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European Journal of Marketing,
Vol. 35 No. 3/4, 2001, pp. 292-315.
# MCB University Press, 0309-0566
Revised August 1999
Corporate identity and
corporate image revisited
A semiotic perspective
Lars Thger Christensen
Dearlmenl c/ lnleru/lura/ Ccmmun/al/cn and Managemenl,
The Ccenhagen 8us/ness 5hcc/, Denmar/, and
Sren Askegaard
Dearlmenl c/ Mar/el/ng, Odense ln/ters/lv, Odense, Denmar/
Keywords Ccrcrale /denl/lv, Ccrcrale /mage, Ccrcrale cmmun/al/cns,
Mar/el/ng researh
Abstract Asserls lhal lhe mar/el/ng d/s///ne has /een u/le /nslrumenla/ /n seur/ng and
ma/nla/n/ng /clh ral/a/ and lhecrel/a/ allenl/cn lc lhe /ssues c/ /denl/lv and /mage /n
cnlemcrarv crgan/sal/cns D/susses and r/l/ues muh c/ lhe d/scurse c/ crcrale /denl/lv
and /mage managemenl Th/s /s acm//shed lhrcugh a sem/cl/ exer/se /n uh/h reta///ng
ersel/tes and assuml/cns u/lh resel lc crcrale /denl/lv and /mage are ex/a/ned,
ana/vsed and su//eled lc a cherenl /nlerrel/te /rameucr/ Ralher lhan lrv/ng lc /eg/s/ale
lerm/nc/cgv cr suggesl cnelua/ ars/mcnv, ue use lhe sem/cl/ /rameucr/ as cne uav lc
///uslrale lhe /ene//ls c/ lhecrel/a/ cns/slenv and lc sl/mu/ale se//re//el/cn amcng shc/ars
uhc use lhe ncl/cns c/ /denl/lv and /mage
At the turn of the twenty-first century, the notions of image and identity are
receiving growing scholarly and managerial attention. While contemporary
social critics have pointed out that we live in a society saturated with images
(e.g. Baudrillard, 1981; Ewen, 1988), scholars within marketing and
organisation are arguing that the quest for visibility and credibility in a
cluttered and sometimes hostile environment has made the questions of
identity and image salient issues for organisations in most sectors of society
(e.g. Christensen and Cheney, 1994; Cheney and Christensen, 1999). As a
consequence, the pressure on contemporary organisations to focus attention on
the symbolic dimensions of their activities has been, and still is, on the rise.
In a seminal article, written more than 20 years ago, Kennedy (1977, p. 130)
quoted a Philips company report for saying:
In this age of technology and competition, the buying public is being increasingly faced with
a wide choice of similar designs and features within each price range for all kinds of products.
It is clear that when there are no obvious differences in price, quality, design and features, the
purchase decision may increasingly be influenced by a positive reputation of the brand and of
the manufacturer.
Today, with still more competing brands, intensified communication and the
advent of new information technology, this observation and its implied
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The authors thank George Cheney, The University of Montana, James Fitchett, University of
Exeter, and anonymous reviewers at Eurcean }curna/ c/ Mar/el/ng for useful comments on
earlier versions of this paper.
Corporate
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challenge is more topical than ever not the least for the marketing discipline.
And indeed, the discipline has in many respects been able to meet the
challenge. Knowing that a strong identity has a number of potential benefits for
an organisation e.g. adding value to increasingly similar products, generating
consumer confidence and loyalty, stimulating investments, attracting high-
quality personnel, and breeding employee motivation (e.g. Balmer, 1995;
Fombrun and Shanley, 1990; Olins, 1989; van Riel, 1995; van Riel and Balmer,
1997) marketing scholars and practitioners have consistently sought to keep
the issue of identity on the agenda of senior managers and to integrate concerns
about external environments in the planning and execution of corporate
identity programs. Moreover, with the growing media attention and increasing
critique of private business corporations by various interest groups, marketing
has along with related disciplines begun to consider the value of a positive
corporate image or estimation in the public (e.g. Dowling, 1993; Kennedy, 1977;
van Riel, 1995; see also Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Fombrun, 1996; Gray, 1986).
The marketing discipline has, in other words, been quite instrumental in
securing and maintaining both practical and theoretical attention to the issues
of identity and image in contemporary organisations.
But what is an image? Or an identity? And how are those terms interrelated?
And, in what sense can we conceive of products and organisations as having
images and identities? These questions often tax us as scholars or practitioners
of marketing and corporate communications, both when we conceptualise new
trends in the communication environment and when we seek to convey our
ideas and experiences to our students or to our customers. Interestingly, the
growing attention to identity and image has not resulted in more precision in
the usage of these notions. In spite of a number of important attempts to clarify
the definitions of identity and image (e.g. Abratt, 1989; Dowling, 1988; the 1997
special issue of Eurcean }curna/ c/ Mar/el/ng[1]), there is still a general lack of
consistency when these terms are adopted to theoretical models or applied in
practice. How, for example, do we conceptualise the differences between
various images of an organisation without maintaining rigid and problematic
distinctions between its internal and external audiences? And how do we
conceive of organisational identity without assuming that some
representations of the organisation are more intrinsically true than others?
These and similar questions call for greater theoretical consistency, both when
we model the interplay between organisational identity and image and when
we apply our definitions of these notions to real-life situations.
As we move into the realm of organisational identity and organisational
image, we move into a world of carefully designed and attuned signifiers in
other words, a world intentionally constructed to elicit quite specific responses
and reactions. Identities and images, however, are volatile social constructions
that, although seemingly ``objective'', base their existence and significance
largely on the interpretive capabilities and preferences of their audiences. Thus,
in order to understand the complex interplay between identities and images, we
need to balance the prescriptive and predominantly sender-oriented
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approaches of most managerial writings with a more consistently interpretive
perspective.
