BRANDS AS MEDIATORS A Differentiated View on Brand-Mediation Processes

D i s s e r t a t i o n

Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

eines PhD Management an der Fakultät für Betriebswirtschaft der Universität Innsbruck

eingereicht von

P h i l i p p K . W e g e r e r (Matr. 0415946)

betreut von

Prof. Dr. Andrea Hemetsberger

Innsbruck

am

20. Oktober 2017

Brands as Mediators is a cumulative dissertation consisting of two parts. PART 1 comprises a research synopsis, which provides a literature review, a reflection on the methodological grounding, a summary of the findings of the individual studies and conclusions in respect to the overall theme. PART 2 presents four peer- reviewed research articles. Each article studies a particular brand-mediation process. The four papers are published or are being considered for publication in leading international journals, including Organization, International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, German Journal of Human Resource Management, and ACR Proceedings. Philipp K. Wegerer holds a degree in Political Science and Organization Studies from the University of Innsbruck. He currently works as a research assistant at the Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism at the University of Innsbruck.

BRANDS AS MEDIATORS Philipp K. Wegerer

University of Innsbruck School of Management

Dissertation © 2017 Philipp K. Wegerer University of Innsbruck First Edition, October 2017 ( /6) www.uibk.ac.at/smt/marketing/department/team/wegerer.html Publication orders: philipp.wegerer@gmail.com Printed in Innsbruck

When I write I have to read.

The pace and irony of Michel Houellebecq were my inspiration and relaxation

when writing the research synopsis.

CONTENTS

List of Tables 8

List of Graphics 8

Preface 10

PART 1 13 Introduction 15

Literature Review 19

Analytical Framework 19

Brand-Mediation Processes 23

Management Perspective 23 Consumer Perspective 26 Critical Perspective 28

Methodology 33

Paradigmatic Background 33

Research Process 34

Findings 39

Mediating Managerial Processes 39

Mediating Employee Identity 40

Mediating Consumer Discourses 42

The Ethics of Ambivalence in Brand- Mediation Processes 43

Conclusions 45

References 50

VII

PART 2 59 Research Articles 61

A Theoretical Model for Brand-driven Retail Format Innovation 63

Ethical Branding as a Resource for Employee Identity Work 101

Brand-Mediated Ideological 135

Edge-work 135

Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding 155

Formal Requirements 187

Overview of Publications 189

Publications and Conference Proceedings 189

Public Talks and Media Coverage 191

Eidesstattliche Erklärung 193

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Overview of Findings 47 Table 2: Findings Brand- Mediated Ideological Edgework 151 Table 3: Overview of Publications and Points 188

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Brand- driven Retail Format Innovation 71 Figure 2: Building the Brand Identity 82

Figure 3: Translating the Retail- Brand Identity 84 Figure 4: Materializing the New Retail Format 86 Figure 5: Overview of Band-Driven Retail Format Innovation 91

PREFACE Writing a cumulative dissertation has two main advantages. First, it allows the doctoral

candidate to approach a phenomenon from different angles, to study a variety of

empirical contexts and to explore and exploit different theoretical resources. Second, it

allows them to develop ideas and papers together with colleagues. At this point, I would

like to thank my co-authors Iain Munro, Günther Botschen, Jonathan Schöps and

Andrea Hemetsberger for their contribution to my research projects and Kathrin

Oberhofer for her language editing.

Looking back on these past four years, I have to admit that writing a cumulative

dissertation also provided a number of unexpected challenges. For me, the biggest

challenge was figuring out and understanding the often unwritten rules of publishing

in scientific journals and coping with the often unpredictable peer-review process. This

author suffered from these constraints, but, in the end, the four papers improved

significantly through the comments of the anonymous reviewers. With my four peer-

reviewed research articles, I hope I have proved that I am capable of contributing to

ongoing debates within Organization Studies, Consumer Research and Retailing, but

also that brands are a phenomenon of interdisciplinary significance.

The idea of writing a synopsis is to put the individual research projects in relation to

each other. Similar to a monograph, a synopsis provides a space in which the author

can bring in his own thoughts and his own style. Therefore, I want my synopsis to be

seen and read as a personal reflection on studying brands for four years.

Dear reader, I hope you enjoy reading my work.

Philipp K. Wegerer

PART 1 Research Synopsis

INTRODUCTION

Brands emerged at the beginning of the 20th century as a marketing tool designed to

distribute mass-produced commodities. Since then, brands have developed into a

cultural force that has expanded into a wide diversity of organizational and social

spheres. Brands have transformed the way organizations are managed in terms of

identity, culture and innovation, and have also changed the politics, ethics and aesthetics

of consumption (Kornberger, 2010). Brands are a phenomenon of social significance

that is capable of resolving social contradictions, structuring social interaction and

informing consumer identity formation processes. Brands are of interest in their own

right, but they can also serve as a magnifying glass for studying organizational and social

phenomena. As a core principle of contemporary capitalism, brands are related to the

most urgent ethical questions of contemporary society (Mumby, 2016; Arvidsson, 2007;

2005). On the flip side, as a social phenomenon, brands can also become targets: Brands

and brand meaning can be used, hijacked, transformed and shaped by consumers and

other social actors, such as NGOs, activists and artists.

Brands need some social significance in order to be successful. This is probably the

biggest benefit of studying brands. Brands are loud, they fight for our attention, pursue

us across the internet, invade our everyday life and, what is most important for the

purpose of this study, brands willingly expose themselves to the researcher – one of the

greatest advantages to those who study them. With this dissertation, I intend to

contribute to our understanding of how brands and branding processes unfold in

organizational, managerial and social contexts. Traditionally, branding is seen as a one-

directional communication process, e.g. a sign attached to an entity that signifies some

sort of meaning. The primary analytical premise of this dissertation will be that brands

and branding processes mediate the interactions between different entities.

INTRODUCTION

16

Understanding branding as a mediation process extends the traditional perspective by

highlighting that branding can be understood as a two-directional interaction process

that unfolds between multiple entities. The primary benefit of understanding branding

processes in terms of mediation is that it sheds light onto the interactions that take place

through branding. This implies a view of branding as being an important actor in

facilitating, structuring or constraining the interaction between two or more parties.

The term mediation has been used in a variety of studies on brands and branding

processes (e.g. Mumby, 2016; Kornberger, 2010; Arvidsson and Caliandro, 2016;

Luedicke, Thompson & Giesler, 2010), and is generally used as a term whose meaning

is self-evident, i.e. a term that explains, rather than a concept that needs to be explained.

Up until a year ago, I found myself in the same situation: I too had taken the term to be

self-explanatory and had used it in a more or less prominent form in my research articles.

Now, however, I would like to use the synopsis of this dissertation as an opportunity to

take a more in-depth look at the term mediation itself, and to develop it into a concept

that can be used to understand a broad variety of branding processes. This dissertation

comprises four research papers which study specific branding processes that take place

between management, employees and consumers. The four research papers have

different research questions, draw on different theoretical resources and contribute to

different research communities. With the notion of brand-mediation processes, I develop

an alternative reading of my four research projects. Interpreting the four research papers

through the brand-mediation perspective highlights how brands enable the interaction

between different entities, resolve a conflict between two entities, or structure the

discourse taking place between multiple entities.

PART 1 comprises a literature review which will be used to develop the notion of brand-

mediation into an analytical concept and to develop four guiding research questions.

The Methodology section reflects on the paradigmatic grounding and upon my role

INTRODUCTION

17

within the four individual research projects. The Findings section provides a summary

of the four individual research projects and points out how they contribute to the overall

theme of brand-mediation processes. The Discussion section summarizes the main

findings and conclusions that can be made from this dissertation project. PART 2

presents four individual research articles, each exploring a specific stakeholder

constellation that is mediated by brands. The first study explores how brands mediate

between managerial processes and consumer society and between management and

employees. The second study takes a critical perspective and investigates how brands

mediate between employees and social discourses. The third study explores how a brand

mediates a consumer discourse. Finally, the fourth study explores the ethical

ambivalences that may arise when brands mediate between company goals and wider

social concerns.

LITERATURE REVIEW What do I mean when I refer to branding? What are brands? What is mediation? How

are the individual studies in this dissertation related to the overall theme, and why are

they important? To provide the reader with an understanding of these, the central

concepts of this dissertation, this literature review develops an analytical framework

for the analysis of brand-mediation processes. It continues with a review of key

contributions and concepts in the field of branding and identifies three analytical

perspectives on brand research: a management perspective, a consumer perspective,

and a critical perspective. It concludes by developing four research questions that

exemplify how a brand-mediation perspective can contribute to our understanding of

brands and branding processes.

Analytical Framework

The increasing social significance of brands has generated a growing body of

contributions in a diversity of scientific fields including Marketing, Strategy, Consumer

Research, Semiotics and Organization Theory. Each discipline studies particular

branding processes, applies different analytical tools and uses different theoretical

approaches. This literature review suggests that research on brands and branding

processes can be grouped into three distinct analytical perspectives: A strategic

perspective, a consumer perspective and a critical perspective. The plurality of

contributions within these three perspectives has created a kaleidoscopic picture of

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20

brands with all their benefits and downsides. Be it persons, regions, states, or events,

today brands can be virtually everything and nothing. Definitions of what a brand is

can be as simple as a name or a logo, or as complex as an ongoing social process

involving multiple social actors. Because of the different theoretical lenses and the

plurality of what brands can mean, be or do, we still lack a universally accepted use

and understanding of terms such as brand and branding process. This literature review

takes this plurality as a starting point for its journey in search of what the scholarly

contributions on brands and branding have in common.

