Defining and delimiting the scope of the Corporate Identity construct

This paper defines and delimits the scope of the Corporate Identity (CI) construct by exploring its applicability outside its usual research focus on large corporate entities. We also provide an important bridge between the management literature where the concept of Organisational Identity (OI) is better researched and understood, and the marketing literature where it is more common to find research defined in terms of CI. The conceptual underpinning of this paper favours a view of CI as a construct that is 'multi-modal and multi-sensory', therefore we use an all-encompassing definition of CI as the presentation of an organisation to every stakeholder. Moreover, research into CI and smaller entrepreneurial family-owned organisations is relatively underdeveloped, thus we based our findings on a conceptualisation of the seven broad dimensions of CI, namely: Industry Identity, Corporate Culture, Corporate Strategy, Corporate Structure, Corporate Design, Behaviour, and Corporate Communication, as they relate to small family firms.