Taking Up the Challenge of Corporate Branding: An Integrative Framework

• Author: Christophe Lejeune,François Maon,Kenneth De Roeck
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12010
• Date: 01 September 2013

Taking Up the Challenge of Corporate

Branding: An Integrative Framework

Kenneth De Roeck1,*, François Maon2and Christophe Lejeune3

1Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

2IESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS), Lille, France

3ESTA School of Business and Engineering, Belfort, France

This study develops an integrative framework that refines and extends current understanding of corporate

branding by highlighting its underlying processes and thereby offering guidance to companies on developing their

corporate brand. The proposed integrative framework features a reassessment of the critical position of organi-

zational identity in corporate branding. It also explicitly highlights the central role of an organization’s construed

and intended images in the design and implementation of a credible and successful corporate brand proposition

that can foster stakeholders’ organizational identification with and support of the organization. To complement our

conceptual work and its theoretical propositions, we present an illustrative case study that contextualizes our

framework and examines corporate branding practices at the furniture retailer IKEA and the challenges it faces.

As a whole, this study helps unravel the key processes at play in corporate branding practices within a more

manageable framework.

Keywords: corporate branding; organizational identity; reputation; construed image; intended image; IKEA

Introduction

The notion of corporate branding has gained prominence

in becoming one of ‘today’s most fashionable manage-

ment fashions’ (Morsing, 2006: 97). Unlike traditional

product branding, which appeals to customers, corporate

branding consists of a combination of elements (i.e.,

names, terms, signs, symbols, and other elements) trans-

mitted to multiple audiences, such as customers,

employees, investors, media and non-governmental

organizations (NGOs; Balmer, 2011; Vallaster et al.,

2012). Specifically, corporate branding practices aim to

express organizational norms and values in a way that

attracts stakeholders and makes them feel a sense of

belongingness with it (Balmer, 2001; Hatch and Schultz,

2003).

Many of the corporate branding models proposed in

extant literature refer to a specific context, which

restrains their generalizability and implications (e.g.,

Merrilees and Fry, 2002; Yu Xie and Boggs, 2006). In an

effort to surpass this limitation, Hatch and Schultz’s

(2003, 2008) comprehensive model rooted in strategic

management and marketing literature highlights that

corporate branding success (i.e., stakeholders support)

depends on the coherent alignment among an organiza-

tion’s strategic vision, culture and corporate image. The

strategic vision is the central idea behind the company or

what ‘embodies and expresses top management’s aspi-

rations for what the organization will achieve in the

future’ (Hatch and Schultz, 2003: 1047). Organizational

culture corresponds to ‘the internal values, beliefs and

basic assumptions that embody the heritage of the

organization and communicate its meanings to its

members’ (Hatch and Schultz, 2003: 1047–1048).

Finally, corporate image, or reputation,1refers to ‘the

views of the organization developed by its stakeholders,

the outside world’s impression of the company’ (Hatch

and Schultz, 2003: 1048).

So far, Hatch and Schultz’s (2003) constructive

delineation of corporate branding constitutes perhaps

one of the most powerful and widely cited models in the

literature (see Muzellec and Lambkin, 2006; Ballantyne

Correspondence: Christophe Lejeune, ESTA School of Business and

Engineering, Strategy and organization, Belfort, France. E-mail:

lejeune.ch@gmail.com

*Kenneth De Roeck is also affiliated with IÉSEG School of Manage-

ment (LEM-CNRS), Paris, France. [Correction added on 28 August

2013, after first online publication: Kenneth De Roeck’s affiliation has

been updated.]

1We view the ‘corporate image’concept that Hatch and Schultz

(2003: 1048) identify as similar to the ‘reputation’ concept

that Brown et al. (2006: 101) define as ‘mental associations

about the organization actually held by others outside the organi-

zation.’We therefore use the term ‘reputation’ to designate this

phenomenon.

European Management Review, Vol. 10, 137–151 (2013)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12010

© 2013 European Academy of Management