This literature review suggests that at the very heart of branding is a process that

mediates the interactions between different entities. What exactly is mediation?

Mediation can be understood as a social process in which a third party (the brand)

structures the interaction between two other parties. That there is some manner of

interaction, tension or conflict situation between two parties is inherent to the notion of

mediation. In the case of branding, there is mainly an interaction between two parties,

or a conflict that is more or less latent in nature. One practical example that points out

how brands mediate the interaction between two other parties is my study on the

fashion brand American Apparel (see Study 3 in PART 2). We studied the Instagram

account of the brand and found that consumers used the comments sections to discuss

ideas of beautyand gender norms. In this case the brand mediates the interaction of

different conflicting parties (consumers with different views of e.g. beauty). The

mediation function of the brand is triggering a discussion and providing a platform for

exchanging arguments. In the individual studies of PART 2 we will see that the

interactions that are mediated by a brand differ in quality, intensity and in the nature of

the conflict involved: they include an open conflict between different consumer groups

(such as the example of American Apparel, Study 3), a latent conflict between

employees and contradictions they face in their identity work (Study 2) or a situation

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in which the brand enables an interaction between management and consumer society

(Study 1).

Brands are in between. Brands connect organizations with consumers, products with

meanings, employees with their employer, and consumers with each other. This

literature review suggests an understanding of the term mediation that focuses on the

role of the brand as the third party in enabling or structuring the interaction of two other

parties. Of course, brands do not have agency; first and foremost, they are a sign

attached to an entity, created for the sole purpose of generating value and distinction

for products, companies or any other entity they are attached to. Branding can be

understood as a set of activities, mainly executed by managers, but can also comprise

activities from other stakeholders such as employees and consumers (Hemetsberger

and Mühlbacher, 2014). The result of branding practices are brands, which can be

understood as “a constellation of signs through which processes of social interaction

and communication are mediated and captured and hence transformed into economic

value” (Mumby 2016, 6).

This dissertation aims to further our understanding of how brands mediate social and

managerial processes. It explores how brands mediate (mediation processes), what

brands mediate (the nature of interaction), and between whom they mediate (parties,

stakeholders, entities). The how perspective – identifying, exploring and explaining

specific brand-mediation process at work – will be the primary focus of this

dissertation. It is fairly obvious that brands mediate by transporting meaning from one

entity to another; however, mediation processes are highly dependent on the parties

between which brands are mediating. Regarding the question of who the parties in the

mediation process are, we will find out that the parties between whom brands mediate

can have different ontological qualities. Brands can mediate between very real existing

stakeholders, such as consumers, employees, NGOs and organizations (Study 1), but

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brands can also mediate between more abstract concepts such as values, ethics, ideas

or social conflicts and categories (Study 1, 2, 4). Brand mediation can happen between

the organization and any internal or external stakeholder, such as management (Study

1), management and consumers (Study 1), management and employees (Study 2) or

between two external stakeholders such as when a brand provides a mediation platform

for the social interaction between consumers (Study 3). A third possibility would be

when a brand mediates between a stakeholder, such as a consumer, and a more abstract

sphere, such as a contradiction in the consumers’ life or a certain discourse in society

(Study 2 and 4). This leaves us with the last dimension of what is mediated. i.e. the

nature of interaction that is mediated. The interaction is of course linked to the

ontological quality of the parties between whom the brand mediates. As stated above,

a too narrow definition of interaction, e.g. in terms of manifest conflicts, would set a

limit on the brand-mediation perspective. In this sense, I refer to the what as any issue

that is capable of creating an interaction between two parties. Looking at the

management as a possible party, we will see that the interactions are related to

managerial tasks, such as the management of organizational identity, the

communication with organizational members, or how to govern organizational change

projects (see Study 1). Employees’ questions tend to resonate around issues such as:

How can I derive meaning from my job? How can I cope with the contradictions created

by my job or wider social discourses? What, beyond money, can motivate me? (Study

2 and 4). Finally, looking at the stakeholder groups of consumers and society, conflicts

that emerge include: How can I become a responsible consumer? How can I trust my

buying decisions? How can I escape the boredom of everyday life? (Study 3). As we

will see, understanding brands in terms of mediation processes provides a fruitful

theoretical lens to understand the diverse social roles and function of brands in a way

that transcends disciplinary, theoretical and analytical boundaries.

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Brand-Mediation Processes

Management Perspective To understand branding processes, one has to acknowledge the conceptual roots of

branding in early marketing science. Brands were developed in the context of growing

concern for the distribution of mass-produced commodities at the turn of the 20th

century (Shaw and Jones, 2005). The aim of early brand researchers was to provide

branding practitioners with tools and processes that would help them to create

distinction for the increasing similar commodities of industrial production. Therefore,

branding was developed as – and still is – a managerial process for creating distinction.

Over time, the focus shifted from branding individual products towards transforming

entire organizations into brands (Burghausen and Balmer, 2015, Cornelissen, Haslam

and Balmer, 2007). This had significant implications for the function of brands. Brands

transformed from being a process of distinction to a tool that mediates the interaction

between top management and different stakeholders. Brands were found to be capable

of managing various organizational processes, including product distribution (Knox

and Bickerton, 2013), human resource allocation (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Miles

and Mangold, 2007), corporate communications (Balmer and Gray, 1999; Balmer,

Dinnie, 1999), strategy (Hatch and Schultz, 2003), and innovation (Botschen and

Wegerer, 2016). The primary research interest of the management perspective is

instrumental and the focus is on developing frameworks and guidelines. Examples of

such frameworks include “the seven characteristics model of brands” (Tilley, 1999),

“the six principles of corporate branding” (Knox and Bickerton, 2003), or “the five

guidelines for brand management” (Hatch and Schultz, 2003).

The management perspective (which I will later refer to as the traditional perspective)

is mainly concerned with the interactions of the top management. This can be the

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interactions with internal stakeholders such as employees and middle managers or

external stakeholders such as consumers, investors, suppliers, and authorities. The

function of the brand is to mediate between the top management’s vision and strategy

and the interests of other stakeholder groups. Regarding internal stakeholders, the brand

functions mainly as a top-down communication tool and on the basis of integrating

different processes and aligning the behavior of different actors. Regarding external

stakeholders, the brand’s primary function is to communicate an integrated and

consistent picture of the organization.

One of the key concepts which exemplifies the mediation of managerial processes is

corporate branding (e.g. Balmer 1995, 1998, 2011; Balmer and Gray, 1999; Urde,

Greyser and Balmer 2011; Hatch and Schulz, 2003). Corporate branding suggests that

branding is a process that takes place between strategic vision, organizational culture

and corporate image. The brand is seen as the holistic expression of the organization

and should mediate the interactions between the organization and all stakeholders

including: “[e]mployees, customers, investors, suppliers, partners, regulators, special

interests and local communities” (Hatch and Schultz, 2003). The core idea of corporate

branding is that it is more efficient for an organization when all interaction activities

are shifted to the corporate level, since “[a] corporate brand is the visual, verbal and

behavioral expression of an organizations unique business model” (Nox and Bickerton,

2003, p. 1013). The concepts of brand identity (Balmer, Soenen and Guillaume, 1999;

Borgerson et al., 2009) and brand culture (He and Balmer, 2007) are conceptually close

to corporate branding. Both suggest that branding should function as a mediating device

between the organization and the organizational members: “Corporate identity

projects” are “built around the corporate vision, articulated by an organization’s chief

executive” (Balmer, Soenen and Guillaume, 1999 p.69). The management should

compare the “actual Identity” with the “communicated Identity”, the “ideal Identity”

and the “desired Identity” (Balmer, Soenen and Guillaume, 1999).

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It can be concluded that corporate branding focuses on the way the brand mediates the

interactions and conflicts of the top management with various other parties, including

organizational members, such as middle managers and employees, or with different

organizational units and departments. The brand is seen as the condensed form and

expression of the inner core of the organization and should mediate all interactions

within the organization and between the organization and the outside world. The

corporate brand is developed from the inside out and top down. The top management

creates the corporate brand based on the corporate identity, culture and vision and

communicates it to the stakeholders. Branding can therefore be considered as a one-

directional communication process. The brand is seen as a sign or tool that allows the

management to communicate in a structured and unified way with internal and external

stakeholders. What most contributions within corporate branding lack, is to consider

the outside world as an important resource and reference system for creating and

maintaining corporate brands and for managing organizational processes.

Understanding corporate branding as a mediation process would suggest studying

branding as a two-directional mediation process between the inside and the outside,

and between top management, employees and external stakeholders. This implies that

brands can be built from the outside in, and that external stakeholders and consumer

culture must be considered as an important resource and reference system for

developing corporate brands. Based on this considerations the first research question

of this dissertation is:

• How do brands mediate between managerial processes and consumer culture?

This research question is taken up with the first research project entitled “A theoretical

model for brand-driven retail format innovation”. The paper studies how corporate

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branding can be understood as a management process that works from the outside-in.

The corresponding paper can be found in PART 2 (page 65 ff.) of this dissertation.

Consumer Perspective How can the consumer perspective on brands and the branding process be analysed

from a mediation perspective? What stakeholder relations and conflicts are the focus?

What processes can be identified? Which insights and open questions emerge from this

evaluation?

