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MCR BRIEF

JUNE SEPTEMBER 2013

TASK ONE APPROACH ELEMENTS OF REPUTATION


1. Purpose and aims

1. Terms of reference 2. Justification scenario in the brief 2. Understanding the elements bullet point 1 3. Determining gap between elements (standard theory) and organisation performance bullet points 2&3
4. Recommendation/strategy of improving reputation point 4 5. Measurement point 4
MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

Monday, April 08, 2013

ALIGNING CORPORATE IDENTITY AND IMAGE


Prepare a report in which you investigate the corporate identity and corporate image of your organisation. The widely held view is that internal and external stakeholders have varying perceptions of your organisation, which might have negative repercussions on your corporate reputation.

The aims of this report are to identify to what extent there are any gaps or discrepancies between your organisations corporate identity and corporate image and, in the light of this analysis, to make recommendations as to how these might be realigned further to strengthen the organisations corporate reputation.

MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

Monday, April 08, 2013

REPORT 4000 WORDS


Produce a report, aimed at your CEO focusing on the following areas: Critically evaluate the concepts of corporate identity and corporate image and their impact on corporate reputation consider different academic interpretations of these concepts, the range of elements they can comprise, such as corporate personality, and their role in contributing towards corporate reputation Critically evaluate the organisations corporate identity and corporate image examine internal and external stakeholders perceptions, using appropriate measures explored above. The selected measures should be justified and applied to investigate the organisations current corporate identity and corporate image. You need strong application and evaluation skills. Critically assess the extent to which there are gaps or discrepancies between the organisations corporate identity and corporate image and then provide insight into why these may have occurred. If the analysis identifies few gaps or discrepancies, you may want to explore how this situation has been strategically achieved. Recommend, with justification, how your organisations corporate identity and corporate image can be more closely aligned to enhance to enhance corporate reputation, including consideration of the political and financial consequences of implementing the recommendations recommendations should be at strategic level and advise the organisation as to how it can manage these changes. Examine the extent to which the recommended changes could more closely align identity and image to strengthen the organisations corporate reputation. You will also need to refer to the political and financial consequences of implementing the recommendations.

MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

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CHOSEN ORGANISATION
Write a brief background to the organisation, (include its customer base and product/service range, turnover, profits, structure) you will be using for this assignment (two sides of A4 maximum)

MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

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MCR REPUTATION SPEAK

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT INDICATORS


MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

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Performance Improvement Indicators


5 Ways to Improve Performance
Strategy Presentation Evaluation Application Knowledge Reputational SPEAK
MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

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Performance Improvement Indicators


5 Ways to Improve Performance Strategic
Is the assignment written from an organisational level perspective?

Does the candidate deal with Corporate not Marketing Communications?


Does the candidate think beyond public relations? Is there an understanding of the principle of reputational platforms? Is there an awareness of environmental issues
MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

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Performance Improvement Indicators


5 Ways to Improve Performance

Presentation
Would you present this submission to a CEO?

Has the assignment been written well, has it been checked? (grammar, punctuation, in English and not SMS, spacing, font size, not multicoloured)
Does this assignment benefit from the inclusion of copied diagrams and different fonts? Does this answer the question?
MCR Brief June-Sept 2013

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Performance Improvement Indicators


5 Ways to Improve Your Performance

Evaluation
Has the candidate evaluated the validity of the models, concepts, and frameworks.....and of the way the organisation currently performs? Has the candidate reflected upon the potential of the recommendations? Has the assignment been written objectively, using a present, business tense, not subjectively, from a personal, I, we orientation?

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Performance Improvement Indicators


5 Ways to Improve Performance

Application
Has the candidate used concepts and frameworks to understand and interpret corporate practice? Has the candidate used evidence to support their comments, models, and recommendations? (e.g Harvard APA, Company/Market Reports, Blogs, Weblinks)

Is there an awareness of any political and financial implications arising from any of the recommendations?

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Performance Improvement Indicators


5 Ways to Improve Performance

Knowledge
Is there sufficient and appropriate use of conceptual and theoretical materials? Have any corporate materials been incorporated and evidenced? Is there evidence of the use of relevant trade or market research, reports and associated data?

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Performance Improvement Elements


5 Ways to Improve Performance

Strategy, Presentation, Evaluation, Application, Knowledge.

