Corporate branding and transformational leadership in turbulent times

Purpose: Environmental changes require higher levels of corporate authenticity when communicating with stakeholders. This is achieved by a congruence of stakeholder and brand identities. Focusing on employee identity, the purpose of this paper is to explain relationships of factors predicting brand-building behavior. Design/methodology/approach: The study pursues a triangulation approach, applying case study and survey as research methods and telephone interviews and questionnaires as research techniques in the respective exploratory and explanatory research stages. Findings: Confirmed by exploratory and explanatory research, the antecedent factors of behavioral branding have been elicited. Interestingly, marketing control reflected differentiated results compared to previous research. It showed the highest level of contribution to explain R square followed by role identity salience and value congruence. This factor also had the highest correlation value. Research limitations/implications: Additional qualitative and quantitative research with increased sample size is suggested to validate the findings in diverse cross-cultural research settings. Practical implications: The findings enable global marketing managers to more effectively relate to stakeholders by a holistic, empathetic and authentic corporate branding strategy execution. Originality/value: The interdisciplinary study validates and further develops recent pioneering research by using different measurements, scales and sample scopes. This multidisciplinary research delineates innovative and integrated conceptualizations on corporate branding, identity and leadership and supports the call to upgrade the branding concept within the marketing discipline.