Whereas the management perspective focuses on management as the primary actor,

and as we will see the critical perspective has a narrow – probably overly narrow –

focus upon the relation between brands and employees, the consumer perspective

focuses on the social functions of brands and on the consumer as the primary actor in

creating, interpreting and transforming brand meaning (Schroeder, 2013). Brands are

seen as part of popular culture, situated within a wider social, cultural and historical

context. Therefore, the research focus is on the interaction of brands with consumers

(Cayla and Eckhardt, 2008; Hemar-Nicolas and Rodhain, 2017; Schroeder and Salzer-

Mörling, 2006; Zhiyan, Borgerson and Schroeder, 2013). Central concepts within the

consumer perspective are the concepts of Brand Culture and Consumer Culture

(Schroeder, 2017). Brand Culture is defined as “the cultural codes of brands – history,

images, myths, art and theatre – that influence brand meaning and values in the

marketplace” (Schroeder, 2009). The analytical focus is therefore on the interaction of

brands and consumers – how brands are influenced and shaped by cultural dynamics,

ideologies, new trends and other social phenomena (Balmer and Gray, 1999;

Heilbrunn, 2015; Schroeder 2009). Within consumer research, Consumer Culture

Theorists (CCT) (see Thompson 2011; Vargo and Lusch, 2004) have defined brands as

powerful cultural artefacts that emerge as part of an interactive process shaped by

‘cultural rituals, economic activities and social norms’ (Schroeder 2009, p. 124). The

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primary research interests is on the “sociocultural, experiential, symbolic and

ideological aspects” of brands (Arnould and Thompson 2005, p. 868). Within this

perspective, three brand/consumer configurations can be identified. First, Brands

mediate between consumers and contradictions they face in their identity projects (e.g.

Holt, 2006; Holt and Cameron, 2010). Second, brands facilitate the interaction between

consumers (e.g. Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001) and third, Social Media alters the way in

which brands interact with consumers (Arvidsson and Caliandro, 2016).

A famous – perhaps even overly famous – concept that describe the way brands

facilitate the interaction between consumers is the notion of brand communities (Muniz

and O’Guinn, 2001). The concept of brand communities exemplifies how brands can

form a focal point of more or less intense and enduring social interaction and

community formation processes. In the case of brand communities, it was found that

admirers of a brand form “a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based

on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand” (Muniz and O’Guinn,

2001, p.412). In this case, specific consumer brands were capable of mediating the

formation of a community with a “shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a

sense of moral responsibility” (p.412). Recently, the concept of brand communities has

been criticized for its lake of empirical significance, and has been extended and

challenged with the notion of brand publics. Arvidsson and Caliandro (2016) found

that in the context of Social Media, social bounds around brands are less tight, less

enduring, and less discourse-oriented than the notion of brand communities suggests.

They further found that consumers tend to use brands as ‘mediating devices’ for

structuring social interaction and that the brand works “as a medium that can give

publicity” (ibid.). Their study can be interpreted in the sense that Social Media

platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and, more recently, Snapchat, provide

a new mediation platform that structures the interaction of consumers and brands.

However, their notion of brand publics covers only a small minority of consumers and

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does not explain enduring and discourse-oriented online interactions of consumers.

Future research within the consumer perspective could therefore further our

understanding of how Social Media platforms have altered the way consumers interact

with each other, and the way brands interact with consumers. The third research project

of this dissertation project takes up this question and asks:

• How do brands mediate consumer discourses in the context of Social Media?

This research question studies the empirical phenomenon of brand-mediated online

discourses that unfold on Social Media platforms. The corresponding paper is entitled

‘Brand-mediated Ideological Edgework’ and can be found in PART 2 (page 95 ff.) of

this dissertation.

Critical Perspective Within Critical Management Studies and Organization Theory, brands have been

identified as ‘mediators’ in two related respects: on an subjective level for employees

and consumers (Müller, 2017a; 2017b; Wegerer, 2013) and on an ideological level1 in

articulating the relationship between capital and society (Mumby, 2016; Arvidsson,

2007, Wegerer and Munro, forthcoming).

On a subjective level brands have been found to mediate the relationship between

management and employees by resolving conflicts around identity, identification, and

control. The concepts of normative and neo-normative control suggest that employees

are increasingly controlled through an emphasis on ‘being yourself’ in the work place

(Fleming and Sturdy, 2009; Endrissat et al., 2016) and that brands mediate employee

1 The differentiation in ideological and subjective brand- mediation processes was developed together with Iain Munro during our work on the paper “The Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding” (Organization, forthcoming). See also PART 2 for an extensive discussion of the concept.

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meaning-making activities (Brannan et al., 2015). This can be facilitated through

encouraging employees to bring their non-work identities into the workplace (Endrissat

et al., 2016; Land and Taylor, 2010, Brannan et al., 2015). The brand mediates in two

directions: employees “receive identity opportunities to validate their desired sense of

self”, and the brand is built “outside-in through association with employees who

embody relevant characteristics in their identities and lifestyles” (Endrissat et al., 2016

p.1). This two-directional process has been evaluated more critically as a brand-

facilitated immaterial labour process that exploits the social capital of employees (Land

and Taylor, 2010), and transforms employees into “brand representatives (…) in their

private lives” (Müller, 2017, p.895).

It can be concluded that the critical perspective has studied how brands mediate the

relations between companies and employees mainly on a subjective level and in terms

of control. Regarding the relationship of employees and organizations, they key

findings are that brands mediate meaning-creating processes in two directions: They

are capable of incorporating sociality into the organizational identity and they can

provide identity opportunities for employees. For future research it could be fruitful to

study branding processes beyond the notion of control and to focus more on how brands

mediate between employees and social discourses. The influence of brand discourses

onto employee identity is also not yet fully explored. Therefore, the second research

question of this dissertation is:

• How do brands mediate between social discourses and employee identity work?

This research question extends existing research on brand-mediated control by setting

the focus upon the identity aspects of normative control. It also focuses on the way in

which brands derive meaning from social discourses and how brands influence the

identity work of employees outside the immediate work setting. The corresponding

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research paper is entitled ‘Ethical branding as a resource for employee identity work’

and can be found in PART II (page 125 ff.) of this dissertation.

Brand are not only capable of incorporating the lifestyle of their employees, but also of

co-opting other external resources, such as the ethics developed by social movement

organizations (Wegerer and Munro, forthcoming; Jeanes, 2013; Wegerer, 2013) or the

narratives of human rights activist (Muhr and Rehn, 2014). This leads us to the

ideological dimension of brand mediation and the question: How do brands mediate

the relationship between capital and society? Contributions investigating this

dimension of branding processes are mainly conceptual in nature (Mumby, 2016;

Arvidsson, 2007, 2005; Lury, 2014; Kornberger, 2010; Willmott 2010). Brands have

been described as ‘interfaces’ (Lury, 2004), as “the mechanism through which capital

is socialized” (Mumby, 2016, p.4), and as expression of ‘a new economic logic’ that is

based “on the ability to appropriate, enclose or otherwise valorize a socially produced

surplus” (Arvidsson 2007, p.7). Despite their mainly conceptual reasoning, these

studies provide a fruitful ground for future empirical work that explores “the

intersection of branding and organizing” (Mumby, 2016, p.1). Branding can be

considered as an analytical way to “more effectively address the ways in which

neoliberal capitalism and post-Fordist organizational forms mediate processes of

meaning construction and human identity formation” (Mumby 2016, p.1). These

contributions could mark a paradigmatic turn in critical brand research, since they argue

for understanding brands and branding processes as an analytical perspective in its own

right and suggest that mediation is a key dimension of brands and branding processes.

As yet, little empirical research has been done that considers branding as an analytical

category, or that studies brand-mediated social relations within communicative

capitalism. For future research it may be fruitful to focus on how the mediation

processes on an ideological and an individual level are related to each other. Moreover,

the ethical ambivalences that are created through brands and branding processes are

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not yet fully explored. In this light, the increasing mediation of ethical conflicts created

through ethical consumption and production and the increasing rise of movements that

voluntarily restrict consumption practices such as Fair Trade, Sustainability, Vegan or

Organic Movement would provide interesting contexts for studying how brands

mediate human meaning-making and identity projects. The fourth research project of

this dissertation will therefore investigate the research question of:

• What tensions and contradictions emerge when brands mediate between

capital and society?

This research question shifts the focus towards the tensions that emerge when an ethical

brand mediates on an ideological level between ethical discourses in society on the one

hand and managerial objectives on the other. The corresponding research paper is

entitled ‘Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding’ and can be found in PART 2

(page 141 ff.) of this dissertation.

METHODOLOGY

In this section I reflect upon the ontological and epistemological assumptions my

dissertation project is based upon, on the research methods applied, and on my role in

the research process. I will outline my major philosophical assumptions, which are in

line with constructivism, and explain how they translate into my research projects.

Based on Bourdieu and Wacquant’s (1996) concepts of ‘reflexivity’ I will reflect upon

my personal background, the ‘microcosms’ of my scientific discipline and my scientific

practice.

Paradigmatic Background2 3

“All research approaches make ontological assumption about the nature of reality

and social beings” (Hudson and Ozanne 1988, p. 509)

The aim of this dissertation is to gain a deeper understanding of how brands mediate

organizational and social processes, and in particular of how brands mediate between

different stakeholder groups such as management, employees and consumers. In order

to achieve this goal, this dissertation comprises four interpretative studies that employ

different methods, all following a social constructivist paradigm (e.g. Gergen 2009).

