Original Article

Corporate branding literature: A research paradigm review

Received (in revised form): 13th May 2011

Anandan Pillai
is presently a research scholar (Marketing) at Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. His work experience has been primarily in management research domain in association with Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India and Icfai Research Centre, Ahmedabad, India. He has authored and co-authored many case studies which are registered at European Case Clearing House (ECCH). He has also presented two research papers at international conferences.

ABSTRACT This research article attempts to highlight the state of research paradigm applied to corporate branding (CB) literature. CB has been gaining increased importance in the marketing literature, as organizations consider it a vital strategy for various benets such as talent pool generation, building brand image in customers minds, combating competition, increasing stakeholder value and so on. The research paradigm review of CB literature was conducted with reference to the Meredith et al (1989) framework. It has been noticed that the interpretive paradigm has been predominant, whereas logical positivist/empiricist paradigm has received less attention from the academicians and researchers. The paradigmatic gaps have been identied, and future recommendations have been suggested to guide future studies.

Journal of Brand Management (2012) 19, 331343. doi:10.1057/bm.2011.43; published online 17 June 2011 Keywords: corporate branding; research paradigm; methodological review

INTRODUCTION
The importance of research paradigms in marketing research has always been an important state of inquiry in marketing literature (Deshpande, 1983; Hunt, 1990; Marsden and Littler, 1996). Hence, a research paradigm review has been attempted in this study on the corporate branding (CB) literature, which has gained importance for reasons such as growing importance of capital markets, tough competition for talent generation, increasing need to create synergy between brands, coordination and identity problems in multi-national corporations and growing demand for

Correspondence: Anandan Pillai Management Development Institute, FPM Ofce, Mehrauli Road, Sukhrali, Gurgaon 122 007, Haryana, India E-mail: anandan1982@gmail.com

transparency (Balmer, 1995; Einwiller and Will, 2002; Jensen and Beckmann, 2009). The Meredith et al (1989) framework has been applied to review the research paradigm. The research studies published were analyzed with reference to various criteria such as empirical versus non-empirical, type of research design, type of data collected, type of analysis technique used and so on. It has been found that very few studies in the CB literature are logical positivist/empiricist in nature, whereas a majority of them are interpretive in nature. In addition, it was noticed that the predominant research theme in the corporate

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literature was on CB strategy followed by stakeholder perspective and customer perspective. The relevant research gaps in research paradigm have been identied, and suggestions for future research have been made at the end of this study.

is the overall strategic objective, and CB could be considered as the continuous range of events that are planned to attain the strategic corporate brand objectives. The denition of CB has gone through many modications, and the widely cited ones are enlisted below:
Corporate branding consists of a holistic approach to brand management, in which all members of an organization behave in accordance with the desired brand identity. (Harris and De Chernatony, 2001, p. 442) A systematically planned and implemented process of creating and maintaining a favourable reputation of the company with its constituent elements, by sending signals to stakeholders using the corporate brand. (Van Riel, 2001, as cited in Einwiller and Will, 2002, p. 101) A systematically planned and implemented process of creating and maintaining a favourable image and consequently a favourable reputation for the company as a whole by sending signals to all stakeholders and by managing behaviour, communication, and symbolism. (Einwiller and Will, 2002, p. 101) Corporate branding is a manifestation of the features that distinguish an organization from its competitors. It is a reection of the organizations ability to satisfy consumers needs, namely: trust in the company to deliver a consistent level of product/ service, quality of the product/service at a reasonable price and the reduction of risk of making an unwise purchase decision. (Bick et al, 2003, p. 842)

CORPORATE BRANDING
As CB has gained a distinct position in the marketing literature, the study of this phenomenon has been considered to be complex and multidisciplinary, as it has been found to be intertwined with other concepts such as corporate image, corporate personality, corporate reputation and corporate identity (Balmer, 1998; Balmer, 2001a; Knox and Bickerton, 2003). The branding literature has emerged in three themes corporate brand, corporate branding and corporate brand management. The focus of this article is on corporate branding, but how the other two concepts are different from the corporate branding is discussed in the following paragraph before moving on to the topic of interest. Corporate brand has been considered as the sum of values that represents the organization (Ind, 1997; as cited in Burt and Sparks, 2002, pp. 195196) and consists of characteristics (Balmer, 2001b) cultural roots, commitment from the entire organization, intricate nature, need to be ethereal, including a host of soft and subjective dimensions. Corporate brand management has been referred to as a strategic decision that includes various aspects such as identity, culture, corporate communication, nature of business, environmental forces and structure/architecture (Balmer, 2001b). Further, the purpose of corporate brand management has been considered to establish a favorable disposition towards the organization by its various stakeholders and, as such, this is likely to lead to a propensity to buy the organizations products or services, to work or invest in the company, etc. (Balmer, 2001a, p. 30). Hence, corporate brand management

