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Keywords
Corporate image, Perception, Business development
Abstract
This paper discusses the idea of projecting corporate image in terms of culturally regulated codes of appeals by using, mainly, the examples of ad campaigns by some US business companies in the post-9/11 environment. The image of patriotism those companies are aspiring to suggests corporate imagery can be a shared social phenomenon, i.e. collective ethos, thus raising questions about the traditional approach to corporate imagery, which is summarized as "self-representation." The way to build up collective ethos is through Burke's "identification," seen as both a strategy and goal of communication. The paper also provides an overview of rhetorical theory on using image as a presentation strategy to explore the reason why it has been treated in history as a way for self-projection, or representation of a "corporate self."
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Speaking of corporate image, we may need, first of all, to clarify the term "image," which appears to have been, surprisingly enough, short of consistency in definition among corporate communication scholars and practitioners (Abratt, 1989; Davies et al., 2001). Very often the word "image" is used to mean "identity" or "reputation" or, in the more strict sense, to mean the internal perception of a company held by its employees (Kennedy, 1977).
According to Davies et al. (2001, p. 113), "Image is taken to mean the view of the company held by external stakeholders, especially that held by customers". Clearly, their definition contrasts with the "internal" view of a company, which they think ought to be labeled as "identity" (i.e. the perception of a company held by its employees) following Albert and Whetten's (1985) notion of organizational identity. Interestingly, Davies et al. (2001, p. 114) define "reputation" as a collective term "referring to all stakeholders' views of corporate reputation, including identity and image." For them, the question of measuring corporate reputation can boil down to the question of how to assess a company's identity and image (i.e. the internal and external perspectives).
My purpose here is certainly not to join the crowd in redefining, or disputing the existing definitions...