2 Some arguments of this section are based on Wegerer (2013). The dissertations of Husemann (2014) and Gabl (2016) were an important resource of inspiration for writing the Paradigmatic Background. 3 At this point I want to thank Iain Munro for our extensive discussion of Rorty’s Contingence, Irony and Solidarity. This book was a constant resource of reflection and contemplation when thinking about brands, brand ethics and the contemporary discourse on consumption ethics.

METHODOLOGY

34

Research approaches in the interpretative tradition gain access to reality by interpreting

the complex meanings that humans ascribe to a phenomenon (Myers 2013); meaning

here being both context-dependent and evolving. Applying theories helps the

researcher to understand the context (Myers 2013, Neuman 2000). Interpretative

researchers acknowledge the complexity of social reality. The continuous change in

meanings prompts researchers to be sensitive to subjects’ varying interpretations of one

and the same thing, event, or object under study (Myers 2013, Neuman 2000).

My social constructivist understanding of branding processes denies the objective and

universal existence of brands and instead views brands as complex, multifaceted and

dialectic social processes. What brands ultimately are is the sum of a collective

understanding of what brands might be (Caruana 2007). This implies that brand

research is as a way of interpreting the intersubjective meanings through which

consumers view the world (Marsden and Littler 1996, 645). Whereas positivist

researchers are in search of general, context-independent and abstract laws about

brands, my approach is interested in studying specific branding processes in their

particular contexts. Thus, my goal is not to define an abstract law, but to understand

particular branding processes in their context. It is in this light that my case studies

should be seen.

Research Process Bourdieu and Wacquant (1996) suggest that “reflexivity” is an approach to enhancing

“objectivity” in social science and to validating findings. They suggest a three-level

approach to reflection upon the researcher’s assumptions. First, the researcher should

reflect on their own personal social origin and background. Second, scientists should

understand the “microcosms” of their scientific discipline. Third, and most important,

METHODOLOGY

35

a social scientist should continuously “analyze and control” their scientific practice.

This concept of a reflection on three levels will guide my methodological approach.

Personal background. My path to becoming a social scientist and a brand researcher

has been a long and winding road, and anything but direct. Coming from a purely

technical background I came into contact with the social sciences when studying

Geography at the University of Innsbruck. My intellectual thinking is guided by my

background in Political Theory, Philosophy and Sociology. While studying for my

Master’s degree I was influenced by Organization Theory and Critical Management

Studies, which had a considerable impact on my thinking about branding and branding

processes. It was while studying for my PhD that I discovered the fields of Consumer

Culture Theory and Marketing Theory as a new way of looking at branding phenomena.

Reflecting on my PhD projects, I think all three of these areas are apparent in the

selection and framing of my research projects. While Study 2 and Study 3 are the result

of my background in Organization Theory, Study 4 is the result of my engagement with

Consumer Culture Theory. Study 1, my last research project, is informed by a classical

Strategic Marketing approach, and strongly influenced by the work of my co-author

Günther Botschen.

Microcosm of the field. The second step of the analysis is to reflect upon the microcosm

of one’s scientific community. As I outlined in the previous section, every scholar is

socialized in a specific scientific community that is characterized by a distinct way of

developing an argument and of defining what is seen as a true statement and what is

not. Since I was socialized in four different scientific disciplines (Geography, Political

Science, Organization Studies and Consumer Culture Theory), I experienced the

different meanings of truth in different scientific disciplines within my own work. This

became most apparent in my change from Organization Studies to Consumer Culture

Theory. I had to learn that what counted as a relevant research question, an argument

METHODOLOGY

36

and a conclusion in Organization Theory did not necessarily count as those things in

Consumer Research. I still consider this differences between different research

communities as highly problematic. It shows how scientific knowledge itself is a social

construct, constituted by the collective understanding of a small group of researchers.

Nevertheless, I think that this dissertation shows how a phenomenon can be fruitfully

studied from different angles, using different theoretical lenses and contributing to

different research communities.

Intellectual bias. For Bourdieu and Wacquant (1996) the third bias, i.e. the “intellectual

bias”, is the most important issue to reflect on, because,

“If we understand the world as a spectacle, or as an ensemble of meanings, rather than

concrete problems calling for solutions, we have a more precarious situation and the

impact is much deeper than the researcher’s bias or the nature of the scientific field.”

Bourdieu and Wacquant (1996) suggest not focusing on an “intellectual introspection”,

but rather analysing the scientific practice. In order to reflect on my own scientific

practice I will discuss my role as a researcher in the different studies. A detailed

description of the methodological approaches of the four individual studies can be

found in the Methodology sections of the individual papers in PART 2 of this

dissertation.

Study 1. For Study 1, my co-author Günther Botschen was responsible for the data

collection process. He used an action research approach based on Argyris and Schön

(1996) and John Dewey (1938). The presented framework is based on theorizing a

brand-based consulting approach that my co-author developed in the course of his

academic career and which is the business model of the Innsbruck-based consulting

company BRAND LOGIC. My primary role in the research process was to situate the

METHODOLOGY

37

framework within existing branding theory and to develop a contribution for the field

of retailing. I contributed a good deal to the writing processes and to designing the

graphics for the article. For a detailed description of the data collection and analysis

processes, see the methodology section of Article 1.

Study 2 and 4 are based on a research project that began with an initial interest in how

employees draw on brands as discursive resources to construct meaning in their work

(Kärreman and Rylander 2008). In both studies I was the leading author, making all

important decisions. Based on qualitative interviews, I studied how branding informs

employee identity work. This resulted in article 2. With my co-author Iain Munro I

continued to work on the case and analysed the contradictions created by the brand.

This cooperation resulted in Article 4. For a detailed description of the data collection

and analysis processes see the methodology section of Articles 2 and 4.

Study 3 is concerned with brand-mediated discourses began with a personal, empirical

observation of my own, namely that that the ads of the company American Apparel

(AA) triggered an ambivalent reaction in myself. I started a reading process in which I

wanted to understand the function of these ads. Therefore I started with an interest in

visual studies and visual methods. My role in the subsequent research process was that

of project manager; I started my empirical investigation with the help of two Master’s

Students, Miriam Schramm and Caroline Wamsler. With the help of Ms. Wamsler, I

found out that the fashion brand mixes gender-specific visual representational styles,

representing women in the way men are usually portrayed and conversely portraying

men in a manner traditionally used for women. I continued my work on the project with

my colleague Jonathan Schöps. We shifted our attention towards the brand’s

INSTAGRAM account and discovered that some of American Apparel’s ads triggered

an extensive discourse among consumers. We became interested in understanding this

METHODOLOGY

38

discourse and the role of the brand in this discourse. For a detailed description of the

data collection and analysis process, see the methodology section of Article 3.

FINDINGS This dissertation is a cumulative work comprising four research articles, each of which

explores a different aspect of brands and branding processes. Each research article has

an individual research question, empirical context, data collection process and is

written for a different research community. In this section I provide a brief summary

of the main findings and point out how the four studies contribute to the overall theme

of this dissertation and enhance our understanding of brand-mediation processes.

Mediating Managerial Processes

The first article, entitled ‘A Theoretical Model for Brand-Driven Retail Format

Innovation’, was written in co-operation with Günther Botschen and was published in

the International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management45 in August 2017.

The study is based on the premise that branding, understood as a holistic management

principle, can serve as a tool for governing different organizational processes such as

product development , distribution, marketing or human resource management (Balmer

and Gray, 2003; Knox and Bickerton, 2003; Hatch and Schultz, 2003; Tilley, 1999).

The article develops the Brand-driven Retail Format Innovation (BRFI) approach,

which is a three-phase framework that outlines how branding can be used as a strategic

4 see page 65 for a full version of this paper.

5 cite as: Botschen, G. & Wegerer, P. (2017). Brand- driven retail format innovation: a conceptual framework. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 45(7/8), 874- 891.

FINDINGS

40

tool for retail format innovation projects. The primary analytical perspective of the

framework is the process dimension. The framework suggests that a successful retail

format must be connected to a set of distinct socio-cultural meanings. The study

connects the concepts of branding and retail format innovation in a conceptual three-

stage framework that can be used to approach retail format innovation in a structured

way (Sorescu et al., 2011; Baxendale et al., 2015). The retail innovation process

consists of the definition of the retailer’s organizational brand identity (phase 1), its

translation into touchpoint experiences (phase 2) and the alignment of organizational

processes, structures and employee behaviours (phase 3). This approach contributes to

the brand-mediation perspective by outlining how brands can mediate innovation

processes. The primary theoretical contribution is that innovation must be understood

as a process that works from the outside in and that innovation is a process that affects

all organizational stakeholders, practices, structures and processes (Hristov and

Reynolds, 2015; Reinarzt et al., 2011).

The brand serves as a mediator in several ways. First, the brand mediates the interaction

between the organization and its environment and exploits socio-cultural meanings

from within consumer society for the construction of an intended organizational

identity. Second, the brand translates the intended organizational identity into concrete

touchpoint experiences. Finally, the brand aligns all organizational processes and actors

towards the intended outcome.

Mediating Employee Identity The paper corresponding to the second study is entitled ‘Ethical Branding as a Mediator

for Employee Identity Work: A Case Study’. It is written as a single publication and is

accepted as a Competitive Paper (will be published as an Extended Abstract) for the

FINDINGS

41

2017 ACR Conference in San Diego, and conditionally accepted for publication as a

full paper in the German Journal of Human Resource Management67.