The primary objective of CB is to differentiate organizations in the minds of stakeholders (Olins, 1995, as cited in Balmer, 1998, p. 987) and to build favorable reputation among stakeholders. Balmer and Gray (2003) consider corporate brands to

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be a navigational tool (p. 972) for many stakeholders and they inuence customer buying behavior to a great extent (p. 973). Better corporate brand image has been found to result in those decisions that are often inuenced by top management (Grifn, 2002, p. 232), and they possess a close interrelationship with Vision, Employee values and Organizational culture (De Chernatony, 2002). The dominant themes that have been addressed in the literature are corporate branding strategy (Leitch and Richardson, 2003; Inskip, 2004; Xie and Boggs, 2006; Hankinson, 2007; Muzellec and Lambkin, 2009; Appel-Meulenbroek et al, 2010), stakeholder perspective (De Chernatony and Harris, 2000; Schultz and Kitchen, 2004; Hulberg, 2006; Fiedler and Kirchgeorg, 2007; Gregory, 2007; Roper and Davies, 2007; Aspara and Tikkanen, 2008a), M&A perspective (Daffey and Abratt, 2002; He and Balmer, 2006; Jaju et al, 2006; Balmer and Thomson, 2009), customer perspective (Merrilees and Fry, 2002; Schoenfelder and Harris, 2004; Gylling and Lindberg-Repo, 2006; Sichtmann, 2007), internal marketing perspective (Einwiller and Will, 2002; Papasolomou and Vrontis, 2006; Aspara and Tikkanen, 2008b), organizational culture perspective (Kowalczyk and Pawlish, 2002; De Chernatony and Cottam, 2008), return of investment perspective (Gregory, 2001) and corporate social responsibility perspective (Palazzo and Basu, 2007). The varied themes that have been addressed in the CB literature have motivated the attempt of a study that would understand and evaluate the trend of research paradigms (Meredith et al, 1989; Marsden and Littler, 1996) that have been followed in these studies. Hence, this article has attempted to understand the research paradigms in the CB literature. As of 2010, only 52 research studies were found to be published in peer-reviewed journals. Hence, all of these have been analyzed in this article, and the prominent research paradigms have been identied.

This article has been organized as follows rst, a section on the methodology of identifying and selecting research studies for this research paradigm review, followed by the results, discussion and suggestions for future recommendations.

METHODOLOGY
The 52 research studies (Table 1) included in the study were identied through a two-step process and subjected to analysis First, major research publication databases such as Ebsco, Emerald, JSTOR, ABI Inform and so on were used to locate the journals that were identied in the rst stage, and relevant research studies in the area of CB were selected. Second, the references provided in the research studies selected in the second stage were browsed through and relevant research studies were then once again searched and selected. The keyword used for search was corporate branding. First, a search was made for research papers that had the above keyword in their title or abstract. Second, the abstract was read and if found relevant to the topic was incorporated. Only the research papers that were published in peer-reviewed journals were considered. The research papers were then coded, in order to facilitate the data analysis process. Later on, each research paper was read in detail to understand the research question and methodology applied. On the basis of the research question mentioned in the research papers, they were classied into various themes. The various criteria used to analyze the methodology applied were coded, data entry was made in a Microsoft Excel worksheet and pivot tables were generated to analyze the data.

RESULTS
In the results section, initially the pattern of journals is reported, which show the

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Table 1: List of journals and no. of research papers Sr. no. 1 3 2 4 5 6 8 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Total Journal name Academy of Marketing Science Journal California Management Review Corporate Communications-An international journal Corporate Reputation Review European Journal of Marketing International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management Journal of Brand Management Journal of Business Ethics Journal of Communication Management Journal of General Management Journal of Marketing Management Journal of Product and Brand Management Marketing Intelligence and Planning Marketing Theory Qualitative Market Research The Marketing Review Journal of Corporate Real Estate Journal focus area Marketing Generic Communications Branding Marketing Retailing and supply chain Branding Generic Communications Generic Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing Generic Marketing Real Estate Publisher Sage University of California Emerald Palgrave Macmillan Emerald Emerald Palgrave Macmillan SpringerLink Emerald Braybrooke Press Westburn Publishers Emerald Emerald Sage Emerald Westburn Publishers Emerald Papers Region 1 2 3 14 8 1 10 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 52 US US UK UK UK UK UK US UK UK UK UK UK US UK UK UK

