both the economic consequences of green M&A premiums and the determinants of firm value and provide a plausible explanation for mixed findings on the relationship between green M&A premiums and firm value.

In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular group of academic scientists has responded to neoliberal changes in science policy and funding in Canada. The data we use are from a qualitative case study of 20 basic health scientists affiliated with a research-intensive university in a large Canadian city. We use the PFP/PFU model to explore the symbolic strategies (the vision of scientific quality) and practical strategies (the acquisition of funding and production of knowledge outputs) scientists adopt to maintain or advance their own position of power in the scientific field. We also compare similarities and differences among scientists trained before and after the rise of neoliberal policy. The PFP/PFU model allows us to see how these individual strategies cumulatively contribute to the construction of dominant and alternate modes of knowledge production. We argue that the alignments and misalignments between quality vision and practice that scientists in this study experienced reflect the symbolic struggles that are occurring among scientists, and between the scientific and political field, over two competing logics and reward systems (PFP/PFU).

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by presenting new knowledge about sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) reporting practices through integrated reporting (IR). This paper’s ultimate goal is to dig to light companies’ main approaches to incorporating SDG disclosures into IRs.

This study puts forward both deductive content analysis and an inductive thematic analysis on a sample of worldwide leading IR adopters to assess what SDGs they disclose and how they integrate SDGs into the reports. Meaningful narratives and graphical illustrations are selected, categorised and discussed from a symbolic/substantive legitimacy perspective.

The results of this study highlighted that although a fair number of leading IR adopters addressed SDG issues, their pathways to disclosure were not uniform. In some cases, SDGs inspired substantive changes to internal management and process, communicated through an integrated approach. However, there was a persistent trend of using SDGs as camouflage and symbolic tool to enhance company’s reputation and obtain a licence to operate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study that performed a deductive/inductive thematic analysis to engender insight into the most meaningful patterns followed by leading IR reporters worldwide to disclose their contributions to SDGs and address their legitimacy.

When consumers experience a self-threat that calls their self-concept into question, the ensuing psychological discomfort motivates them to restore their self-perceptions on the threatened attribute. Although consumers can restore a threatened self-perception by consuming products and brands that possess the desired symbolic associations, this study aims to propose that word of mouth can serve to resolve self-threat and restore a threatened self-perception when the brand at the center of a word-of-mouth communication is symbolically congruent with the domain of the threat.

Experimental online survey research was conducted, inducing self-threat, manipulating brand and word-of-mouth conditions and measuring self-perceptions. Data for three studies were analyzed using SPSS and Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS macro.

Three studies show that spreading word of mouth can restore consumers’ threatened self-perceptions when the brand is symbolically congruent with the threat domain. Word of mouth about a symbolically congruent brand alleviates psychological discomfort, resulting in higher self-perceptions on the threatened attribute. The restorative effect is amplified for lower self-esteem consumers.

Participants in the focal conditions were required to spread word of mouth, which may not be an organic response for all consumers; although not spreading word of mouth is ineffective, other compensatory consumer behavior options exist. The brand option was provided to participants, which allowed for control but may have reduced some of the realism.

Positioning brands to meet consumers’ psychological needs encourages the development of consumer–brand attachments. Brands that resonate with consumers reap the benefits of consumers’ active loyalty behaviors and enjoy stronger brand equity. The present research implies a new way consumers can form brand attachments: by spreading word of mouth to resolve self-threat. As many consumers post detailed, personal information online, this research suggests firms can align their brand messages with relevant identity-related discrepancies.

This research extends the symbolic self-completion compensatory consumption strategy to the word-of-mouth context, showing that consumers can achieve the same restorative effect as consumption by spreading word of mouth. This research also contributes to compensatory word-of-mouth literature by establishing the role of brand meaning.