The primary aim of this paper is to study how employees draw on the narratives of an

ethical brand in order to construct meaning in and beyond their work. The theory

section of the paper links the concepts of employee identity work with branding

processes and outlines how brands transform social discourses into meaningful brand

stories. The empirical contribution outlines how this co-optation of ethical discourses

mediates three modes of identity work among employees: i) self-definition by

delimitation, ii) self-definition as morally superior, and iii) providing a common sense

of mission. The findings extend research on brand-mediated organizational control

(Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Endrissat et. al. 2016, Müller 2017) by identifying

specific processes of identity work that are activated by branding processes. The study

thus provides an empirical example of the increasing capitalization of sociality (see

Alvesson 2013, Brannan et al. 2011, Kornberger 2010, Mumby 2016, Land and Taylor

2010) and the subsumption of ethics through branding (Kornberger 2010, Jeanes 2013).

The study contributes to the critical perspective on branding processes by extending

existing research regarding the way brands act as mediators on a subjective level

(Müller 2017a, 2017b; Kärreman and Rylander, 2008; Endrissat et al., 2016; Brannan

et al., 2015). The paper highlights that brand mediation works on the basis of

transforming discourses in society into coherent stories, which can be used by

employees in their identity work.

6 See page 95 for a full version of this paper.

7cite as: Wegerer, P. (2017). Ethical Branding as a Mediator for Employee Identity Work: A Case Study. German Journal of Human Ressource Management (forthcoming).

FINDINGS

42

Mediating Consumer Discourses

The paper corresponding to the third study is entitled ‘Brand-mediated Ideological

Edgework: Negotiating the Human Body’. It is written in cooperation with Jonathan

Schöps and Andrea Hemetsberger and is accepted as an Competitive Paper (published

as Full Paper) for the 2017 ACR Conference in San Diego89.

The third study sets the analytical focus upon the way brands mediate the interaction

between consumers. The study contributes to the consumer perspective on brand-

mediation processes by empirically outlining how a brand mediates consumer

discourses. The study finds that the Instagram account of the fashion brand American

Apparel provides a platform which facilitates an extensive consumer discourse that

revolves around the topics of beauty, social norms and gender. In terms of mediation

processes, it is found that the brand mediates through authenticating performances

(Arnould and Price 2000), agenda setting (Ragas and Roberts 2009; Sutherland and

Galloway 1981) and sensitizing (Hirschman and Thompson 1997). On the consumer

side it is found that the consumers applaud the brand, moralize (Luedicke, Thompson,

and Giesler 2010), and negotiate body-related ideologies (Rokka and Moisander 2009;

Thompson and Hirschman 1995; Thompson, Rindfleisch, and Arsel 2006). The paper

introduces the concept of brand-mediated ideological edgework in order to illustrate

how brands mediate consumer discourses. Ideological edgework has been defined as

marketplace performances of consumers that “challenge orthodox gender boundaries,

without losing socio-cultural legitimacy” (Thompson and Üstüner 2015, 1). Whereas

8 See page 125 for a full version of this paper.

9 cite as: Schöps, J., Wegerer, P. & Hemetsberger, A. (2017). Brand-mediated Ideological Edgework: Negotiating the Aestheticized Human Body on Instagram- The Case of American Apparel. Advances in Consumer Research (44). (forthcoming).

FINDINGS

43

Thompson and Üstüner (2015) focus on the consumer as primary actor, the present

study points out that brands can also play a significant role in the (de-)construction of

social reality and market morality.

In terms of mediation processes, the findings show that the brand plays an ambivalent

role. It provides a space for consumers to negotiate social norms and at the same time

sets the boundaries in which the discourse is taking place. The findings contrast with

existing research by suggesting that Social Media-based consumer culture may very

well be structured by discourse, and not only by publicity (Arvidsson and Caliandro

2016; Marwick 2015; Presi et al. 2016; Rokka and Canniford 2016).

The Ethics of Ambivalence in Brand- Mediation Processes

The research article corresponding to the fourth study is entitled as ‘Ethics of

Ambivalence in Corporate Branding: A Case Study’. It is co-authored with Iain Munro,

and conditionally accepted for publication in the Journal Organization1011.

The study contributes to the critical perspective on brands and branding processes by

revealing contradictions that emerge when employees make sense of their brand. The

study focuses on how brand-mediation processes on an ideological level (between

capital and society) inform mediation processes on a subjective level (between

employees and management). The findings reveal that although employees show a

remarkably high identification with their company’s ethical brand image, a deeper

ambivalence subsists in their perception of the brand. The analysis reveals three areas

10 See page 141 for a full version of the paper

11 cite as: Wegerer, P. & Munro, I. (2017). The Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding. Organization (forthcoming).

FINDINGS

44

of ambivalences: i) an ambivalence between the high employee identification with the

brand in contrast to their ignorance of its specific values and practices, ii) ambivalences

between the aims of the brand pedagogy and the admission that these have little effect

in practice, and iii) the ambivalence in the stated aim of ethically transforming the

industry in contrast to maintaining an exclusive market nice. Building on extant studies

of how ethical branding acts as a mechanism for cultural control (Brannan et al. 2015;

Endrissat et al. 2016; Jeanes, 2013; Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Müller 2016;

Mumby, 2016), the present study shows how the brand permits employees to draw

upon ethical discourse to understand their work whilst forestalling more fundamental

questioning of the kinds of choices that consumer capitalism and ethical branding offer.

The study makes the following contributions to the understanding of the ethics of

brand-mediation processes: i) it provides an empirical case study of an ethical brand

which reveals the contradictions in the employees’ accounts of their company’s brand,

and ii) it introduces the concept of the ethics of ambivalence as a way of understanding

these contradictions, showing how this ambivalence permits only a very restricted level

of critical reflection about ethical issues. The ethics of ambivalence in branding are a

symptom of the tensions that emerge when putting ethical discourses in the service of

a niche brand.

In contrast to studies that have argued that the ambivalence inherent in brands provides

a foundation for the immanent critique of capitalism (Banet-Weiser 2013, Mumby,

2016), this case shows that the ambivalence of the brand is little more than a symptom

of the subsumption of ethical discourses by a company. The ethics of ambivalence

allow the brand to present a superficial critique of capitalism while at the same time

exploiting a comfortable market niche within this very system.

CONCLUSIONS This dissertation makes the following empirical and theoretical contributions to

research on branding: i) it develops the notion of ‘brand-mediation processes’ as a way

of understanding how branding enables interaction process between different actors; ii)

it introduces the concept of ‘brand-driven retail format innovation’ (BDRFI), which

outlines how brands can mediate between strategy and consumer culture; iii) it develops

the concept of ‘brand-mediated identity work’ and identifies three processes at work

when employees draw on a brand in their identity work; iv) it introduces the concept of

‘brand-mediated ideological edgework’, which describes how brands mediate

consumer discourses; and finally, iv) it presents the notion of ‘ethics of ambivalence’

as a way of understanding the contradictions that emerge when an brands mediate

between capital and society.

The primary analytical premise of this dissertation is that brands and branding processes

mediate the interactions between different entities. The vast majority of branding

literature understands branding as a one-directional, top-down communication process,

e.g. a sign attached to an entity that signifies some sort of meaning to an interpretant

(see Chapter 2). Understanding branding as a mediation process extends this

perspective by highlighting that branding can be understood as a two-directional

interaction process that unfolds between at least two entities. The primary benefit of

understanding branding processes in terms of mediation is that it sheds light onto the

interactions that are facilitated through branding. This implies a view of branding as

having an important function in enabling, structuring, or constraining the interaction

between two or more parties. Whereas the traditional perspective on branding focuses

on one-directional interactions between organizations and internal or external

stakeholders, the mediation perspective sheds light onto a wide variety of other

CONCLUSIONS

46

interaction configurations. Based on the notion of brand-mediation processes, this

dissertation finds that brands are capable of mediating between strategic orientation and

consumer society (Studies 1 and 4), between employees and organizational processes

(Studies 1 and 2), between employees and discourses in society (Studies 2 and 4) and,

between different consumers (Study 3). Revealing these different brand-mediated

interaction processes has proven that the brand-mediation perspective is an analytically

rich concept for studying how brands inform social processes that take place within and

beyond organizational boundaries. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the suggested

brand-mediation framework comes with a number of limitations. The analytical

framework represents a first attempt to theorize the notion of mediation in terms of

branding. The aim was to open up a new perspective rather than develop a robust theory.

Therefore, future research could take up the notion of brand mediation and develop it

further.

The four individual studies of this dissertation provide a number of individual

contributions to the brand-mediation perspective and to the three perspectives within

brand research:

First, this dissertation contributes to the management perspective on branding processes

by outlining how brands can mediate managerial processes. The study extends the

concept of corporate branding (Hatch and Schultz, 2003; Balmer 2011) by considering

socio-cultural meanings developed within consumer culture can serve an important

resource and a reflecting point for managerial activities. The BDRFI framework

suggests exploiting consumer culture as a resource for the selection of socio-cultural

meanings, which are used as anchors around which the innovation process is designed.

In terms of actors, the first study points out how brands mediate interactions between

consumer culture and organizational objectives, and the interactions between

management and employees.

