No abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze the logics at work when companies decide what corporate features to communicate; which eventually also accounts for their corporate brands' identities.Design/methodology/approachAs a case in point, the paper focuses on the concept of “family business” and investigates the rationale among companies to make particular reference to being such a company on their web sites – a decision the authors interpret as part of the corporate brand identity formation. Interviews are carried out with 14 CEOs in 12 small and medium‐sized family enterprises in a Swedish context. The paper employs a discourse analysis to distinguish patterns of corporate feature selection.FindingsThe results highlight how decisions that define corporate brand identity are not necessarily a consequence of rigorous marketing planning, but are sometimes made without concern for marketing matters. Three logics for the selection and formation of corporate brand identity features are identified: the habit, organic and intended logics. On account of these findings, a three logics model of corporate brand identity formation is developed, proposing differences between intuitive, emergent and strategic processes. In the intuitive process, managers construct brand identity based on tradition, instinctive beliefs and self‐perception. In the emergent process, the decision surfaces from active interplay between self‐perception among managers and the company's identity. In the strategic process, the decision is a product of an explicit brand strategy with focus on corporate communications.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size is small. No large firms are included. The paper focuses on one corporate feature, namely, being a family business.Originality/valueResearch on corporate brand identity is still largely conceptual. Drawing on empirical findings, this paper contributes to available theory and to practical insight.

Drawing on an Entrepreneurship as Practice (EaP) approach, this article examines how next generation members in family owned businesses (FOBs) engage in external venturing. Our study builds on longitudinal qualitative research in two Mexican FOBs where the next generation launched ten ventures. It reveals five different practices of external venturing used by next generation family members: ‘obtaining family approval’, ‘bypassing family’, ‘family venture mimicking’, ‘jockeying in family’, and ‘jockeying around family’. The five practices are combined into three routes for external venturing: ‘imitating the family business’, ‘splitting the family business’, and ‘surpassing the family business’. Building on notions from Michel de Certeau’s practice theory, this study contributes to theorizing the five practices as ways of operating and the routes as modes of sensing to better understand how next generation family members deal with settings featured by dominant orders within the family and the FOB in their attempts to originate and launch their new ventures.

No abstract

This paper elaborates a proximity framework and provides empirical evidence of how knowledge cross-fertilization is instigated at international trade fairs (ITFs) and continued in a cluster network. This paper applies a case study method relying on social network analysis to explore the knowledge cross-fertilization initiated at ITFs and furthered at a Swedish cluster. The findings suggest that firms participating at ITFs translate and re-articulate the acquired external knowledge through their interactions in the cluster network. Creating awareness of the ITFs' influence on innovation is significant for policy-makers and scholars.