number of research studies that have been published in various journals and during the period 20002010. The majority of research papers identied for the analysis were published in UK-based journals and very few in US-based journals. It was surprising to note that journals from other geographies were not found to have published research papers on this domain. The research studies have been analyzed on various criteria such as empirical versus non-empirical, qualitative data versus quantitative data, hypothesis testing, research design, data analysis techniques and industry focus. Later on, the trend of research paradigms, which is the prime focus of this research paper, is analyzed using the Meredith et al (1989) framework.

Although the numbers favored empirical research studies, non-empirical studies (those of conceptual in nature) were also signicant in number. The maximum number of conceptual studies published in a particular year was four (that is, in 2002 and 2007), otherwise it was either 1 or 2.

Qualitative versus quantitative data

The 32 empirical-based research studies were analyzed further to understand the type of data that were used, and it was found that 21 studies (that is, 66 per cent) had used qualitative data, whereas the remaining 11 studies used quantitative data. This indicates the low level of focus on investigation of the theme with the help of quantitative data, which is a signicant gap for academicians to address upon. The proportion of qualitative to quantitative data-oriented studies remained the same for the studies that were published in the UK journals, that is, 19 studies of the total 29 studies. The combined trend of empirical versus non-empirical studies, and

Empirical versus non-empirical studies

The proportion of research studies that were empirical in nature was 60 per cent (of which 91 per cent were from the United Kingdom), whereas the remaining 40 per cent of the research studies were non-empirical in nature.

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Non-empirical

qualitative versus quantitative data-oriented studies, over the time period 20002010 is shown in Table 2. If the total time period is divided into two groups each consisting of the time period of 5 years, that is one from 2000 to 2004 and the other from 2005 to 2010, it could be noted that the trend of empirical studies has increased from the earlier group to that in the later period (that is, it has increased from 13 studies in the 20002004 period, to that of 19 studies in the 20052010 period). Consequently, the proportion of non-empirical studies has decreased from 11 studies in the period 20002004 to that of nine studies in the period 20052010. This indicated that academicians are gradually shifting their focus on empirical studies. Interestingly, of the total ve studies published in the US journals just one was published in the time period 20002004, whereas the remaining four (two empirical and two non-empirical) were published in the later years, that is from 2005 to 2009. This could lead to an interesting debate on non-participation of academicians in the United States in the domain of CB.

Conceptual

1 1 4 3 2 2 3 1 1 1 2 3 3 1 1 4 2 2 2 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 3 2 2 3 1 1 2 6 2 2 2 6 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 10 6 4 2 10 7 4 4 1 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Quantitative

UK

Qualitative

Conceptual

Quantitative

US

Qualitative

Empirical

Hypothesis testing
Table 2: Trend of nature of studies and type of data (Year wise)

UK

Empirical

On analyzing the 32 research studies that were based on empirical approach, it was noted that just ve studies had explicitly mentioned hypothesis and involved discussions on whether or not hypothesis were supported. The remaining 27 research studies did not mention any explicit hypothesis testing approach, although many had some implicit hypothesis.

Non-empirical

US

As shown in Table 3, case study approach was the predominant research design, as the area of research was nascent and researchers were trying to answer research questions that were more based on how (Yin, 1994). The research studies that followed case study research design were further analyzed

No. of papers

Research design

Year

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52

29

18

19

10

18

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Table 3: Type of research design Research design Case study Survey In-depth interviews Archival study Experimental Action research Total No. of papers 13 9 5 3 1 1 32

Table 4: Data analysis techniques Technique Content analysis SEM Regression Grounded theory Factor analysis Discriminant analysis MANOVA Descriptive statistics No. of papersa 10 5 3 2 1 1 1 1

and it was noted that eight research studies were single company case studies, two research studies were based on three company case studies and the remaining two were based on more than three companies case study. The second most prominent research design was survey based, wherein surveys were conducted among the customers, employees, shareholders and so on based on the research questions. The third most widely used research design was in-depth interviews, wherein interviews of top management employees and customers were conducted. Some of the other research designs used were experimental, action research and archival study.

a The column does not have total because the gures are not mutual exclusive, as a particular technique was used in combination of other technique in many research papers.