The aim of this paper is to discuss and critique much of the discourse of
corporate identity and image management. This is accomplished through a
semiotic exercise in which prevailing perspectives and assumptions with
respect to corporate identity and image are explained, analysed and subjected
to a coherent interpretive framework. Rather than trying to legislate
terminology or suggest conceptual parsimony, we use the semiotic framework
as one way to illustrate the benefits of theoretical consistency and to stimulate
self-reflection among scholars who use the notions of identity and image. More
specifically, the paper addresses:
.
the problematic tendency in most writings to distinguish sharply
between internal and external audiences;
.
the assumption that organisations can be falsely represented and have a
``true'' or immutable self; and
.
the notion that the task of the identity manager is to uncover the true
``character'' or ``personality'' of the organisation behind its various
appearances.
By applying a semiotic perspective to the notions of corporate identity and
corporate image, the paper suggests that these notions can be described as
social-historical simulations of organisational realities simulations whose
quality cannot be simply judged on the basis of their ``fit'' with reality but must
be understood on the basis of their rhetorical power t/sa t/s its various
audiences.
Common-sense and non-sense perspectives on corporate image and
identity
It is often pointed out that the concepts of corporate identity and corporate
image are ambiguous and need clarification. And that this problem is related to
the fact that much literature dealing with these notions is written at a
superficial theoretical level by consultants within the field of design or
communication management. Indeed, our notions of corporate image and
identity are often based on common sense understandings of communication
and reality. While the interest in identities and images has become a general
concern among managers in many business firms, these terms have entered our
everyday vocabulary with which we as citizens, consumers, members of
organisations, and as even scholars seek to describe and understand our
experiences with a growing number of commercial signs of differing quality
and persuasiveness. Although such understandings are unavoidable and
essential in social life, we believe that scholars of marketing and corporate
communications should be sensitive to the potential non-sense of such
everyday vocabularies. Unfortunately, however, common-sense and non-sense
notions of identity and image are often reproduced in the scholarly literature.
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As already mentioned, the most salient and problematic common-sense
perspectives on corporate image and identity concern:
.
the sharp distinction between internal and external audiences; and
.
the simplistic, binary notion of ``false'' or ``true'' representations.
Whereas the former tends to ignore the complex nature of organisational
audiences, the latter implies that organisations have a true essence or character
that can be expressed more or less accurately in their market-related
communication. These perspectives and their problematic assumptions will be
discussed at length below. Moreover, in order to link our discussion of these
sender perspectives with the theories of the assumed receiver typically the
consumer we will comment on the problematic ways in which the notion of
image is used within the general field of consumer behaviour theory.
The /nlerna/exlerna/ d/sl/nl/cn
Although the literature abounds with different definitions of corporate identity
and corporate image, a first, brief look at these definitions suggests some
overall commonalties. On the one hand, we find some convergence around the
idea that corporate identity is a set of symbolic representations including
graphic designs and, sometimes, organisational behaviour (e.g. Abratt, 1989;
Balmer, 1995; Olins, 1989; van Riel and Balmer, 1997). Corporate identity, thus,
becomes an assembly of cues, as Abratt (1989, p. 68) puts it:
F F F by which an audience can recognise the company and distinguish it from others and
which can be used to represent or symbolise the company.
On the other hand, we find corporate image typically conceptualised as the
total impression an organisation makes on its various audiences (Bernstein,
1992; Dichter, 1985; Gray, 1986; Kennedy, 1977). Corporate image, in other
words, describes the reception of an organisation in its surroundings.
While some authors, as we shall discuss later, associate corporate identity
with something deeper than symbolic representations (e.g. Dukerich and
Carter, 1998; Downey, 1986/1987), the notion of corporate identity is generally
seen as belonging to the sender side of the communication process. Conversely,
and allowing for Dowling's (1988) important point that a company serves
multiple publics and thus has multiple images, corporate image is most
commonly related to the receiver side of the communication process. This
distinction between identity and image is expressed most explicitly by
Margulies (1977, p. 66):
Identity means the sum of all the ways a company chooses to identify itself to all its publics
the community, customers, employees, the press, present and potential stockholders, security
analysts, and investment bankers. Image, on the other hand, is the perception of the company
by these publics.
For Margulies, organisational identity is the sum of symbols and artefacts
designed and managed in order to communicate the ideal self-perception of the
organisation to its external publics. Identity, thus, becomes as an integral
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aspect of an organisation's market communication function writ large. The
organisational image, on the other hand, refers to the reception of these
communication efforts by the external world or, more specifically, to the
general impression of the organisation held in common by a relevant group in
the organisation's external surroundings. Although an organisation, as
Margulies seems to suggest, can influence its image indirectly by managing its
corporate identity, identity and image are typically seen as opposite ends of the
communication process. While identity is something which is organised and
sent from an organisation to its external world, an image is something which
emerges beyond the organisation's formal boundaries and, eventually, is ``sent''
back to the organisation via external analyses (see also Dichter, 1985; Olins,
1989; Selame and Selame, 1988).
This perspective is still reproduced in recent models that depict the interplay
between corporate identity and corporate image. Balmer (1995), for example
while defining corporate image in broad terms that allow for some overlap
between different audiences reproduce a rigid distinction between internal
and external in his model of the corporate identity/corporate image interface.
Even writings that claim to question and problematise traditional
organisational boundaries are confused by this dichotomy. In their discussion
of the relations between organisational culture, identity and image, Hatch and
Schultz (1997), for example, stress that traditional boundaries between internal
and external aspects of an organisation's functioning are breaking down due to
networking, customer integration and new production arrangements. Still,
these authors implicitly retain the concept of such boundaries by defining on
the one hand organisational identity as ``what members perceive, feel and think
about their organisations'' (p. 357) and, on the other hand, organisational image
as ``a holistic and vivid impression held by an individual or a particular group
towards an organisation'' (p. 359). From Hatch and Schultz's discussion it
appears that the individuals or groups that hold such images are external to the
organisation.
