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The chapter focuses on brand image and its role in business relationship initiation. The chapter takes the perspective of personal brands, CEO branding in particular, and discusses how brand image of the CEO affects the establishment of new relationships. The corporate brand image provides a first insight into, for instance, perceived quality, while the CEO brand is a strategic combination of the CEO image and CEO reputation. An empirical case study exemplifies and illustrates how the corporate brand and the CEO brand interlink. The reader learns that a strong CEO brand may outperform the corporate brand in the initial stage of establishing new business relationships. Trust and commitment are highlighted through the case, inducing that business relationship performance is dependent on personal interaction and network bonds between the actors. The personal brand of the CEO is an important element in branding strategies and a strategic tool for organizations active in the B2B domain. This relates specially to partner selection and the stage of initiating business relationships. Furthermore, both rational and emotional factors are considered when business partners evaluate each other, in search for information and cues as regards the history of the partner. Eventually, trust is created between the partners, and the relationship is initiated.

HR professionals have identified the power of information sharing for employer branding that could be obtained through the rapid growth of social media usage. The growing interest in and power of social media seem to be important for companies that want to make themselves known as interesting employers and to recruit prospective employees, using techniques that are more common to job seekers and recruiters. This study aims to explore the immediate future of employer branding through social media, as envisioned by academics and HR practitioners.

To look into the future of employer branding, we use the Delphi technique for forecasting, planning, issue identification, and framework development (Bobeva & Day, 2002). Two groups of respondents participated in this three-part study: 11 academics and 20 HR professionals. They were selected because of their research into the integration of HRM and IT from the e-HRM Global mailing list. The panelists participated in the research via electronic communication. The data were collected in three rounds from November 2010 to April 2011.

Research has revealed differences in the opinions of academics and HR professionals on the impact of social media on employer branding. The academics see its general effect as the targeting of audience for recruitment, marketing/company brand, and ways of communication/HR competencies. The practitioners see the image of the employer, visibility of the company, and organization responsiveness. The study presents other findings within the boundaries of employer branding value proposition, internal and external marketing, and the role of HR professionals. According to the academics, HR professionals in the future will need to possess knowledge about marketing and communication studies and web-based applications/develop new skills. They think that social media will impact the image of HR in organizations. On the other hand, HR professionals think that the future of their activities will depend on their awareness of recruitment trends, HR innovative thinking, and HR networking skills. Although the object of their activity will remain recruitment, HR professionals will have to be continuously updated on what is new in the social media in terms of recruitment.

This study presents the results of the Delphi technique, which is itself considered an original research method and not widely accepted in the tough “publish or perish” world. The value of the research is its forecast about the future developments of employer branding through social media, as envisioned by academics and HR practitioners.

This chapter examines the role of corporate image-making in the everyday life of organizations and its contribution to the mundane reproduction of discrimination. With British Airways as an example, it is argued that images found in corporate materials reflect the organization’s construction of “male” and “female,” “white” and “non-white,” in distinct ways. Further, these images have profound consequences for the ways in which employees visualize themselves, their colleagues and their subordinates. This chapter also shows how organizational images can restrict diversity by identifying certain organizational roles and positions with specific demographic characteristics. It is suggested that (a) these various images have sanctioned and encouraged certain types of “male”/female,” “white”/“nonwhite” behavior, and implicitly prohibited others and (b) these images can be linked to the exclusion of women and people of color from positions of power, authority, and prestige within the airline industry.

Companies in all industries are searching for new sources of competitive advantage since the competition in their marketplace is becoming increasingly intensive. The resource-based view of the firm explains the sources of sustainable competitive advantages. From a resource-based view perspective, relational based assets (i.e., the assets resulting from firm contacts in the marketplace) enable competitive advantage. The relational based assets examined in this work are brand image and corporate reputation, as components of brand equity, and customer value. This paper explores how they create value. Despite the relatively large amount of literature describing the benefits of firms in having strong brand equity and delivering customer value, no research validated the linkage of brand equity components, brand image, and corporate reputation, simultaneously in the customer value–customer loyalty chain. This work presents a model of testing these relationships in consumer goods, in a business-to-business context. The results demonstrate the differential roles of brand image and corporate reputation on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. Brand image influences the perception of quality of the products and the additional services, whereas corporate reputation actions beyond brand image, estimating the customer value and customer loyalty. The effects of corporate reputation are also validated on different samples. The results demonstrate the importance of managing brand equity facets, brand image, and corporate reputation since their differential impacts on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that companies should not limit to invest only in brand image. Maintaining and enhancing corporate reputation can have a stronger impact on customer value and customer loyalty, and can create differential competitive advantage.

This study aims to illustrate how retail chains with a green image align sustainable logistics actions, logistics measurements and contracts with logistics service providers (LSPs), and to develop a classification model that allows for a description of the various shades of green within companies.

We carried out a multiple case study of four retail chains with a green image operating in the Swedish market, collecting empirical data from the retail chains’ sustainability reports and home pages and conducting interviews with logistics, transportation and supply chain managers.