Table 5: Industry focusa Industry Airline Automobile Banking Educational Institution Financial services Furniture Healthcare Hearing aid manufacturer Hotels Information Technology Law rm Manufacturing Mix Mobile phone Pulp & paper Real estate Retailing Services Toys No. of papers 2 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 2 1 1 4 1 1

Data analysis techniques

As the majority of data collected in the research studies were qualitative in nature, content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004) was the most prominent data analysis technique used. The content analysis technique was used in 10 research studies. The second most prominent data analysis technique was Structural Equation Modeling (Byrnes, 2001), which was used in ve research studies. Some of the other data analysis techniques that were used are regression, factor analysis, discriminant analysis, MANOVA, correlation and semantic analysis (Table 4).

a The total would be 33, instead of 32, because in a study conducted by Jensen and Beckmann (2009), one company was from health-care industry, while the other was from manufacturing industry.

Industry focus
The 32 empirical studies were analyzed to understand the industry focus that was considered by the researchers, and Table 5

shows that seven studies were conducted across many industries. However, the studies focused on single industry were dominated by services sector, which included retailing, banking and airlines. In addition, some studies focused on niche industries such as paper and pulp, toys, hearing aid manufacturer, law rm, real estate and so on.

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Research paradigms
Meredith et al (1989) provided a comprehensive framework (Figure 1) to analyze the research paradigm that has been used in various disciplines such as operations management (Sachan and Datta, 2005), information systems (Yadav and Gupta, 2008). The framework is built around two axes Rational Existential and Natural Articial. The rationalism approach measures the truth with formal structure and logic, whereas the other end of the continuum, existentialism, tends to acquire knowledge by understanding the interaction of human beings with the surrounding environment. The four perspectives on the rationalismexistentialism continuum are axiomatic (where knowledge is assumed to exist a priori, and they are tested with theorems and using formal procedures), logical positivist/empiricist (where it is assumed that using laws and theories, a particular phenomenon could be studied independent of its context), interpretive (where context is given importance and is
NATURAL Direct Observation of Object Reality

considered to be an important part of the phenomenon and an attempt is made to understand the interactions of human being with the environment) and critical theory (is a combination of positivist and interpretivist approaches, where researchers tend to highlight the contradiction between the way people behave in practice and the way they understand themselves to be behaving). The research process at the rationalism extreme is oriented towards the deductive approach and involves structured methods and measurement of objectivity, whereas the existentialism extreme is oriented towards the inductive approach and involves subjectivity. The horizontal axis focuses on the source and method of data collection approaches. The natural end focuses on empirical studies, whereas the articial end focuses on subjectivism. As we move towards right on the continuum, the data collection methods gradually shift from structured objective methods such as eld experiments, case study, action research (direct observation of
ARTIFICIAL

RATIONAL

People s perceptions of Object Reality

Artificial Reconstruction of Object Reality Reason/Logic/Theorems, Normative Modeling Descriptive Modeling

Axiomatic

Logical Positivist/ Empiricist

Field Experiments Field Studies

Structured Interviewing Survey Research Historical Analysis

Prototyping Physical Modeling Simulation Laboratory Experiments

Interpretive

Action Research Case Studies

Expert Panels Delphi Intensive Interviewing Futures / Scenarios Conceptual Modeling Hermeneutics

Critical Theory EXISTENTIAL

Figure 1:

Introspective Reflection

A framework for research methods (Meredith et al, 1989).

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object reality), surveys, interview, introspective reection that focus on the perception of human beings (peoples perception of object reality), analytical models, computer simulations and so on, which focus on modeling aspects (articial reconstruction of object reality). The Meredith et al (1989) framework was applied to this article as shown in Figure 2. It could be noted that the majority

of the research studies were based on the Interpretive paradigm. The majority of studies (that is, 29 studies) in this paradigm were studied with the help of the conceptual modeling approach. Conceptual modeling has been dened by Meredith et al (1989) as a meta-analysis, in which a researcher draws the threads of existing research together to formulate a larger or more integrated perspective of

NATURAL

ARTIFICIAL

RATIONAL Axiomatic

Direct Observation of Object Reality

People s perceptions of Object Reality

Artificial Reconstruction of Object Reality

Field Experiments (1 study) Logical Positivist/ Empiricist - AMS: 1

Survey Research (9 studies) - CRR: 3 - EJM: 2 - JMM: 1 - JPBM: 1 - JBM: 1 - JCRE: 1 Intensive Interviewing (5 studies) CC: 1 CRR: 2 JPBM: 1 QMR: 1