Other scholars link organisational image and identity strictly to internal
perspectives and interpretations. Dutton and Dukerich (1991), for example,
suggest that while identity is what members believe to be the central, enduring
and distinctive character of their organisation, image is the way the
organisational members believe that others see their organisation (see also
Dukerich and Carter, 1998; Dutton el a/., 1994; Whetten el a/., 1992). Although
such definitions are interesting because they urge us to focus on the belief
structures and interpretations of the organisation, they fail to take into
consideration the way the organisation is represented symbolically and how
this representation is received by its various audiences across the
organisation's formal boundaries.
Some models circumvent these problems by, for example, linking internal
communication structures with external images (Kennedy, 1977), adding
``internal'' to the list of organisational publics (Abratt, 1989), distinguishing
between images amongst employees and images outside the company
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(Dowling, 1993), or by conceptualising several interfaces between identity and
image (Balmer, 1988). Although some of these models are focused primarily on
the planned elements of corporate identity (e.g. Abratt, 1989; Dowling, 1993),
they all suggest in different ways a move beyond traditional conceptualisations
of the organisational audience.
Today, the dividing lines between senders and receivers are becoming
blurred and, consequently, a clear distinction between the inside and the
outside of the organisation is increasingly problematic to uphold. This is so not
only because organisational members interact with ``outsiders'', are members of
external groups and encounter organisational symbols in their lives outside
their workplace (Hatch and Schultz, 1997). Organisations are characterised by
``partial inclusion'' (Weick, 1979) and their members have always, no matter
how much they identify with their workplace, been members of other audiences
as well. Such multiple memberships imply that the organisation's own
members potentially belong to groups that form impressions of the
organisation, a fact that has been explicitly recognised in the consolidation of
corporate communications functions in a number of industries (Cheney and
Christensen, 1999).
This point, however, needs to be elaborated and related to fact that most
people today only have the time and capacity to relate to a small fraction of the
symbols and messages produced by contemporary organisations. In a cluttered
communication environment, saturated with symbols asserting distinctness
and identity, many organisations have come to realise that perhaps the most
involved receivers of their communication are their own members. As
Christensen (1997) has illustrated, much market-related communication of
today can be characterised as auto-communication, that is, communication
through which the organisation confirms and reinforces its own symbols,
values and assumptions, in short: its own culture (see also Broms and
Gahmberg, 1983; Lotman, 1991). Without ruling out the possibility that market
communication also affects other audiences, the auto-communication
perspective points out that organisational symbols and messages often serve as
important vehicles of identification, motivation and loyalty (cf. Gilly and
Wolfinbarger, 1998). In a society characterised by an absence of traditional
forms of community (e.g. Nisbet, 1970; see also Mongin, 1982), organisations, as
Burke (1973) points out, are important sources of identification and their
symbols have become important signifiers of belongingness (see also Cheney,
1981, 1983, 1991; Cheney and Christensen, 1999; Olins, 1989). To locate the
perceptions and impressions that we call organisational images primarily in
the minds of external audiences is, in other words, to miss the point that the
most central receivers of organisational symbols may in fact be the members of
the sending organisation.
Conversely and of equal importance, many organisations have come to
realise that organisational practices which traditionally have been thought of
as strictly internal for example, the structure of work processes, the use of
resources, the disposal of waste and the practice of leadership are now
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becoming central themes in the public discourse and thus part of the
communication that the organisation, sometimes unwillingly, carries on with
its surroundings. When consumers start boycotting organisations that function
according to principles considered unethical in the general public and when
employees begin choosing their workplace on the basis of its reputation in
society, traditional distinctions between internal and external with respect to
identity and image break down (Cheney and Christensen, 1999).
The challenge, then, is to conceive of organisational identity as symbolic
representations of organisations that appeal to many different audiences across
formal boundaries and of organisational image as a composite interpretation
(or set of interpretations) of these representationsan interpretation composed
of perceptions and impressions among both members and non-members of the
organisation (cf. Gray, 1986). Before we elaborate on the semiotic and practical
implications of these conceptualisations, we will discuss the implications of
another common-sense perspective on corporate image and identity.
The ncl/cn c/ lhe /a/se reresenlal/cn
In addition to the problematic distinctions between senders and receivers or
internal and external, most writers on corporate identity and corporate image
seem preoccupied with the idea that identities and images can be, and often are,
wholly false representations of an organisation (e.g. Alvesson, 1990; Berg and
Gagliardi, 1985; Olins, 1979, 1989). In an often-cited article, Alvesson (1990), for
example, uses this idea to argue that images belong to the sphere of superficial
human experiences, that images are developed in the absence of interaction
with and ``good'' knowledge of an object, and that frequent and ``deep''
interaction with an object would make images untenable or obsolete. Although
he cites Langer's (1957) rather complex definition of image as:
F F F the subjective record of sense-experience [which] is not a direct copy of actual experience,
but has been ``projected'', in the process of copying, into a new dimension, the more or less
stable form we call a picture'' (Langer, 1957, p. 144).
his discussion of organisational images radically reduces this complexity by
suggesting that such pictures are false, simplistic representations of the true or
more deep reality behind. In a similar manner, Berg and Gagliardi (1985) argue
that since symbolic representations of organisations are only partial reflections
of the organisation and often rarely match the organisational reality behind,
they are false representations that constitute, in the words of Daniel Boorstin,
``pseudo-realities'' in contemporary society. Even among writers who
acknowledge the fact that the symbolic representations of organisations and
the images they produce are powerful realities in themselves (e.g. Bernstein,
1992), we find the notion of an organisational reality that is misrepresented in
corporate communication (see also Ashforth and Mael, 1996).
Such an understanding seems to correspond well with our day-to-day
experiences with organizations of various sorts: organizations often seem to
assert qualities of themselves or their products that contradict our personal
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encounters with the organizations or products in question. Moreover, the idea
that reality is distorted in advertising and other forms of commercial
communication is widespread not only among academics (e.g. Pollay, 1986) but
also in the general culture. In short, the world is often not what it claims to be.