CONCLUSIONS

47

BRAND-MEDIATION PROCESSES

MANAGERIAL

PERPECTIVE CONSUMER

PERSPECTIVE CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

Concept ‘Brand- driven Retail

Format Innovation’ Brand- mediated

Ideological

Edgework’

‘Brand- mediated

Identity Work’ ‘Ethics of

Ambivalence’

Key Actor Management Consumer Employees Employees

Conflicts Innovation/ Integration

Beauty/ Gender/

Social Norms Identity Work/ Identification

Contradictions

Processes i) define brand-

Identity

ii) translate into

touch points

iii) align processes

i) authenticating

ii) agenda- setting

iii) sensitizing

iv) applauding

v) moralizing

vi) negotiating

i) delimitating from

others

ii) moral superiority

iii) common sense of

mission

i) identification

vs. ignorance

ii) aims vs.

effects

iii) market niche

vs. industry

transformation

Table 1: Overview of Findings

Second, this dissertation contributes to the critical perspective (e.g. Mumby 2016) on

brands by enhancing our understanding of how brands mediate the relationship between

organizations and employees. Study 2 points out how brands act as mediators on a

subjective level, between social discourses and employees (Müller 2017a, 2017b;

Kärreman and Rylander, 2008; Endrissat et al., 2016; Brannan et al., 2015) (Mumby,

2016; Arvidsson, 2007). The theoretical contribution of Study 2 extends existing

research on employee identity work (Brannan et al., 2015, Alvesson and Willmott,

2002) by identifying the specific ‘modes of identity work’ that are mediated by

CONCLUSIONS

48

branding processes. In particular, it identifies the following brand-mediation processes:

i) self-definition by delimitation, ii) self-definition as morally superior, and iii)

providing a common sense of mission. The study highlights how ethical brands function

on the basis of transforming discourses in society into coherent stories.

Third, this dissertation contributes to the consumer perspective on brands and branding

processes by outlining how brands mediate the interactions between consumers

(Arvidsson and Caliandro, 2016; Cayla and Eckhardt, 2008; Hemar-Nicolas and

Rodhain, 2017; Zhiyan, Borgerson). The findings of Study 3 show that brands and

Social Media platforms can work together in providing a space for consumers to

negotiate social norms. On the other hand, it finds that the brand also sets the boundaries

within which this discourse is taking place. The findings contribute to extant research

by introducing the concept of brand-mediated ideological edgework to illustrate how

brands provide a mediating platform for consumer discourses. The study therefore

shows how brands construct or deconstruct social reality and market morality.

Fourth and finally, this dissertation explores the tensions and contradictions that

emerge when brands mediate on an ideological level. The fourth study introduces the

concept of ethics of ambivalence as a way of understanding the contradictions at work

when brands mediate the relationship between capital and society. The study outlines

how brand-mediation processes are characterized by ethics of ambivalence that

facilitate the subsumption of radical ethical discourses for the purposes of niche

marketing. The study shows that the ethical ambivalence inherent in brands permits a

limited space for critical reflection on ethical issues, whilst simultaneously acting as a

cultural resource to develop a strong company culture and subsume these ethical

concerns into economic processes of capitalist production. This study proposes that the

ethics of ambivalence are less a manifestation of resistance than a fundamental

characteristic of the ‘subsumption’ of social relations under capitalism.

CONCLUSIONS

49

This dissertation comes with a number of limitations and suggestions for future

research. First, the suggested brand-mediation perspective is not yet fully theoretically

elaborated. The notion of mediation is a rather broad concept, and can be criticized for

being everything and nothing all at once. Mediation has been used in the context of

branding before, but has never been defined or theorized properly. This dissertation was

a first attempt towards developing a theory of brand-mediation processes. Future

research could extend the notion of mediation by providing a more robust theoretical

conception of brand mediation. However, the openness of the suggested brand-

mediation perspective is also its strength: It is an ‘enabling theory’ in the sense that it

provides a new vocabulary to think about brands and branding processes. The idea was

to open up a new perspective and not to define its limits beforehand. A second limitation

is that the number, actors and dimensions of the brand-mediation processes that are

presented is not exhaustive, but represent a first attempt at mapping possible brand-

mediation processes. This is a second point that future research projects could tap into,

focusing for instance on adding more brand-mediation processes to my proposed

mapping.

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PART 2 Research Articles

RESEARCH ARTICLES

1. A theoretical Model for brand-driven Retail 65 Format Innovation GÜNTHER BOTSCHEN AND PHILIPP K. WEGERER 2. Ethical Branding as a Resource for Employee Identity 103 Work: A Case Study PHILIPP K. WEGERER 3. Brand-mediated Ideological Edgework: Negotiating 137 the Human Body JONATHAN SCHÖPS, PHILIPP K. WEGERER, ANDREA HEMETSBERGER 4. Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding: A Case 157 Study PHILIPP K. WEGERER AND IAIN MUNRO

Article 1

A Theoretical Model for Brand-driven Retail Format Innovation

A theoretical Model for brand-driven Retail Format Innovation12 Günther Botschen and Philipp K. Wegerer International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 2017(45) 7/8, 874- 891. Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to engage in the research gap regarding the missing link between retail innovation and branding by providing a brand-driven process to systematically develop retail format innovation projects. The so-called “Brand-driven Retail Format Innovation” (BRFI) approach provides a structured three-phase model that serves as a conceptual guide for the development of any type of retail format. Design/methodology/approach – Longitudinal collaborative action research over a time span of 20 years plus extended case study research to develop the current BRFI approach. Findings – BRFI is a circular three-phase framework, which integrates branding, and retail format innovation. It starts with the definition of the intended retail brand identity, which in phase 2 becomes translated into concrete touchpoint experiences along the main constituents of a retail format, finally materializing into the new retail format. A case study of a major food retailer is prototypically used to illustrate the application of the designed approach and to report achieved results. Research limitations/implications – Brand-driven retail format development based on translating socio-cultural meanings into touchpoint experiences to materialize format constituents is opening up new research avenues to govern retail format

12 This article can be accessed via: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJRDM-10-2016-0181

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development. At present the approach is based on retail and services case studies in Western Austria. Practical implications – The three-phase model represents a practical tool for retail managers, who want to renew and to develop their retail format in a structured way. The approach is applicable to all retail industries from small- to large-scale organizations as well as online and offline environments. Originality/value – This is the first study engaging in the missing link regarding retail innovation and branding by providing a brand-driven process to systematically develop retail format innovation projects. BRFI locks into anthropological research findings where cultural meanings are considered as the main source for the construction of brand identities whereby the new retail format is transformed around brand-derived touchpoint experiences. Keywords: Brand identity, Retail innovation, Touchpoint experiences, Branding and innovation, Retail format innovation

INTRODUCTION Retailers increasingly depend on the success of new retail off- and online-formats and

their support and organization related innovations on a strategic and operational level

to secure competitive advantages and to drive future growth (Steenkamp et al., 1999;

Shankar and Yadav, 2011; Keller and Lehmann, 2006; Keller, 2012; Hristov and

Reynolds, 2015). Indeed, scholars and observers of the retail industry agree that the

retail sector will see a broad spectrum of promising innovations and structural changes.

New retail formats based on unique assortments, pricing and promotion (Grewal et al.,

2011), digital marketing, store atmospherics and store design (Arsel, 2014), in-store

merchandising, metric, and organizational design (Shankar et al., 2011) are the major

fields of innovations that will affect the retail industry in the next years.

Research has also shown that branding, understood as a holistic management principle,

can serve as a tool to govern different organizational processes such as product

development and distribution, marketing or human resource management (Kärreman

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and Rylander, 2008) in a holistic way (Balmer and Gray, 2003; Knox and Bickerton,

2003; Hatch and Schultz, 2003; Tilley, 1999). However, there is limited research

examining the possibilities of using branding principles for innovating retail formats

although brand and innovation management are clearly strongly interrelated and

mutually dependent. In these and other ways, retailer brands and retail format

innovations both play a determinant role in generating favorable consumer responses

(Page and Herr, 2002). Strong retailer brands are not only supported by retail format

innovations; they are also an important path to and source for the development of new

on- and offline formats. Strong retailer brands give new format designs meaning and

facilitate their launch.

Concurrently, successful new format appearances strengthen retailers´ brand equity

because they reinforce or broaden brand meanings, help to revitalize, act as an effective

measure against competitors, and improve brand value and profitability. Although the

searches for brand leadership and retail format innovation excellence are both clearly

important management priorities and points of differentiation for retailers, (e.g.,

Amazon Go, Tesco Metro, Mpreis, Paris Baguette or Zalando), the relationship

between branding and innovation gained little reference in innovation literature in

general (Brexendorf, Bayus, and Keller, 2015) and particularly in retail research.

Neglecting linkages between branding and retail innovation, however, might result in

an isolated optimization of two main drivers of future success and may hinder the

mutual strengthening of retail innovations and retailer brands. (Aaker, 1997; Calder

and Calder, 2010; Talke and Hultink, 2010; Kapferer, 2014).

