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Introduction
"Where do we come from? Where are we? Where are we going to?" is the evocative title of what is, arguably, Paul Gauguin's most celebrated painting. Executed on a large canvas, Gauguin's magnum opus shares certain similarities with corporate identity scholarship. Both demand that we step back in order to discern their geography, content, and significance. Both have multiple levels of meaning. Both are a great deal more than the sum of their parts. Both demand considerable contemplation and reflection. The allegorical title of Gauguin's painting has another purpose in that it provides me with a ready made route map for this article. As such, in reflecting on the extant literature (Where do we come from?), I note the centrality of identity studies across a range of disciplines. In scrutinising the contemporary corporate identity scholarship (Where are we?) I outline five principal schools of thought that currently characterises corporate identity scholarship (the quindrivium ). Musing on the future (Where are we going to?), I conclude that the identity spectrum will witness an exponential growth in importance as reflected in what I call "identity based views of the corporation" and "identity based views of corporate branding".
Adopting a panoptic view of corporate identity at this juncture seems apposite since this general review appears on, what is for me, a momentous occasion: the first ever special edition of an academic journal (the EJM ) devoted to corporate identity ([22] Balmer and Van Riel, 1997).
In broader identity contexts we should also note that there has been a "veritable discursive explosion" around the concept of identity from scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds ([43] Hall, 1996). [39] du Gay (2007), for instance, has observed how management scholars have accorded increasing importance to the concept of identity. He notes that its value as a management concept is derived from its practical and descriptive functions rather than in terms of its theoretical utility.
Ten years on from the EJM special edition, our comprehension of corporate identity canvas is qualitatively different to what it was in 1997. For instance, increasing emphasis is accorded to deeper notions of corporate identity (ci) in terms of a corporation's traits and less importance is afforded to corporate visual identification/symbolism. In addition, the...