While such experiences and observations are, no matter how trivial they may
appear, in a certain sense ``real'' and thus very important to acknowledge and to
study (Weber, 1968/1978; see also Berger and Luckmann, 1967) a point we
shall return to later in this paper the researcher and practitioner need to be
careful not confuse his or her conceptual constructs with such common-sense
understandings of what reality is. A golden ring is not love just as a map is not
a landscape. This, however, does not make a golden ring or a map ``pseudo-
realities'' or false representations as a general category. Just as we are
``condemned to meaning'' and cannot, as Merleau-Ponty (1989, p. xix) points
out, ``do or say anything without its acquiring a name in history'', we cannot
escape representations and are bound to deal with them as, in many situations,
our principal reality. In fact, Weber's (1968/1978) interpretive sociology
recognized this principle long ago by asserting that individuals' image of
organizations were real to the degree that they were adhered to and had
pragmatic effects.
The frequent resort to common sense understandings, however, and the
general lack of theoretical consistency in writings on corporate identity and
corporate image, has fostered a great deal of definitional confusion and given
rise to a number of problematic assumptions about what communication is and
what communication managers can do. First, in order to uphold the idea that an
organisation can be misrepresented symbolically, writers on corporate identity
and corporate image have introduced a number of quasi-positivist notions that
signify something ``deeper'' or more fundamental to the organisation. Among
such notions we find ``personality'', ``innate character'', ``actual identity'', ``basic
traits'', ``core'', etc. all with respect to organisation (see e.g. Alvesson, 1990;
Baker and Balmer, 1997; Balmer, 1995; Balmer and Soenen, 1999; Berg and
Gagliardi, 1985; Bernstein, 1992; Day, 1980; Markwich and Fill, 1997; Olins,
1989; van Rekom, 1997; van Riel and Balmer, 1997). Indeed, the appeal of such
metaphors is underwritten by both our persistent desire to ``personalise''
organisations and by Western law which grants corporations, quite
paradoxically, the status of individual persons (see the discussion in Cheney,
1991). Moreover, such constructs are probably inevitable in lay discourse
because they capture our need to make distinctions between what is seen as
better or worse representations. Their proliferation in scholarly writings,
however, is highly problematic because it indicates that writers within the field
have difficulties explaining our experiences and interaction with corporate
communication using a rigorous theoretical language. In addition, these
ontologically questionable concepts of organisational identity testify to the fact
that identity and image management has become a fast-growing industry in
which the justification of new image and identity programs relies on the ability
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to claim a better understanding of the organisation as it ``really is'' and to ``sell''
some symbolic constructions as being more true representations than others.
Second, to assume that an organisation can be wholly misrepresented
suggests, strictly speaking, that some representations are more intrinsically
true than others, that some symbols have a more direct or natural relation to
the organisation, and that the challenge to the communication manager is to
uncover the true essence of the organisation and its naturally concomitant
symbolic expressions. Again, such assumptions rest on our propensity as
human beings to make binary truth/falsity distinctions and use them to
dismiss certain entire domains of symbolic activity as ``unreal.'' In their
otherwise interesting attempt to take a Bourdieu-inspired approach to
corporate identity, Moingeon and Ramanantsoa (1997), for example, reproduce
this assumption by taking recourse to a deeper layer of non-symbolic
``organisational imagery'' when explaining the intrinsic character of
organisational identity. However, while some particular organisational
imagery may be untrue in certain specified ways, it should not be casually
dismissed as unreal (Weber, 1978). As scholars and practitioners of corporate
image and identity we cannot allow ourselves to be embraced by the discourse
of such common-sense assumptions. Rather, we need to point out that since we
only make sense of the world through interpretation (Peirce, 1985), the
communication manager cannot hope to find any natural or intrinsically true
representations of the organisation. Even if we imagined for a moment that an
organisation had a true character or personality, how would we as
communication scholars or managers relate to or talk about this dimension of
the organisation? Through the use of symbols and representations, of course.
While this point may seem evident in theory, we observe in the more
practical applications of the notions of image and identity great difficulties
among most writers in applying, and taking the full consequences of, such an
interpretive approach. Initially, of course, such an approach needs to realise
along with Baudrillard (1981, p. 155) citing Lefebvre that ``the referent [here: the
`true essence of the organisation'] is not truly reality F F F it is the image we make
of reality'' (see also Neiva, 1999). Although such images of reality, as we shall
see later, are very real for the social actor and thus important to study and
understand (Berger and Kellner, 1981), it is helpful, theoretically as well as
practically, to think of them as images, that is, as interpretations of reality.
Within such a perspective it becomes possible to acknowledge that the
dimension which is referred to as the personality, the character, or the true
essence of an organisation is not as a deeper and more genuine reality than the
symbolic representations referred to as organisational identity but a symbolic
construction itself a construction whose existence we, as Lefebvre puts it (in
Baudrillard, 1981, p. 155), cannot test or control but only allude to through the
use of alternative and competing signs.
Thus, the challenge at this point is to think of our references to the true
organisational reality as symbolic constructions and to accept that we can only
question such constructions through the use of competing signs. The primary
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advantage of such an approach is that is helps us see our references and their
representations not as sacred and immutable objects, but as historical
constructions and desired points of reference that can be changed, if not at will
then at least through argument and elaboration. Before addressing and
illustrating these points in more detail, we will take a brief look at how the
notion of image is understood within the field of consumer research.
The reresenlal/cn c/ /mage`` /n cnsumer researh
Since the consumer is often seen as the primary receiver/interpreter of
corporate communications, one might expect the field of consumer research to
be able to provide some reflections about organisational identities and images.
However, while phenomena related to the consumer's creation and use of brand
images, product images, and company images are discussed quite often within
consumer research, this is typically done through the use of other concepts,
reserving discussions about brand personality, brand image and the like for
more managerial discourses. For instance, in the consumer behaviour
literature, the image of brands or products is often concealed behind such
comforting, rational notions as perceived quality (Zeithaml, 1988), product
attributions (Folkes, 1988) or brand judgements (Pan and Lehmann, 1993).
