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Abstract
The aim of this research is to study the effects of using Balanced Scorecards (BSC) as a strategic management tool in order to manage corporate identity and achieve the corporate desired identity. The study focuses on the role of BSC in managing corporate identity in IT services providers.
The research focuses on understanding of the process of forming and managing corporate identity through wide-ranging literature review on the definition and concept of corporate identity, its stmcture (what makes corporate identity), and how it can be managed (how can the constmct manage identity).
Since corporate identity is considered as a socially constructed concept, a qualitative research design is employed with a primary data classification with sub-codes used throughout the project. A qualitative research design is conducted using semi-structured interviews with 18 members from different IT services firms, which have implemented BSC for 3-5 years. The collected data is analysed to assess the effectiveness of BSC in managing and controlling corporate identity dimensions.
1. Corporate Identity
Due to the complexity of the concept of corporate identity, this section discusses in details many views by different academics to aid a comprehensive understanding of the concept and its dimensions. The chapter starts with defining corporate identity and then dive in to explore its components and different proposed models for managing it.
1.1. What is Corporate Identity?
The task of defining corporate identity is challenging. Different views and definitions were introduced to the concept. The first time the "corporate identity" term was used was in 1957 by Lippincott and Margulies (Comelissen & Living, 2003). It was constrained by the visual representation of the organization by which means it identify itself.
The understanding of the concept has expanded later to include all the characteristics that gives the organization its specificity, stability, and coherence (Larcon and Reitter 1979; Reitter and Ramananrsoa 1985 in (Moingeon & Ramanantsoa, 1997)) which includes culture, strategy, and core competency (Comelissen & Living, 2003), this supports Balmer & Gray (1999) argument that corporate identity can be a source of competitive advantage. Although the concept has expanded to include more than the visual representation, visual cues still are assigned a great value in terms of communicating the corporate values and ethos rather than being a means...