Archival study (3 studies) - CRR: 1 - JBM: 1 - JCM: 1

Case Studies (13 studies) JBM : 4 CC: 2 CMR: 2 CRR: 1 JGM: 1 JPBM: 1 IJRDM: 1 EJM: 1

Conceptual Modeling (20 studies) CRR: 7 EJM: 4 JBM: 4 JBE: 1 JMM: 1 TMR: 1 MT: 1 MIP: 1

Interpretive

Action Research (1 studies) Critical Theory EXISTENTIAL

Figure 2: Application of Meredith framework for corporate branding literature.

EJM: 1

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a phenomenon (p. 316). The second most prominent methodology has been case study research (13 studies), where the objectives of study were like how aspirational brand image values were linked to CB strategies (Aspara and Tikkanen, 2008a), what were the cycles of CB (Schultz and Hatch, 2003), exploring the corporate brand strategy formed by merger of organizations (Daffey and Abratt, 2002), how successful were CB strategies in driving activities of internal stakeholders and the relationships with external stakeholders (Tarnovskaya et al, 2008) and so on. It was very interesting to nd that a unique methodology such as action research was also attempted1 by Knox and Bickerton (2003) with an objective to understand the processes of nurturing and managing a corporate brand. The second most prominent paradigm was logical positivist/empiricist in which survey research methodology was used in nine studies. The research studies that used survey research methodology had research objectives such as to identify the antecedents and consequences of the corporate brand image (Da Silva and Syed Alwi, 2006), to examine the interrelation among four CB dimensions (corporate name, image, reputation and loyalty) and their joint impact on the consumers product evaluation (Souiden et al, 2006), to investigate the external perception of organizational culture and CB (Kowalczyk and Pawlish, 2002), to examine the attitude of consumers to purchase products from e-retailers (Merrilees and Fry, 2002), to analyze the antecedents and consequences of trust in a corporate brand (Sichtmann, 2007) and so on.

internal decision-making perspective, internal marketing perspective, organization culture perspective, customer perspective, brand communications perspective and return on investment perspective (Table 6). Although the CB area is comparatively new to the academic world, it has been studied from multiple perspectives (as many as 14), but apart from CB and stakeholder perspectives the remaining areas have rarely been approached. The most prominent theme has been the corporate brand strategy (that is, 17 research studies) followed by stakeholder perspective (eight research studies). It was a surprise to notice that only six research studies were focused on customer perspective, whereas the major objective of organizations was to build a corporate brand in order to have an impact primarily on customers. The other probable research perspectives have been touched upon, and hence have expanded the coverage of the topic.

DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

This study would contribute to the CB literature in two major aspects. First, this research clearly conrms that the CB domain would need much empirical verication, as they have been meager in the recent past. Second, the research objectives have been sparsely given importance. The focus so far has been covering diverse objectives, whereas the need of the hour would be to assess them in much depth, which is very well reected by Table 6. This research article attempts to highlight the trend of research paradigm used by researchers in the CB literature. This study shows that the majority of CB studies were interpretive, whereas very few were logical positivist/empiricist in nature. Primarily, the CB literature has been mostly studied with the help of conceptual modeling; however, there is substantial scope to address the area with more empirical research. The industry focus of studies has

Major themes in CB literature

The major themes that have been so far addressed in the CB literature are CB strategy, stakeholder perspective, ethical perspective, merger and acquisitions perspective,

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Table 6: Research theme versus methodologya Empirical Case Study 1 (1) 4 (13, 38, 47, 48) 1 (31) 1 (33) 2 (20, 42) 9 5 3 1 1 (44) 1 (16) 1 (A-4) 1 (A-7) 1 (30) 1 1(A-3) 2 (A-2, A-10) 1 (A-8) 1 (32) Survey In-depth interview Archival study Experimental study Action research Non-Empirical Conceptual 3 5 1 17 1 6 1 1 1 1 4 2 1 8 20 52 Total

Research theme

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Brand communication CB through internal marketing Corporate brand performance Corporate branding strategy

CSR perspective Customer perspective Cycles of CB Driving forces of CB Employee perspective Innovation and creativity M&A Organization culture RoI Stakeholder perspective 13

3 (19, 41, A-9), 4 (11, 29, A-1, A-12) 1 (46) 1 (49) 3 (9, 14, 26) 1 (2)

2 (15, A-5) 2 (3, 22) 1 (25) 8 (8, 24, 35, 39, 50, A-6, A-11, A-13) 1 (40) 1 (23) 1 (A-14) 4 (17, 21, 27, 45)

Total

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Figures indicate number of research papers, gures in parentheses indicate serial number of reference section and appendix section.

