The purpose of this study is to investigate how internal branding practices can contribute to successful corporate brand building. The thesis is based on a case study of the successful Swedish brands Saab AB, SAS Sverige and Skanska. The results show that core values are a main building block of internal branding practices and that core values are united with cultural values with a dual purpose of adding value to customers and guiding employee behavior. Furthermore, the results point out that core values internally indicate how the vision is to be achieved and that the vision may be more useful as a management tool than internal branding tool. Subcultures appear to be present in all three cases and the results suggest that corporate brands are strengthened by internalizing a main corporate culture which allows cultural interpretations within subcultures and by assuring that subcultures co-exist in harmony. Internal communication seems to support corporate and internal branding…
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
1.2 CORPORATE AND INTERNAL BRANDING
1.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION
1.4 PRE STUDY: IMPRESSIONS FROM BRANDING EXPERTS
1.5 PURPOSE
1.6 EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONS
1.7 CLARIFYING COMMENTS
2. THEORY
2.1 CORPORATE BRANDING
2.1.1 Core values
2.1.2 Vision-Culture-Image model
2.1.3 Brand identity
2.2 INTERNAL BRANDING
2.2.1 The driving forces of brand commitment
2.2.2 Corporate culture
2.2.3 Internal communication
2.3 THE ROLE OF HR IN BRAND BUILDING
2.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
3. METHOD
3.1 OVERALL RESEARCH METHOD AND APPROACH
3.2 PRE STUDY RESEARCH DESIGN
3.3 COLLECTION OF PRE STUDY DATA
3.4 ANALYSIS OF PRE STUDY DATA
3.5 MAIN STUDY RESEARCH DESIGN
3.5.1 Selection of cases
3.5.2 Presentation of case companies
3.5.3 Creation of interview questions
3.6 COLLECTION OF MAIN STUDY DATA
3.7 ANALYSIS OF MAIN STUDY DATA
3.8 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
3.8.1 Validity
3.8.2 Reliability
4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
4.1 DATA PRESENTATION
4.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1 AND 2 – CORE VALUES AND VISION
4.2.1 Core values
4.2.2 Vision and Core values
4.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 3 – CULTURE
4.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 4
4.4.1 Internal communication
4.4.2 Channels used by non-brand responsible
4.5 RESEARCH QUESTION 5 – HR CONTRIBUTIONS TO CORPORATE BRANDING
4.5.1 HR involvement in corporate branding
4.5.2 Contributions of HR practices to corporate brand building
4.6 ADDITIONAL FINDINGS
4.6.1 Acknowledgment (Erkännande)
4.6.2 Involvement (Delaktighet)
5. DISCUSSION
5.1 RQ 1-3: CORE VALUES, VISION AND CORPORATE CULTURE
5.1.1 Core values and Vision
5.1.2 Corporate culture
5.2 RQ 4: INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
5.3 RQ 5: HR-CONTRIBUTIONS TO BRANDING
5.4 ADDITIONAL FINDINGS – ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND INVOLVEMENT
5.5 THE AUTHOR’S PROPOSED MODEL
6. CONCLUSIONS
6.1 MAIN CONTRIBUTIONS
6.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS
6.3 AUTHOR’S COMMENT: CURRENT EMPLOYEES
6.4 CRITIQUE
6.5 FUTURE RESEARCH
7. REFERENCES
8. APPENDICES
Author: Marjam Malmberg
Source: Stockholm School of Economics