Understanding and interpreting the relationship between human and corporate identity : an empirical study

Podnar, Klement (author), Melewar, T. C. (author)

Purpose - In this research the authors attempt to test the plausibility of human and corporate analogies through the analysis of naturalistic descriptions of people and corporations. Design/methodology/approach - The descriptions are analyzed via morpheme and semantic clustering and non-metric multidimensional scaling. Research was carried out on 243 respondents. The respondents were asked to name one company and one personality and to list five positive attributes for each. Respondents were instructed to use top of the mind recollection and to promptly list the first responses that occurred to them. Findings - There are two main categories that people use for describing companies and other people - identity characteristics and determinants of identity characteristics. From the analysis authors conclude that notable similarities as well as differences exist in descriptions of humans and companies inside the three-dimensional space of identity characteristics of extraversion, agreeableness and dynamism. The configuration suggests that the first (extraversion) and the third (dynamic) dimensions are similar for humans and companies. Both categories and all three dimensions can be applied for corporate branding. Research limitations - The study has several limitations, such as the problem of codification of open ended data. Authors were dealing with dichotomous ćdummyć variables which had a limited range from a statistical point of view.

• Language: English
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Year: 2010
• Number of pages: Str. 366-385
• Numbering: Vol. 2, no. 4
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-45155
• UDC: 659.126
• ISSN on article: 1947-5667
• COBISS.SI-ID: 30115421
• Publication date in RUL: 10.07.2015

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Global business and management research
• Publisher: Universal-Publishers
• ISSN: 1947-5667
• COBISS.SI-ID: 3570903