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been very varied, with some studies been conducted on niche industries such as furniture, hearing aid manufacturer, law rm, pulp and paper, real estate and toys and so on. Hence, there is sufcient scope of studies to be conducted in a single industry with more number of rms in order to ascertain the dynamics of the CB in that particular industry. In addition, there was no study that compared the dynamics of CB strategy across industries, which would be a source of incremental learning. The studies have covered diverse themes (but just single paper was found in each of the theme) like corporate brand performance, CSR perspective, driving forces of CB perspective, RoI perspective, innovation and creativity perspective, employee perspective etc. Hence, empirical research methodologies such as survey research, intensive interviewing, eld experiments could be used to further study the above under-researched themes. Action research could be used to understand the organization culture perspective. The emergence of new media alternatives would also facilitate the CB process in future, which would be a promising area of research. Almost all of the research studies were based on crosssectional data; however, longitudinal studies could be attempted, because the corporate brand image would take sufcient time to get created and hence its deviation could be studied with respect to the various activities that rms take over a period of time.

the CB literature and help them in planning their future studies in the area.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I acknowledge the efforts of reviewers who reviewed my manuscript in detail and I am thankful to them for providing valuable suggestions that have helped in improving the quality of the research article. I am very thankful to joint editors of the journal for considering my research article for publication. I am also thankful to Ms Gemma dArcy Hughes for her untiring continuous support during the review process.

NOTE
1 Action research was conducted for three months, with 25 interventions in rst stage. In the second stage the study was conducted for 6 months and 50 interventions were made with the senior management teams of two organizations.

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CONCLUSION
The prime purpose of this research article was to understand the research paradigms that have been used in the CB literature. The analysis would satisfactorily create an awareness that interpretive paradigm has dominated the CB literature. However, there is a huge untapped potential in the logical positivist/empiricist paradigm. This would enable the academicians and research scholars to understand the current status of

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APPENDIX
List of research papers reviewed for this publication (not included in references)
1. Balmer, J.M.T., Stuart, H. and Greyser, S.A. (2009) Aligning identity and strategy: Corporate branding at British airways in the late 20th century. California Management Review 51(3): 623. 2. Burghausen, M. and Fan, Y. (2002) Corporate branding in the retail sector: A pilot study. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 7(2): 9299. 3. Forman, J. and Argenti, P.A. (2005) How corporate communication inuences strategy implementation, reputation and the corporate brand: An

exploratory qualitative study. Corporate Reputation Review 8(3): 245264. 4. Hatch, M.J. and Schultz, M. (2003) Bringing the corporation into corporate branding. European Journal of Marketing 37(7/8): 10411064. 5. Leitch, S. and Motion, J. (2007) Retooling the corporate brand: A Foucauldian perspective on normalisation and differentiation. Journal of Brand Management 15(1): 7180. 6. Morsing, M. and Kristensen, J. (2001) The question of coherency in corporate branding Over time and across stakeholders. Journal of Communication Management 6(1): 2440. 7. Muzellec, L. (2006) What is in a name change? Re-joycing corporate names to create corporate brands. Corporate Reputation Review 8(4): 305321. 8. Papasolomou, I. and Vrontis, D. (2006) Building corporate branding through internal marketing: The case of the UK retail bank industry. Journal of Product and Brand Management 15(1): 3747. 9. Rode, V. and Vallaster, C. (2005) Corporate branding for start-ups: The crucial role of entrepreneurs. Corporate Reputation Review 8(2): 121135. 10. Stuart, H. and Jones, C. (2004) Corporate branding in marketspace. Corporate Reputation Review 7(1): 8493. 11. Urde, M. (2003) Core value-based corporate brand building. European Journal of Marketing 37(7/8): 10171040. 12. Van Riel, C.B.M. (2002) Top of mind awareness of corporate brands among the Dutch public. Corporate Reputation Review 4(4): 362373. 13. Van Riel, C.B.M. and Van Bruggen, G.H. (2002) Incorporating business unit managers perspectives in corporate-branding strategy decision making. Corporate Reputation Review 5(2/3): 241251.

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