Common to these approaches is their rather clear distinction between the
perceived and the objective qualities of the product or brand in question.
A similar problem is found in the work of Noth (1988), who distinguishes
between and among three perspectives of a commodity: functional, commercial,
and symbolic perspectives representing respectively the use-value, the
exchange value, and the sign value. While Noth stresses that this distinction is
not one of product classes but one of perspectives, he still maintains a
problematic separation between ``utilitarian facts'' and ``signs'' where the former
is related to something he calls ``non-semiotic utilitarian features of a
commodity''.
However, because a symbol always has a function and a function,
conversely, always is a symbolic expression of a certain set of cultural values, it
is impossible, semiotically speaking, to tell a functional from a symbolic
perspective. Indeed, functionality itself is one of the most important symbols
within modern Western culture (Askegaard and Firat, 1997; see also
Castoriadis, 1987). As Castoriadis (1987, p. 117) writes:
Everything that is presented to us in the social-historical world is inextricably linked to the
symbolic. Not that it is limited to this. Real acts, whether individual or collective ones work,
consumption, war, love, child-bearing the innumerable material products without which no
society could live even an instant, are not (not always, not directly) symbols. All of these,
however, would be impossible outside of a symbolic network.
A central theme in Castoriadis' writings is his insistence that, although the
world cannot be constructed at will, there is a creative, imaginary dimension in
all human reality, including its functional or utilitarian aspects. And this
imagination is not a simple function of the physical world.
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The image concept has primarily received attention within the predominant
paradigm of information processing theory. In the last two decades, however, it
has become increasingly clear to scholars of consumer behaviour that the
notion of a highly involved problem-solving consumer, as described by this
paradigm, rarely matches the common state of mind in most consumer
decision-making processes. This change in perspective has been attributed to
both theoretical advance and increasingly complex market conditions (Poiesz,
1989). In his overview article, Poiesz argues that the image concept as
employed in traditional consumer behaviour theory tends to overlap with other
concepts such as means-end chains and attitudes on the higher levels of
psychological elaboration. Instead, he suggests that the image concept is
reserved for the low end of the elaboration-likelihood continuum. According to
Poiesz, images serve the following three functions in the psychological
processes of the consumer:
(1) as a complexity-reduction device in the information processing process;
(2) as a choice heuristic in low-involvement decision making; and
(3) as a gatekeeper that prevents further psychological elaboration in the
event of an immediate negative image.
Thus, while there are no explicit distinctions between true and false
representations in Poiesz' approach to the image concept, he does share with
Alvesson (1990) the notion of image as a more superficial form of knowledge, a
``knowledge'' made obsolete and replaced by other types of knowledge through
further experience and psychological elaboration. Moreover, behind Poiesz'
discussion of the functions of the image concept lies a tacit assumption of
consistency in the image formation, since such consistency is a prerequisite for
the reduced complexity and the choice heuristic. It is, however, very unclear
what such a consistency in our mental images should be based on.
Only in Scott's work (e.g. 1994) do we find an explicit critique of the use of
image concept within consumer research. Scott seeks to demonstrate how
consumer research:
F F F reflects a bias in Western thinking about pictures that is thousands of years old: the
assumption that pictures simply reflect objects in the real world.
While Scott's research specifically addresses images in the context of
advertising, her discussion is of general relevance because she critiques the fact
that the image concept has been theoretically reduced to cover either a mere
visual and affective (as opposed to a verbal and cognitive) aspect of human
psychology or, within an information processing approach, as a sensory
analogue to real existing phenomena (Scott, 1994, pp. 256-7). Conceptualising
images merely as sensory analogues is highly problematic because it restricts
the use of images to what from a semiotic perspective would be termed
``motivated signs'', that is, signs with a more ``natural'' or causal relation to the
object they represent (see below).
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With the exception of Scott's work, we can conclude that within the field of
consumer research, image is typically linked to memory or to representations of
visual phenomena and not to imagination. Even attempts from interpretive
perspectives to construct a so-called ``language of consumer goods'' have a
tendency to preserve problematic distinctions between reality and its
representations. The challenge to overcome this limitation is to take a point of
departure in the recent observation made by Askegaard and Ger (1998) that an
image is first and foremost a narrative and to elaborate this point within a
rigorous interpretive framework. Below, such a framework based on the
semiotics of Charles S. Peirce will be presented and related to our discussion of
identity and image.
Peircian semiotics applied to corporate communications
The s/gn//v/ng rcess
In his semiotic writings from the late nineteenth century, Peirce described the
signifying process, or semiosis, as a dynamic relation between three elements: a
sign, an object and an interpretant. Peirce (1985, p. 5) describes the relation this
way:
A sign, or reresenlamen, is something, which stands to somebody for something in some
respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an
equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the
/nlerrelanl of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its c//el. It stands for that
object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the
grcund of the representamen.
The sign can, in principle, be anything a gesture, a logo, an advertisement, a
slogan, a product, a package, a narrative, a written text, a set of behaviours, or
even an entire persuasive campaign. The object, which the sign stands for, is
sometimes also called the referent an equivalent to the notion of the world as
it ``is'' in itself in the present context, for example, the so-called personality of
a product or the ``real'' character of an organisation. Finally, the interpretant can
be thought of as a mental image of the interpreter created or stimulated by the
sign an image that links the sign to its object or referent, just as the word
``IBM'' creates a mental image that links the three letters I, B and M with a large
corporation that produces computers. The relation between the three elements
in the signifying process is illustrated in Figure 1.
Just as a map can only inform us about certain dimensions of a landscape,
the sign only highlights, as Peirce explains, certain aspects of the referent.
Figure 1.
