Content area
Full Text
John M.T. Balmer: Bradford School of Management, The University of Bradford, UK
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The author is indebted to all those who have assisted in the preparation of this article, including the invaluable assistance given by the reviewers. This paper has been reviewed separately by the European Journal of Marketing review board.
Introduction
"FOG IN CHANNEL - EUROPE ISOLATED". So ran a famous headline appearing on the front page of The Thunderer[1] in the early 1900s. This headline has achieved some notoriety and is sometimes used as a metaphor for English insularity and isolationism. Using fog as a metaphor is apposite for "business identity studies". The area may be broken down into three main strands - corporate identity, organisational identity and visual identity. As this article will reveal, there are numerous factors which have contributed to the fog that is enveloping business identity studies. In the author's opinion, the "fog" has stunted the recognition of the strategic importance, as well as the multidisciplinary nature, of business identity. However, isolationism has a silver lining, in that it can result in scholars and practitioners achieving a high degree of creativity and innovation. This appears to have occurred in the broad area of business identity studies, where distinct schools of thought have emerged from national, and disciplinary, roots. However, what is becoming increasingly apparent is that the provenance to guide identity studies is not solely limited to marketing scholars. The current cross-fertilisation taking place among the various literatures on the broad area of identity studies has led the author to the conclusion that, in time, these distinct strands are likely to coalesce and give rise to a new cognitive area of management called corporate marketing.
A growing number of scholars are beginning to appreciate the multidisciplinary foundations of business identity. In the above context the various disciplinary, national and cultural approaches, when reviewed in isolation, may appear to be little more than a modest tour d'horizon. In their composite they represent a veritable firmament with the potential to form the key building blocks of a new area of management. However, while the area is likely to be enthusiastically embraced by marketing scholars since it supports a number of concepts that have a long lineage in the marketing discipline -...