Please get SPEAKing

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Goodish Practice
Figure 8: Consolidated evaluation of stakeholder perceptions What do all groups want? What unique things do they want? How XXXX is perceived (common themes) How top competitors are perceived Stakeholder

Consumers

Trustworthy provider, good reputation,

Help navigating complexity, make their lives simpler

Awareness is low

Corporate decision makers (relevant to corporate pensions)

financially strong Lack of awareness is an Clear, simple communication Quality, choice & flexibility Common expectations should feature Help navigating complex regulatory and business model issues Help managing and promoting employee pension schemes issue in terms of reassuring employees in company pension schemes

Perceptions of brands in this category are

generic &
undifferentiated for each stakeholder group. So improved identity management could boost differentiation

IFAs

strongly in personality

Lack of awareness is a problem for some consumers

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Good Practice
Cobweb diagrams can illustrate personality (van Riel and Fombrun, 2008) and brand expectations relative to competitors, as shown in figure 9 using previous XXXXXX brand research (XXXXXX, 2010c). The consumer and corporate decision maker brand maps of key competitors are broadly similar in shape, rating successful, professional and dependable as important. Competitors score higher than XXXXXX across most other attributes. These findings suggest that a more strategic approach to corporate identity and message XXXXXX conveys, could improve XXXXXXs ratings relative to its competitors and reputation.

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GOOD PRACTICE
Should the organisation decide to rebrand, managerial and colleague engagement via multi-channel communication will be essential. According to van Riel and Fombrun (2007) there are 4 key factors which drive managerial support for corporate branding: strategy (being publicly available), organisational drivers (and the degree of centralisation), employees (identification breeds support for corporate branding) and value (local managers need to believe it is valuable). Intuitively, these principles are sensible from a branding perspective however they require significant crossdisciplinary coordination and management resource.
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GOOD PRACTICE
Cultural considerations are important. For example, what is the extent of customer orientation within each business? Senior manager interviews conducted as part of the research for this paper highlight that a powerful and dominant sales culture has pervaded XXXXXX resulting in the prioritisation of new business over retention. Over this time this culture, coupled with limited investment in IT infrastructure, has created complicated and expensive legacy service issues which our distribution partners and customers are now being made aware of. Should these issues publicly damage the reputation of XXXXXX, maintaining Company Xs existing brand could help protect its own brand equity.
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THE BASICS

CONCEPTS OF IDENTITY AND IMAGE

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DEFINITIONS
Image is taken to mean the view of the company held by external stakeholders, especially that held by customers Identity is taken to mean the internal, that is the employees, view of the company, following Albert Whettens (1985) notion of How do we see ourselves Reputation is taken to be a collective term referring to all stakeholders views of corporate reputation, including identity and image

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CORPORATE IDENTITY

Symbolism
Corporate Personality

Corporate Identity

Communication

Chris Fill

Behaviour

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C O R P O R AT E I D E N T I T Y
Logo TM Name typeface Slogan or tagline Packaging and uniforms Colour and semiology

Brochure and advertising


Annual Report Websites Photography

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I M A G E F O R M AT I O N
Communications
Quality of goods & services
Organisation Structure & Culture

Communities
Attitude & behaviour of employees

Corporate Image

Experience

Financial Performance
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Physical Environment
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Corporate Social Responsibility

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IDENTITY, REPUTATION AND OUTCOME


Corporate identity mix

Outcomes Reputation

Culture history

Strategy

Behaviour Communications symbolism

Financial HRM Sales

Environment

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CORPORATE REPUTATION FRAMEWORK

Corporate communication
Corporate Personality Corporate Identity or Brand Corporate Image Corporate Reputation

Corporate Communication

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ELEMENTS OF CORPORATE IDENTITY

Corporate personality

Corporate identity Products & services Where made and distributed How it communicates with stakeholders How it behaves

Corporate image
Influenced by identity Values, beliefs and attitudes held about the organisation

Culture Overall strategic purpose

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FOUR FACETS (CRITERIA) OF CORPORATE REPUTATION

Corporate personality

Corporate identity

Corporate reputation

Credibility Trustworthiness Reliability Responsibility

Fombrun 1996

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DRIVERS O F RE P UTAT I ON
Indicators Indicators Cash flow Earnings Costs Capital expenditure Market growth
Financial performance Sustainability
Shareholders Number of shareholder resolutions Results of shareholder satisfaction survey Customers Satisfaction survey Customer complaints Third-party ratings and awards Employees Employee turnover Employee profiles (ability, gender, race) Employee satisfaction Society Boycotts, marches, incidents License to operate Direct action Media reports Partners Quantity of partnerships accepted, sanctioned or rejected on basis of stewardship criteria Health and safety records of partners

Indicators of reputational value taken adapted from: eCFO; C. Read et al, p115, Wiley, 2001
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SOME REFERENCES
Davies, G. et al (2003) Corporate reputation and competitiveness. London, Routledge. Van Riel, C.B.M. and Fombrun, C.J. (2007) Essentials of corporate communications. Abingdon, Routledge.