The signifying process
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Some signs, however, are more ``naturally'' or logically linked to their referents
than others. Peirce distinguishes between three classes of signs: icons, indices
and symbols. An icon is a sign that has certain qualities in common with the
object it stands for, for example, similarity. A picture of a person, thus, has
iconic qualities because it is a sign that refers to that particular person through
some degree of resemblance. Onomatopoeia in language is another example.
An index is a sign that refers to its object because it is being affected by that
object in some real way. Footprints on the beach, for example, are affected by
the feet of somebody walking there, just as smoke is often caused by fire. The
relation between an index and its object is, in other words, based on causality
or physical connection. As it appears, both icons and indices are to some degree
``motivated'' (Barthes, 1977) by their objects or referents. By contrast, a symbol
is a sign with only conventional associations to the object it stands for. Think,
for example, of Coca Cola's now old slogan ``The Real Thing.'' The only reason
why this well-known sign was taken to represent the object Coca Cola, and was
able to create in our minds images of a particular soft drink, is convention the
same convention Coca Cola now, ironically, has to work against in order to
convince us that their new slogan ``Always'' refers to the same object.
Although most signs have both iconic, indexical and symbolic qualities,
language is mainly symbolic, that is, related to its object through conventions
or, as Peirce puts it ``by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas
which operates to cause the symbol to be interpreted as referring to that object
(Peirce, 1897-1910/1985, p. 8; see also Johansen, 1985). And clearly, in a dynamic
society such associations are constantly changing, not least those associations
related to corporate symbols and communications. In the following, we will
apply these concepts and principles to the notions of corporate image and
identity and thus demonstrate that common sense understandings of these
notions are often highly problematic.
The sem/cl/s c/ crcrale /denl/lv and crcrale /mage. /n/l/a/ remar/s
Ccrcrale /denl/lv. The total sum of signs that stands for an organisation to its
various audiences we call the corporate identity, recognising, of course, the
interplay of interpretations that construct that totality (cf. Cheney and
Tompkins, 1987). Before proceeding, we haste to emphasise that the semiotic
perspective presented here is not equivalent to what is sometimes labelled the
design school approach to identity management (e.g. van Riel and Balmer,
1997). With its focus on visual corporate signifiers, the design school ignores
the fact that signs can be anything that stands for or represents something else,
including not only physical, visual objects like, for example, uniforms and
letterheads but also corporate values, stories and rituals. In a semiotic
perspective, an organisation's identity is what becomes commonly understood
to represent it, regardless of how intangible, incoherent, fragmented, or even
self-contradictory that set of signs sometimes is. Here, of course, we need to
make a clear distinction between this general set of representations which
also includes unintended signs like, for example, unplanned organisational
Corporate
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305
behaviours or negative rumours and the signs carefully manufactured to
portray and promote the organisation and its products (cf. Birkigt and Stadler,
1986). This latter set of signs we can call the organisation's formal ``profile''.
Although this profile often receives more prominent attention internally than
other representations of the organisation, these privileged signs need to
compete with other signs for attention and persuasiveness.
Ccrcrale /mage. Semiotically speaking, an image is an impression created or
stimulated by a sign or a set of signs. An image, in other words, corresponds to
the Peircian notion of the interpretant. Thus, when we talk about a corporate
image, we refer to a notion of a collective or partly shared interpretant a more
or less complex construct generated by signs that has come to represent the
organisation in the minds of its various audiences. Clearly, we need to
distinguish between the image in this general sense and the more specific and
well-defined interpretant that decision-makers deliberately hope to develop in the
public or in a specific market segment. This latter, and preferred, interpretant we
can call the organisation's ``official self-image'' (cf. Dowling, 1988, 1993; see also
Swanson, 1957) an image which sometimes seems to contrast with the general
impression or estimation of the organisation in the public, in other words, its
``reputation'' (Fombrun, 1996; Fombrun and van Riel, 1997). These dimensions of
corporate image and identity and depicted in Figure 2.
As Figure 2 illustrates, both corporate image and corporate identity are
complex constructs, composed of elements, which are not only complementary
but also competitive, and sometimes even antagonistic (cf. Morin, 1984). With
respect to the sign dimension of Figure 2, managers will typically want to
highlight the formal profile elements of the organisation's identity and
downplay other, and less controllable, representations of the organisation.
Likewise, and with respect to the interpretant, management will often focus
primarily on the organisation's official self-image and perhaps try to subdue
impressions of the organisation that do not support or coincide with that. As it
appears from Birkigt and Stadler's (1986) model of the ``Corporate identity mix'',
Figure 2.
Semiotic dimensions of
corporate identity and
corporate image
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the task of the identity manager is to create some kind of homology between
the strategically planned identity and the preferred corporate image. However,
this tendency to focus on and highlight preferred dimensions of corporate
identity and corporate image implies that organisations often see only their
own constructs when they claim to learn about their surroundings.
L/n//ng /denl/lv and /mage
Since marketing communications, as Dowling (1993, p. 104) points out, ``can be
interpreted as an attempt by the organisation to project its `ideal self-image' to
both internal and external people'', corporate identity and image should be seen
as closely interrelated. Moreover, one could argue that since an organisation is
able to redefine or reorganise its formal profile, the construct referred to as
organisational image is indirectly produced by the organisation itself (e.g.
Bernstein, 1992). This, however, is true also in a broader epistemological sense.
Corporate identity and image are interrelated, not only because impressions
and perceptions among various publics (images) often build on communication
constructed by organisations themselves (identity), but also because a
``corporate image'', in a certain sense, is a construct of the organisation itself
based on its own reading of ``external'' impressions (cf. Dutton el a/., 1994;
Dukerich and Carter, 1998).
