The Meanings of Corporate Branding: Perceptions of Engineering Professionals in Three British Engineering Consultancies

Corporate branding research has developed fairly rapidly over the past fifteen years. Insights from a diversity of contexts have contributed significantly to the development of the concept. However, extant studies still, by large, remain under the purview of marketing and insights from non-marketing perspectives are very limited. Furthermore, the viewpoint of employees in engineering-intensive contexts is widely understudied. Hence, this thesis aims to shed further empirical light on the meanings and implications of corporate branding from the perspective of engineers in the context of three British engineering consulting companies. An interpretive, qualitative and inductive approach through case study research design is adopted as the methodology of this thesis. Findings revealed the meanings and implications of corporate branding as well as the reasons for engineers’ disengagement with the corporate brand initiatives. Emergent themes and findings are presented through six organizing themes: the inter-dynamism and mutual implications of personal brands and the corporate brand, the tensions between the two organizing structures of professional partnership and corporation, the conduct of corporate branding and corporate brand communication, the implications of economic downturns for the corporate brand, the engineering-marketing dichotomy and its implications for the corporate brand and, last, the association between organizational culture, organizational identity and the corporate brand.