Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have become recognised as brands in the
academic and popular domain, but little is known about the relationship between these
senior manager ¿brands¿ and the corporate brand of the organisation they represent.
Since stakeholders associate the CEO¿s reputation with that of the company, they may
negatively or positively affect each other, and there is little research into this dynamic.
Indeed there is only a limited understanding about the field of people branding in
general and much less into CEO brands in particular. Consequently this doctoral thesis
investigates the people and CEO brands phenomena, the relationships between CEO,
corporate brand and stakeholder¿s self-image and how these can be effectively managed
in order to enhance brand equity for the company.
Based on a critical realist perspective, this research examines traditional product
brand elements from the literature and develops a new conceptual framework for people
brands, which is subsequently applied to CEOs. Furthermore a survey is performed with
business school students. The findings are analysed by using content analysis,
descriptive statistics and by developing and testing a Structural Equation Model.
The contribution to knowledge is threefold. Firstly a conceptual framework of
people brands is constructed. Second this model is applied to CEO brands. Third five
propositions about stakeholder perceptions of CEO brand differentiation and equity are
empirically tested. The main findings are that visual presentation is not the main factor
to differentiate CEO brands from each other, nor is their association with the company.
Positive perceptions of corporate brands can influence the reputation of the CEO brand
and lead to an enhancement of their brand equity. Importantly this indicates that
stakeholders do not distinguish between CEO and company. Brand equity is also
created if there is a relationship between stakeholder self-image and company brand,
which in turn can improve the reputation of the CEO brand. Finally brand equity is
enhanced through stakeholder perceptions of an ideal self-image.
Overall this research has important implications for academia and managerial
practice as it extends the knowledge about people and CEO brands and provides an
insight into ways in which the relationships between CEO, company and stakeholders
can be managed to enhance brand equity for the company
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/4892 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Bendisch, Franziska |
| Contributors | Trueman, Myfanwy, Larsen, Gretchen |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, School of Management |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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