In order to design a specific corporate profile, decision makers often want to
know how their organisations are perceived by the public or, put differently,
how the signs that represent their organisations are received and transformed
into corporate images. Decision-makers, in other words, are interested in
interpretants. Through the use of image analyses, identity managers seek to
probe into the interpretants of key audiences in order to uncover the image that
the organisation has for the public. This process, however, is also subject to a
signifying process or a semiosis, as described by Peirce, and thus more
complex than assumed in the conventional textbook on identity or image
management. The process is illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Corporate image as a
self-referential process
Corporate
identity and
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307
As Figure 3 illustrates, the data collected through the image analysis become
signs in a new signifying process in which management tries to make sense of
what the organisation ``is'' in its surroundings. This is not simply a matter of
recording data or processing information about the environment in general, but
a creative process in which the organisation seeks to understand the reception
of specific organisational symbols among select key audiences. In this process,
the organisation, thus, relates as much to itself as to its external world. Since
the notions and categories used to interpret and evaluate external data are often
primarily of internal relevance for example when the surveyed audience is
asked to relate to key dimensions of the organisation's profile this process has
a tendency to close in on itself and become self-referential (cf. Cheney, 1992;
Christensen and Cheney, 2000; see also Christensen, 1994, 1997). In such cases,
the resultant interpretant (management perception of corporate image cf.
Dutton el a/. (1994)) is a direct reflection of the organisation's point of departure,
that is, its formal profile and its concomitant official self-image. Corporate
identity and corporate image, then, become almost inseparable.
The am//gu/l/es c/ crgan/sal/cna/ /denl/lv
Another modification of Figure 2 concerns the ambiguity related to the term
identity. So far, we have argued that corporate identity can be defined as the
ways in which an organisation is commonly represented. As such, identity
corresponds to Peirce's notion of the sign. At the same time, however, identity
is often thought of as something more ``basic'', a pattern or a structure seen as
relatively stable in time and space (cf. Albert and Whetten, 1985; see also
Erikson, 1968; Mead, 1934). As such, identity corresponds to Peirce's notion of
the referent.
Most writings on corporate identity are rather unclear on this distinction.
While theorists and practitioners of corporate communications typically talk
about the identity of an organisation and its products as a set of visual and
tangible parameters like, for example, names, logotypes, uniforms, colours,
architecture, merchandise, trademarks and advertisements, in other words, as
signs, they still maintain a notion of a true or fundamental organisational
identity behind these concrete manifestations (e.g., Olins, 1989; see also Balmer,
1995; Balmer and Soenen, 1999; van Riel and Balmer, 1997), that is, a notion of
identity as referent. This confusion, illustrated in Figure 4, implies room for lots
Figure 4.
The semiotic confusion
of corporate identity
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of conceptual inconsistency and manipulation in terms of how an organisation
and its ``real'' identity is properly represented.
Most often consultancy-based writings treat identity as a set of manipulable
signs including sometimes the behaviour of the organisation (Olins, 1989). At
the same time, however, the periodic return to the identity as referent is an
important and integral dimension of the same managerial discourse. But also
the scholarly literature contributes to this discourse. Balmer and Soenen (1999),
for example, operate with four different notions of corporate identity actual,
communicated, ideal, and desired that lend support to the idea that some
dimensions of the organisation are deeper and more intrinsically true than
others. While the reference to something ``deeper'' than signs is understandable
inasmuch as it reflects our propensity to make judgements about truth/falsity,
it is important to note also that it serves several rhetorical purposes, including
the challenge of identity-work by competing consultancy firms and the
justification of one's own new identity programs. To claim that existing
identity programs do not represent an organisation properly is to claim insight
into the organisation as it ``really is'' (see also Baker and Balmer, 1997;
Markwick and Fill, 1997; Olins, 1979). When, for example, an identity manager
(or any other observer inside or outside the organisation) points out that the
official corporate symbols (logos, architecture, advertisements, etc.) of a
corporation do not match its behaviour or its culture, he or she claims to have
access to a world behind and beyond those symbols, a world behind
appearances or beyond representations.
Semiotically speaking, however, what is going on here is something entirely
different. Since we, as Peirce (1985) points out, only think in signs, our ``access''
to the object or the referent is always mediated by representations (see also
Neiva, 1999). Even if we agree to reject existing representations as untrue, we
are bound to replace them with other representations that are no less
conventional, in a semiotic sense, than those we shun. When, for example, an
advertising campaign for the soft drink Sprite claims that ``Image is Nothing.
Thirst is Everything. Obey Your Thirst!'' the advertiser hopes to create
credibility by rejecting fancy life-style images of sex and power and suggesting
a return to something more basic: thirst. The referent of ``basic thirst'' is,
however, already an image itself an image shaped by generations of soft
drink ads. Thus, the Sprite ad is a dual, reflexive message that simultaneously
affirms and negates itself. A similar thing is going on when Heineken, in an ad
for its beer, claims that ``The Message is in the Bottle.'' Besides the fact that this
claim too is self-contradictory (if it was true, the ad would be superfluous), it
illustrates a desire to move behind appearances in order to present the world as
it ``really is.'' In this nostalgic operation, however, the communicator is not
avoiding representations but is simply moving into a different field of
signifiers.
Thus, if we return to our earlier example, the observer who rejects corporate
symbols with reference to other and more ``true'' dimensions of an organisation
(for example, its behaviour or its culture) is not moving behind appearances but
Corporate
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309
is introducing, or drawing attention to, additional and different signs, and
pointing out that these additional signs are not only inconsistent with existing
symbols and representations of the organisation, but are of a higher status than
these. As Figure 5 illustrates, these alternative dimensions of the organisation
are not although they are claimed to be dimensions beyond representation,
but signs themselves, signs that compete with existing signs for attention and
credibility (cf. Neiva, 1999).
Although references to a more true or basic reality are inevitable and occur
at all levels of social life, scholars and practitioners of corporate identity need to
be aware of the fact that the recourse to identity as referent in the discourse of
identity management serves to justify the claim that competing signs (here, the
behaviour or the culture of the organisation) are of a more deep and genuine
nature, in other words, signs devoid of arbitrariness and convention. This,
however, is an illusion that ignores the fact that no signs are completely
``motivated''. As Baudrillard (1981, p. 156) puts it:
At bottom, the sign is haunted by the nostalgia of transcending its own convention, its
arbitrariness; in a way, it is obsessed with the idea of lcla/ mcl/tal/cn. Thus it alludes to the
real as its beyond and its abolition. But it can't ``jump outside its own shadow'': for it is the
sign itself that produces and reproduces this real, which is only its horizon not its
transcendence. Reality is the phantasm by means of which the sign is indefinitely preserved
from the symbolic deconstruction that haunts it.
