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The goal of this article was to explore internal stakeholders' emotional attachment and corporate brand perceptions through corporate storytelling for branding. Due to the nature of the research questions, the research was purely qualitative in nature. A total of fifty four (54) in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted from 2019 to 2020. These constituted the bedrock of qualitative data analysis for the study. An interpretivist research paradigm, anchored on subjectivist ontology, were both applied as research philosophy pillars. This was done by the researchers in order to get deeper understanding of corporate stories for branding in the six (6) selected listed company. Purposive sampling was used to select respondents from three (3) levels of authority, thus operational, tactical and strategic level. The mutual connection on variables of corporate stories for branding and Impression Management theory elements depicted that these are related to internal stakeholder's corporate brand perceptions. The research results showed Brighton Nyagadza ABOUT THE AUTHORS Brighton Nyagadza is a Doctor of Philosophy (Marketing Management) finalist

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Storytelling or the narrative approach is increasingly becoming a core element in influence processes such as education, teaching, leadership, culture, history, marketing and its facets and a whole range of other functionalities across the multitudes of human activities. By nature human processes are a story told for a purpose; be it, as fun, socialisation, education, business, and so forth. Storytelling, be it narrated consciously or otherwise, tends to have a huge impact on society. It is the contention of this paper that the story is the ultimate in shaping minds and behaviour, and creating perceptions for the clientele or the stakeholders in any human engagement. While some writers might question the authenticity of using the storytelling approach on the pretext that it is not scientific they cannot take away the influence that the story has in shaping the thought process. In any case the human heritage is a story that transcends through generations: evolution, creation, discoveries of places, scientific discoveries or inventions, obituaries, product profiles, organisational profiles, advertisements, etc. Anything that is current, past or future that is narrated encapsulates a story be it past, present or future and each has its own purpose. Marketing has taken on board this notion in most of its facets in communications and brand development though this element does not come out strongly in the marketing literature. A quick check on the marketing literature would not present the notion of storytelling or the narrative as a topic in marketing books other than in the form of case studies. Ultimately the paper emphasises the notion that every influence process involving people is down to a story and no one can deny that socialisation is a story of perpetuating humanity and its facets. Denning (2007a) suggests that there are eight types of stories that serve a range of business related purposes and other facets of life or man's desire to understand or explain the notion of the earth and its dynamics. Boje (2008) articulates how a story defines people, places, products, etc, pointing out that every entity is known by its story in a given context. In view Cont'd...-' *Correspondence details and a biography for the author are located at the end of the article.

Corruption is an economic and social cancer afflicting industry and society at large the world over and is a major drawback to economic and social prosperity. It is the contention of this paper that corruption is a devastating form of social and economic injustice that has devastated the prospects for the dark continent of Africa. The root cause of corruption is the greediness of the leadership. Unfortunately corruption breeds corruption across the social divide as the leadership seeks to consolidate and protect themselves in the various facets of the economy, business and society. The solution to the corruption menace lies in changing the leadership which is entrenched in power and would be unwilling to vacate the powerful influential positions. Economic prosperity is largely driven by government policy that creates a conducive business environment, technology transfer, marketing activities which shape needs and demand patterns for economies. Corruption tends to distort marketing process and thereby hinder economic prosperity. The free play of market forces is hampered, economic aid from the donor community becomes almost impossible to attract and international investors shun the corrupt environments to the detriment of the economies and communities of the respective countries. There are various tools that can be used to combat the corruption menace, but without the will power on the part of the leadership the process becomes a futile exercise. This paper recommends a fresh start for Africa but the problem is that the perpetrators of the corrupt practices are the people in positions of influence and are not least interested in seeing a genuine fight against corruption. It is not impossible though as countries like Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Egypt have demonstrated that it is not impossible to tackle corruption.