The aim of this study is to answer the research question, how retail format innovation

can be systematically developed in a brand-driven process. Hence, this study engages

in this missing link by providing a brand driven process to systematically develop retail

format innovation projects. The purpose of this study is to connect the concepts of

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branding and retail format innovation - characterized as outcome related touchpoint

experiences - into a simple conceptual three stage framework that that can be used to

design retail format innovation in a structured way (Sorescu et al., 2011) and to

innovate all forms of retail formats. This study structures the retail innovation process

into the definition of the retailer’s organizational brand identity, its translation into

derived concrete touchpoint experiences and the alignment of organizational processes,

structures and behaviors continuously materializing the new format. The contribution

of this approach is extending existing research in the field of retail format innovation

by shifting the brand driven design of concrete touchpoint experiences into the center

of the innovation processes. This implies that all supporting and organizational

processes are aligned around the defined touchpoint experiences specifying the new

retail format. Where traditional approaches to innovation employ a process-oriented

perspective, this approach sets the focus on defining the outcome in terms of concrete

touchpoint experiences for the new format and aligns all organizational processes

around these intended results. The presented Brand Driven Retail Format Innovation

(BRFI) approach is applicable to all retail industries and formats from small scale to

large scale organizations as well as online and offline environments.

The paper begins with outlining the theoretical principles that ground our conceptual

framework. First, branding is introduced as a holistic management approach to govern

the strategic orientation and innovation processes of retail companies. Second, the

linkage and impact of touch point experiences on new format design is discussed. After

explaining the employed methodology the logic of the three-phase framework of brand

driven retail format innovation is presented and described in detail. A case study of a

major food retailer is prototypically used to illustrate the application of the designed

approach and to report achieved results. The paper finishes by drawing conclusions on

the practical and theoretical implications of the brand driven retail format innovation

framework.

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A BRAND DRIVEN PERSPECTIVE ON RETAIL FORMAT INNOVATION The retail format is the offline or online “store package” that the retailer presents to the

shopper and where the vendor interacts along pre-determined touch-points with the

customer (Enders and Tawfik, 2000). Beside its look and layout, it includes elements

of the retail mix such as assortment, pricing, promotion and so forth (Messinger and

Chakravarthi, 1997; Levy and Weitz, 2008). Format is distinct from fascia, which refers

solely to external appearance.

A new retail format is made up by all innovative customer related touchpoint

experiences and their organizational and supportive processes and alignments

(Baregheh, Rowley, and Samrock, 2009; Hristov and Reynolds, 2015), which both

draw in customers (generating footfall) and help enhance product presentation to

generate sales.

Despite widespread agreement that retail format innovation needs to be understood

across all touchpoints (Wiesel, Pauwels, and Arts, 2010; Baxendale et al., 2015), most

research on retail innovations treats touchpoints in isolation from each other

(Baxendale et al., 2015). Studies focusing on optimizing touchpoints individually are

undoubtedly necessary, providing granular insight into the effect of each touchpoint

experience. However, practitioners need tools at hand that allow them to understand

retail format innovation as a holistic process. In order to attend to retail format design

as being enacted by a structured process, rather than being the result of an unstructured

innovation process, the authors draw on the core idea of branding as a holistic

management approach to govern the strategic orientation and innovation processes of

retail companies by shifting all marketing and communication efforts to the corporate

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level rather than to the product level (Knox and Bickerton, 2003, Hatch and Schultz,

2003, 2008).

This strategic shift has a number of implications for the retail format innovation

process. First, the broader scope of branding shifts the thinking about retail format

design beyond the isolated touchpoint experiences of a retail format. This means that

aspects such as organizational culture, even at the level of everyday employee

interactions, become visible and can be understood as a central part of the retail format

innovation process. Second, a branding perspective on retail format innovation is a shift

in managerial responsibility. Since a branding perspective entails a strategic

perspective the managerial responsibility shifts to the executive level. A third

advantage of a brand perspective is, to whom the retail format design relates to in both

attraction and support. While traditional retail format design is intended to target

consumers in their buying behavior, our branding perspective suggests including all

internal and external stakeholders. This means that a brand driven retail format design

includes employees understanding their role as being part of the organizational retail

brand as well as that the retail format design expresses the management vision of the

organization to all relevant stakeholders including employees, customers, suppliers etc.

The fourth implication of our brand driven retail brand model is that the responsibility

for this process shifts to the top management. Whereas traditional retail format

innovation processes could be handled by middle managers, a brand driven perspective

on retail format innovation is an organization wide strategic process that involves the

entire organization from the retail employee up to top management. The last difference

of this branding perspective is the temporal dimension. While traditional approaches to

retail format innovation understand retail innovation as cyclical processes that follow

a bias of unfreeze, change, freeze, where the change processes are seen as the

exceptional processes that interrupt the normal flow of business, this brand driven

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approach is an ongoing process that reaches back into the organization’s brand heritage

as well as forward into the long-term future.

THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR BRAND DRIVEN RETAIL FORMAT INNOVATION

Figure 1: The three phases of Brand- driven Retail Format Innovation

Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of a brand driven retail format innovation as

a continuous circular process that links the intended organizational retail brand identity

with the touchpoint experiences of relevant constituents and the materializing retail

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format; this way continuously “charging” the retail brand. The three elements form the

conceptual framework and are defined as:

a) Retail brand identity - The guiding strategic frame behind the retail format,

expressed in socio-cultural meanings that link into the core values of the organizational

brand together with its driving core competence (Collins and Porras 1996)

b) Touchpoint experiences - The transformation of the retail brand identity into most

attractive touchpoint experiences for consumers and stakeholders which shape and

determine all elements, typically content and style, of the new retail format and

c) Materializing retail format- Aligning employee behavior, organizational processes

and structures in order to materialize the intended touchpoint experiences into the new

retail format. How these three basic elements interconnect in detail and what processes

are at work, is explained below.

Phase 1: Determining the intended brand identity

A retail brand identity is based upon a particular combination of socio-cultural

meanings an organization is associated with by its relevant stakeholders.

Defining the intended retail brand identity involves identifying and selecting a

particular combination of socio-cultural meanings the organization want to be

associated with by its relevant stakeholders (Geertz, 1973; Albert and Whetten, 1985).

The new retail identity cannot be deduced from a desired market position, but must be

grounded in particular socio-cultural meanings that are grounded in the brand’s heritage

and that show a development path for the future (McCracken,1986; Schroeder, 2009;

Holt, 2012). The new retail brand identity is based on the perspective held by external

stakeholders, and based on the internal view of the brand history held by organizational

members.

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The process is designed in an open and emergent way and should allow reflecting on

the history of the retail brand. The aim is to identify a first impression of established

drivers and impeders of brand resonance. Selected members of top management work

together in order to reveal the history of the organization. The role of the researchers is

to facilitate an open discussion and reflection in the plenary.

In a second step researchers conduct in-depth interviews with all members of top

management. The interviews are guided by a questionnaire and have the aim to identify

historically established patterns of positive or negative resonances. Stories and

anecdotes of contact point experiences are ideally suited to create a deeper

understanding of underlying patterns of positive, negative or missing resonance.

Projective techniques can be used to develop a differentiated understanding and deeper

insights into how the brand associations and brand meanings evolved over time. The

main objective is the identification of the historically established patterns of resonance

and their underlying socio-cultural meanings. Socio-cultural meaning can be any

attribute the organization wants to be associated with.

Based on the historical analysis of the organizational brand, the future retail brand

identity is developed. Creativity techniques with employees, benchmarks, studies and

interviews with experts are methods that allow the identification of attracting new or

modified meanings for the intended organizational retail identity. Via applications of

heuristic reasoning techniques, a set of socio-cultural meanings is composed. Together

with its core driving competence the new retail brand identity becomes specified.

Phase 2: Translating the retail brand into multisensory touchpoint experiences The second phase is concerned with transforming the intended retail brand identity into

multi- sensory touchpoint experiences along the main elements of the new retail format

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(Reynolds, Howard, Cuthbertson and Hristov, 2007; Botschen, Combe and Thelen,

2014; Botschen et. al., 2016). For each of these elements of a retail mix package,

desired touchpoint experiences are identified, formulated, and selected.

Therefore each retailer needs to evaluate the enablers and deterrents in the retail

marketplace. This primarily involves identifying the key drivers of growth, the

shoppers’ profile and shopper expectations. It also means evaluating the nature of

competition and challenges in the market place. Then the retailer decides the elements

of the retail mix to satisfy the target markets’ needs more effectively than its

competitors. The choice of retail mix elements will enable it to decide the type of format

or structure of business. Important constituents that embody touchpoint experiences of

the new retail format can be, but are not limited to:

a) Style and Atmosphere - This comprises the design of the physical retail

environment. The aim is to identify all elements that contribute to the style and

atmosphere of the retail format. Examples of elements that embody the new format are

colors, furniture, chairs, light, style, pictures, temperature, smell, clothing, and music.

b) Assortment and Service - Defining the product range and issues such as the

intended quality. Dimensions of the assortment can be adjusted to the needs of the retail

format, and can include elements such as range of products, dishes, drinks, services,

quality attributes such as taste, appearance, smell, ingredients, freshness, regionalism,

etc.

c) Employee Appearance and Behavior - Another element concerns employees.

Employees play a key role in building relationships with all the company’s stakeholders

as well as in enacting intended touch point experiences (Hatch and Schultz, 2003;

Harris and De Chernatony, 2001; Balmer, Soenen & Guillaume, 1999).

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d) Pricing and Calculation - Defines which consumers should be targeted and how

the assortment is priced. This touch point is in close relation to other touch points such

as presentation and packing and has an influence on the overall business model.

e) Presentation and Packing - Is a crucial touch point for consumers. It highly affects

the way consumers experience their purchase and how they experience the pricing and

the overall atmosphere.

f) In-Store/ POS Communication - This touchpoint includes elements such as

promotion material, tasting events, and the use of electronic equipment, such as the use

of screens.

g) Convenience - There are different forms of convenience. Elements are the access

to the shop including parking facilities for cars, bicycles, and public transport.