Without denying that we can experience the world (here, an organisation or its
products) in some direct ways that cannot be captured properly by existing
representations, we are bound to deal with such experiences through the use of
alternative representations or signs (Peirce, 1897-1910/1985; Neiva, 1999). And,
as Baudrillard points out, such signs are often shielded from critique and
deconstruction because of their reference to and sometimes quite direct
invocation of the referent. This logic is important to understand, not only
because of the frequent recourse to the organisation as referent in the discourse
of corporate identity management (and sometimes theory, e.g. Alvesson, 1990),
but also because notions of what organisations ``really are'' are powerful
realities in themselves realities that sometimes, as the following example will
illustrate, prevent organisations from changing.
Figure 5.
Competing
representations and the
recourse to the referent
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An ///uslral/te exam/e. a Dan/sh neusaer
For a number of years, a medium-sized Danish newspaper, Aarhus
5l//lsl/dende, has experienced a serious image problem. While another
newspaper, }v//andslcslen, located in the same city, gradually has become the
largest newspaper in Denmark, Aarhus 5l//lsl/dende is facing decreasing sales
and a crumbling reputation. The reasons for this development are numerous
but analyses typically highlight the following: the vast majority of Aarhus
5l//lsl/dende's readers are older people who subscribe to the newspaper in order
to keep a /cur of local news; the emphasis on local news makes the newspaper
appear old-fashioned and out of touch with new trends and global cultures; as a
consequence, young people prefer different news media, unless they are
interested in local sports.
Clearly, this negative image is damaging to Aarhus 5l//lsl/dende, not only
because the group of old and loyal customers is diminishing, but also because
the image comes back to the organisation and affects the self-perception of its
own employees. As a consequence, Aarhus 5l//lsl/dende has lost several of its
good journalists to its competitor, }v//andslcslen, which to many appears more
modern, dynamic and global in its outlook. Whether these images are fair or
accurate is not the primary issue here. What is interesting at this point is the
fact that such images are perceptions and impressions that travel across
traditional organisational boundaries and are shared among both members and
non-members of the organisation. Since ``internal'' in this context becomes
``external'', and vice versa, the distinction between the two breaks down and is
no longer meaningful to uphold.
Even more important, perhaps, is the fact that Aarhus 5l//lsl/dende has had
great difficulties moving beyond its negative image. Although the organisation
has been reorganised considerably and the editorial style of the newspaper has
been changed so that often its articles are more dynamic, international and
sharp than those of }v//andslcslen, the negative image seems to prevail. So
strong is the established perception of Aarhus 5l//lsl/dende as a slow, local and
old-fashioned publication that new attempts in recent ads to reposition the
newspaper as young and dynamic have been rejected by many as being too far
from reality. Interestingly, however, this ``reality'' is an image itself, an image
originating in the past but an image that still prevents Aarhus 5l//lsl/dende
from adapting its advertising to the changes in its product and its organisation.
In this context, the whole notion of false representations becomes irrelevant.
To require of organisations, as some managerial writers on corporate identity
do (e.g. Olins, 1989), that there is harmony and accordance between what the
organisation says and what it does is to miss the point that the behaviour of an
organisation, how it thinks and what it does, is also a set of signs a set of
signs which the audience may not necessarily accept as an accurate
representation of the organisation in question. As the case illustrates,
organisational images are often powerful realities in themselves, relatively
independent of interaction with or ``good knowledge'' (Alvesson, 1990) of the
organisation in question. When the image of an organisation is seen as reality,
Corporate
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311
the distinction between the referent and the interpretant seems to break down,
or put more precisely, the interpretant of one semiosis (the corporate image)
becomes the object in a new signifying process.
Figure 6 illustrates that since corporate images are often seen as reality
itself, new corporate identities may not be accepted as proper representations of
an organisation, even if organisational transformations may have rendered
those images obsolete. In other words, and as the newspaper example
demonstrates dramatically, symbolic representations of organisations are not
judged and evaluated against the world as it ``is'', but against existing, and
sometimes deep-seated, images of how the world is or commitments to how it
should be. And often such images determine what signs can be accepted as
representations of the organisation ``behind''.
Conclusion
As this semiotic exercise has demonstrated, we should think of the interplay
between corporate identity and corporate image as an ongoing game or
negotiation between signs and interpretants a negotiation in which the
``reality'' is frequently appealed to as the proper yardstick towards which new
communication measures should be evaluated. In this process, it may be
difficult to judge whether corporate identity determines corporate image or vice
versa. Although we do not wish to suggest a radical epistemological relativism
that seeks no role for truth and falsity, we do want to insist that the causal
dismissal of certain sets of organisational representations as false or unreal has
no place in professional or academic discourses on identity. One thing is clear:
no matter how we conceptualise corporate identity and corporate image and the
relation between the two, we are bound to deal with representations of the
organisational reality representations that are primarily symbolic and thus
conventional in their associations to the object that they claim to stand for.
As a consequence, scholars and practitioners of corporate communications
need to think of corporate identity and corporate image as social-historical
simulations of organisational realities simulations whose quality cannot
Figure 6.
Corporate images as
reality
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simply be judged on the basis of their ``fit'' with reality (although such
judgements are made all the time) but also on the basis of their rhetorical
power, that is, their credibility and persuasiveness in a world saturated with
signs.
Note
1. Eurcean }curna/ c/ Mar/el/ng, special issue on Corporate marketing, edited by
J.M.T. Balmer and C.B.M. Van Riel, Vol. 31 Nos 5/6.
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