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SOME USEFUL WEB SITES


www.gla.ac.uk/departments/reputationmanagement/aboutus/ www.reputationinstitute.com/knowledge-center/ http://www.reputation-centre.org/en/about-us.html www.money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/ www.henley.reading.ac.uk/executiveeducation/excellence/jmcr/cl-johnmadejskicentre.asp www.mbs.ac.uk/research/corporatereputation/ www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/reputation/ www.brandchannel.com/papers.asp www.edelman.co.uk/case-studies/corporate-reputation www.harrisinteractive.com/services/reputation.asp www.ipsosmori.com/researchspecialisms/publicaffairs/reputationcentre/manreputation.ashx

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TASK TWO CASE STUDY (2000 WORDS, 40%)

BUILDING TRUST IN A CORPORATE BRAND

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THE ORGANISATION & STRUCTURE OF CASE STUDY


You may base the discussion on your own organisation or any organisation of your choice. The nature of the organisation must be clearly stated at the outset Case study structure Introduction outline briefly what the organisation does, what problems it is experiencing, and how you are going to approach the issues in the case write-up Theoretical concepts to consider the area of theory indicated in the question Apply concepts explored to what the organisation is actually doing (or not doing) in practice Present your solutions and recommendations about how the organisation can improve its use of the indicated area of theory to better support & improve its overall corporate reputation Be comprehensive and make sure the recommendations are in line with the previous evaluation of the organisation. The recommendations must be at strategic level and move logically from one to the next Short conclusion, not a summary. Briefly revisit the issues identified in the introduction and suggest how your recommendations might resolve them, and so round off your case study

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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF CORPORATE BRANDS & THE IMPACT THEY HAVE ON CORPORATE REPUTATION (10MARKS)

Discussion needs to be based on ideas about corporate branding, as indicated in the syllabus. Explore the debates or arguments regarding corporate branding, the rise in importance of the corporate brand, and the impact it can have on corporate reputation

This task should be completed using theoretical concepts


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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE ROLE OF TRUST IN CORPORATE BRANDS & HOW IT CAN BE CREATED AND MAINTAINED

Examine the role of trust in corporate brands, including elements of trust such as honesty, fairness and openness and forces that influence trust.

You may also consider the concept of trustworthiness and explore what strategies organisations can adopt to create confidence in their corporate brand and build up a perception in their stakeholders that they are trustworthy

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CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE ORGANISATIONS CORPORATE BRAND & THE EXTENT TO WHICH IT IS TRUSTED BY ITS STAKEHOLDERS

Critically assess the chosen organisations corporate brand and evaluate what type of brand it is and the way it is communicated to various stakeholder groups.

It is also necessary to assess the extent to which the corporate brand is currently trusted by its stakeholders
In situations where the organisation does not have a strong corporate brand, candidates should consider why this is and how it can be rectified
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RECOMMENDATIONS, WITH JUSTIFICATION, OF A STRATEGY TO POSITION THE CORPORATE BRAND MORE STRONGLY IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN & IMPROVE LEVELS OF TRUST & SHIELD ITS REPUTATION FROM CRITICISM

Make recommendations, with justification, as to how the organisation can strategically develop and position its corporate brand in order to both maintain and improve levels of trust amongst stakeholders. These recommendations may include suggestions concerning reputation platforms and corporate positioning, or other changes that will support the corporate brand and protect the corporate reputation
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SOME REFERENCES
BPP (2013) Managing Corporate Reputation, Bpp Publishing Davies, G. et al (2003) Corporate reputation and competitiveness. London, Routledge. David A. Aaker (1996) Building strong brands, CPI Bath Press, Bath Van Riel, C.B.M. and Fombrun, C.J. (2007) Essentials of corporate communications. Abingdon, Routledge.

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