Abstract
This article addresses one of the major issues for brand management: how to persuade employees to adopt corporate brand values as their own and ‘live the brand’ as an authentic expression of their personal and collective identity. In order for managers to gain the active engagement that this requires, employees must feel simultaneously constrained by their responsibilities for consistent performance and empowered by their possibilities for individual interpretation. It is argued that this seeming paradox is resolved when the corporate brand becomes the catalyst for the development of a new conversational context, through which the organisation is re-imagined by managers and revitalized by employees as they draw on brand imagery to find their voice as competent, valued participants in an unfinished enterprise. This practical authorship is illustrated by a case study of a brand development programme at a leading conservation charity.
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1has completed his PhD from the University of London. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle Business School where his work is focused on brand leadership and the practice of strategic change. Ben's research has been published in Organization Studies.
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/bm.2012.60.
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Golant, B. Bringing the corporate brand to life: The brand manager as practical author. J Brand Manag 20, 115–127 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2012.44
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2012.44