Page 82 - Corporate Communication

Cornelissen-03.qxd 10/9/2004 9:04 AM Page 71

Stakeholders, Identity and Reputation 71

Corporate personality [i.e. organizational identity] embraces the subject at its most
profound level. It is the soul, the persona, the spirit, the culture of the organization mani-
fested in some way.A corporate personality is not necessarily something tangible that you
can see, feel or touch – although it may be. The tangible manifestation of a corporate
personality is a corporate identity. It is the identity that projects and reflects the reality of
the corporate personality. 27

In sum, corporate identity is thus concerned with the construction of identity to differentiate
a company’s position and offerings in the eyes of important stakeholder groups. Organizational
identity, on the other hand, is founded in deeper patterns of meaning and sense-making of
people within the organization and leads to shared values, identification and belonging.While
these two concepts can be analytically separated (as I have just done),corporate iden-
tity and organizational identity should rather be seen as two sides of a coin within
organizational practice. Developing corporate identity must start with a thorough
analysis and understanding of the underlying mission and culture, the existing organi-
zational identity, rather than rushing into communicating what might be thought to
be the company’s core values in a superficial manner. Equally, whatever picture is
projected to external stakeholders has an effect upon the beliefs and values of
employees, and thus on the organizational identity, as employees mirror themselves
28
in whatever messages are being sent out to external stakeholder groups. The two
sides to identity in organizations, organizational identity and corporate identity,
therefore cannot and should not be seen as separate.This point is also affirmed and
strengthened by studies into ‘excellent’ companies carried out over the past two
decades.Writers such as Hamel and Prahalad, Peters and Waterman, and Collins and
Porras,have all found that what truly sets an ‘excellent’company apart from its compe-
titors in the marketplace in terms of the power of its images and products can be
traced back to a set of values and related competencies that are authentic and unique
to that organization and therefore difficult to imitate. Collins and Porras, in their
analysis of companies that are industry leaders in the US,argue that ‘a visionary com-
pany almost religiously preserves its core ideology – changing it seldom, if ever’. 29
From this adherence to a fundamental set of beliefs or a deeply held sense of self-
identity, as Collins and Porras point out, comes the discipline and drive that enables
a company to succeed in the rapidly changing, volatile environments that character-
ize many contemporary markets.
So, what constitutes an organizational identity, and in what way, when informing
and leading into a corporate identity, does it set an organization apart from other
companies in the same sector? Albert and Whetten,who were among the first in 1985
to come to terms with the notion of organizational identity, talked about specific
characteristics or ‘traits’ of an organization in all of its strategies, values and practices
that give the company its specificity, stability and coherence.They argued that just as
individual human beings express a sense of personal distinctness, a sense of personal
continuity, and a sense of personal autonomy, organizations equally have their own
individuality and uniqueness.And just as the identity of individuals may come to be
anchored in some combination of gender, nationality, profession, social group, life
style,educational achievements or skills,so an organization’s identity may be anchored
in some combination of geographical place, nationality, strategy, founding, core
business, technology, knowledge base, operating philosophy or organization design.