Based on the literature, we developed a classification model for judging green image, green logistics actions, green measurements and green contracts. The model is used to illustrate the different shades of green found within the respective retail chains. A green image seems well-aligned with green logistics actions. However, there are more levels to judge, and the measurement systems are not sufficiently developed to track green logistics actions. Contract handling is more developed among retail chains than measurements, which is positive, as this is a way of ensuring that LSPs are involved. In our classification model, greenwashing can be judged in a more nuanced way, delving deeper under the surface.

The provided classification model adds to our knowledge and illustrates the alignment within companies’ sustainable logistics. The robustness of the model can be strengthened by applying it to a larger number of cases and by continually validating its content and evaluation criteria.

The study’s main practical contribution is the classification model, which may potentially serve as a method for managers to easily judge the green alignment of a retail chain’s logistics.

Few empirical studies capture how retail chains measure environmental logistics performance, and even fewer concern contracts stipulating the environmental demands placed on LSPs.

The chapter proposes to investigate online reputation of hospitality brands and its measurements. Brand reputation is generally defined as an overall appraisal of a company by its stakeholders, which is the result of the company's past actions and predictions about the company's future (Ferguson, Deephouse, & Ferguson, 2000). Being viewed as the opinion shared among a group of stakeholders (Dowling, 2008), it plays an important role in the tourism industry. With the progress of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), reviews and user-generated contents of destinations and of hospitality companies together with the related emerging brand reputation can influence consumers' behaviors and choices. Brand reputation analysis could be more useful in the hospitality brand management when integrated with brand image and brand identity analysis, mainly because in tourism businesses and destinations, brands are typically affected by an inherent fragility determined by the service nature of products (Casarin, 1996). According to Biel (1991), the meanings that consumers assign to a brand are synthesized into brand associations formed by the components perceived to underlie the brand's image. As well as brand reputation, strong, positive and unique associations reinforce a brand and increase its equity that requires significant internal brand identity efforts, which should create a corresponding brand image through integration in overall marketing programmes (Keller, 2003). It makes sense to develop an analytical research approach that compares online brand reputation (OBR) with brand association matching as a measure of the alignment between brand identity and brand image in hospitality companies. This comparative analysis emerging from brand reputation, brand image and brand identity analysis can reveal divergent situations (i.e., high brand reputation and low brand association matching) and orient brand managers in reviewing online brand communication. Brand reputation and brand image analysis will be contextualized in an online community as a social setting that is considered to be a new type of market (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). We focus on hospitality online communities populated by consumers and other actors such as influencers and bloggers: their brand perception could be separately compared with brand identity that we will extract from company communications including presentational information and brand-related press releases found on websites, nonfinancial narrative from annual reports, and interviews with managers published in mainstream media sources. In our analysis we will focalize on a cluster of luxury hospitality companies integrating a netnographic and text-mining techniques. We will use both the techniques in order to (1) extract and study brand associations in terms of brand reputation, brand image, and brand identity; (2) develop indicators of brand reputation and brand association matching; and (3) discuss their utility in the management of the hospitality company brands.

The aims of this article are threefold. First of all, to show the concept of value to customers as a determiner of a company’s competitive advantage. Second, to explain the changing role of marketing activities toward social responsibility. Third, to assess the influence of social marketing activities on a company’s image and the resulting value to customers.

By drawing on existing corporate social responsibility (CSR) and marketing literature, the achievements and gaps of socially responsible marketing (SRM) can be demonstrated. In addition, the literature review focuses on showing the relationship between SRM and value to a customer. In order to achieve the purposes of the chapter, an analysis of market research based on secondary data as well as qualitative interviews has been conducted.

Marketing activities should accomplish both economic and social objectives as well as aim at delivering expected value to customers. Nowadays value comes not only from lower prices or a better product range. According to research, customers are becoming increasingly sensitive to evil and to social injustice, damage to the environment, as well as the increasing level of poverty. This makes companies develop new strategies for creating value for customers. These should come from socially responsible activities the company is undertaking. Thus, companies, which implement a concept of SRM, are more likely to count on increased interest and loyalty from their customers.

This chapter offers a fresh approach to the study of the evolution of marketing toward social responsibility and the impact on the value for customers.

This chapter explores different strategies implemented by three companies using professional (LinkedIn) and non-professional (Facebook) social networking websites (SNWs) as a recruitment tool and investigates the influence of their perceived usability and attractiveness on job seekers’ attraction and their intention to apply.

First, a laboratory experiment involving 171 MBA students compares the effectiveness of three different social recruitment strategies. Second, a survey among 110 job seekers focuses on the most effective strategy in terms of attraction as an employer and the influence of perceived usability and attractiveness of professional SNW pages on job seekers’ intention to pursue the job.

The laboratory experiment confirms the key role of LinkedIn as an e-recruitment practice. The survey shows that the overall company image, the usability of the LinkedIn page and the interaction between the attractiveness of the page and the overall company image positively influence job seekers’ intention to pursue the job.

The research offers insights on job seekers’ reactions to 2.0 Internet-based recruitment. Companies should focus on and invest in professional social medias, paying attention to the usability of their SNWs pages.

Recruitment is a strategic HRM practice to attract talents; however, research lags behind practice and little is known about job seekers’ perceptions and reactions to Internet recruitment. This chapter sheds light on the use of social media for recruitment and identifies two features that contribute to an effective e-recruitment strategy.