Convenience also includes ease and speed of payment, speed of service, self-service

versus full service.

To avoid complexity and sustain feasibility each constituent of the new format should

be limited to five concrete touch point experiences.

Phase 3: Materializing the new retail format In phase 3 the selected intended touch point experiences of the new retail format are

materialized through the specification of organizational structures and processes and

behavioral principles - the code of conduct - for achieving and reproducing the intended

touchpoint experiences.

a) Structure - comprises elements such as depth and width of assortment, price linings,

the architecture and the shop design, the location, decoration, the infrastructure, the

webpage, parking availabilities, opening hours as well as the existing organogram and

communication structure of the retailer.

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b) Processes - are another key dimension because they affect the entire retail brand

experience. Examples of processes are internal and external logistics, events, external

promotion, purchasing, recruiting and training.

c) Behavior - refers mainly to the employees’ behavior such as welcome, greeting,

advising, responding or bargaining procedures, style of interaction and appearance.

Typically, they can be managed through a number of techniques including trainings,

codes of conducts, cultural workshops or the careful selection of new employees

according to predefined principles.

Ideally any modification and optimization of structure, processes or behavior are driven

by the intended touch point results of the particular constituent and not the other way

around. All established routines, processes and structures need to be analyzed and

adopted under the light of the specified touch point experience. If there is a discrepancy

a modification of the behavior is necessary. If there is a significant deviation, then the

process or behavior needs to be eliminated and a new process need to be created. This

implies that a new touchpoint experience can become a core driver for significant and

deep changes in organizational processes including technical processes as well as

employee behaviors.

One example taken from the context of bakeries demonstrates such a relationship. If a

Bakery decides to offer a true French baguette experience it might need to change on

the process level sourcing and purchasing for the French ingredients, on the behavioral

level the present baking knowledge and expertise and on the structural level

infrastructural equipment for baking, storing and delivery. As can be seen from the

described intended “small” modification of a touchpoint experience the derived

necessary change might cause high investments in additional resources, at the same

time providing uniqueness to the existing retail format of a regional bakery.

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ACTION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This research project is grounded in the basic premise of action research. The purpose

of action research is to develop theories about the organization and about the change

process that produced it (Walton and Gaffney, 1989). The researchers intervene into

the problem situation in order to improve the self-help competencies at the managerial

level (Susman and Evered, 1978), as well as to facilitate a learning process at the

organizational level (Argyris and Schön, 1978). The action research approach follows

two aims of providing practical insights to managers and providing scientific insights

to researchers (Rapoport, 1970). The generated knowledge helps the change process

and the new organizational forms that emerge as a result of the process.

Knowledge produced by action research has ’thematic patterns derived from inquiry in

one setting’ (Argyris and Schoen, 1989) and is aimed at describing the change process.

The mode of inquiry is cyclical and leads to organizational change processes as well as

to new theoretical insights regarding retail format innovation. In the course of the

research cycle the authors used a variety of methods in order to develop an

understanding of the problem situation among researchers and the participating

executives. Methods for data gathering, diagnosing and action planning were

workshops, mind mapping, presentations, discussion rounds analyzing the

organization’s history as well as qualitative interviews. The activities were executed

collaboratively by the clients, mainly members of the top management, and the

researchers. The role of the top management was dualistic, they engaged as subjects

and as co-researchers as they actively participated in the generation of the framework

(Whyte, Greenwood and Lazes, 1989).

The data collection process started with a workshop with members of the top

management The aim of the workshop was to craft a big picture about the historically

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established brand identity. Selected members hold short presentations around the

organization’s history. The role of the researchers was to facilitate an open discussion

and reflection in the plenary. Then researchers conducted in-depth interviews with

members of the organization and relevant stakeholders. An interview lasted on average

two hours and was transcribed and analyzed by the researchers. Projective techniques

were used to gain deeper insights into how the brand identity evolved over time. Stories

and anecdotes of contact point experiences by stakeholders such as consumers or

business partners were ideally suited to create a deeper understanding of underlying

retail brand identity. The researchers identified the most promising patterns and

compared and reflected on them. Conflicting and new views about additional brand

meanings were intensively discussed and reflected before a new brand meaning was

added, or existing patterns are modified or eliminated. During a presentation with all

involved researchers plus two additional researchers the consistency and plausibility of

all brand meanings was checked and fine-tuned. The top management reflected on the

identified positive and negative patterns of resonance in small teams.

BRAND DRIVEN RETAIL INNOVATION AT WORK - THE CAPPUCCINO CASE The hypermarket chain Interspar is part of the family owned Spar group and runs at

present 65 hypermarkets in Austria. The Austrian retail food market is a highly

concentrated and competitive market in which the Spar group and the Rewe group hold

around two thirds of the market share. Discounters, namely the Hofer Group and the

Lidl group share another fourth of the overall market, which sets an increasing price

pressure on the market.

In order to differentiate from its competitors and to strengthen its gastronomy

competence Interspar founded the ‘Cappuccino’ coffee houses in the early nineties.

The ‘Cappuccino’ coffee houses are based on providing an Italian oriented atmosphere

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and are situated in shopping centers close to the Spar hypermarkets. Over the years the

retail concept started to lose its attraction, sales stagnated or decreased. It was in this

stage that the collaboration between the Interspar group and the researchers began. The

main objective of this action research oriented collaboration was to develop a new retail

format for the Cappuccino. The first step of the action research approach was the

foundation of three project groups that accompany the entire innovation process:

a) The core group - comprising of three to five executives that hold key decision

roles in the organization and a team of facilitating researchers. In the case of

Cappuccino, the core group consisted of the CEO of Interspar, the Head of Gastronomy

and the newly recruited Head of Cappuccino. A prerequisite is that the executives hold

a long term and secured position in the organization and that the researchers are

accepted in their role as consultants.

b) The microcosm group - counted eight members including the head of assortment,

the head of store design and internal logistics, one manager of a Cappuccino coffee

house, one Cappuccino area manager, one expert in food design plus an external

architect and an external shop designer.

c) The facilitating team - two researchers of the Marketing Department of the

University of Innsbruck who guide and moderate through all phases of the retail format

development.

These three groups work in different roles throughout the three phases of the BRFI

process. The process starts with the development of the intended future identity of the

involved organization followed by its translation into concrete touch point experiences

of leveraging action fields. Finally, the new format concept becomes implemented

through necessary behavioral principles and structural as well as procedural

alignments.

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A crucial requirement for the successful innovation process is a powerful guiding

coalition within the organization. The formation of two teams, a `core team` within the

top management together with the creation of `a microcosm`, comprising members of

all organizational levels proved to be crucial for the innovation process. The core team

should represent committed, empowered and, ideally, long term stable key players. If

one of these requirements is absent a successful initiation and continuation of the

innovation process is rather unlikely.

Phase 1: Determining the established and a new organizational brand identity of Cappuccino The purpose of phase one is to develop the intended future brand identity for the new

retail format of the Cappuccino Coffee house. Step one is based on various data

collection methods used to identify attracting meaning fields and the driving core

competence for the new retail format.

To identify the established brand identity a historical analysis of drivers and impeders

of resonance is performed. This research consists of a status quo analysis in the

microcosm, observation and analysis of touch point experiences, interviews with

members of the core group and of the microcosm, employees and customers of the

coffee houses. An important source of information are retail employees who are

encouraged to describe their perceived positive and negative touch-point experiences.

The results of the various data collection methods are analyzed by the researchers. The

aim is to discover established patterns of resonance and underlying related meanings

of the brand identity. Examples of socio-cultural meanings that were relevant in the

brand's history where: nature, hero, roasted, modern, pure, bakery, healthy, Italian (see

figure 2).

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These insights on the brand’s history provide a fruitful ground for identifying appealing

meaning fields for the new retail format. The search for new meaning fields is a creative

process that can be structured by various facilitating methods. Benchmarks, trend

studies and creativity techniques like collaging or mind mapping were used for

identifying new meaning fields. Via heuristic reasoning preliminary combinations of

attracting new brand identities consisting of meaning fields and the driving core

competence are constructed. In feedback loops with the core group and the microcosm

the future picture of the brand identity appears. The continuous cross-functional

reflection generates a shared future picture with high involvement among all

participants (Mumby 2015; Endrissat, Kaerreman, and Noppeney 2016). Based on this

creative and collaborative process, the retail brand identity (see Figure 2) was

developed.

The process starts with a meeting with all members of the microcosm. The meeting is

designed in an open and emergent way and should allow reflection on the history of

the place brand. The aim was to craft a big picture about the historically established

drivers and impeders of place brand resonance. Selected members of the microcosm

hold short presentations around the history of the particular place. The role of the

researchers was to facilitate an open discussion and reflection in the plenary.

The intended brand identity is defined as “Our Café combines an Austrian Coffee-

House Culture with Italian-Mediterranean atmosphere. It provides cafe enthusiasts

with carefully selected, good value delicacies. All delicacies ToGo”. This intended

retail brand identity is surrounded by five meaning fields, which should attract existing

and new customers in the future on the long term. Every field is characterized in the

particular context to secure a common understanding across all representatives of the

organization. The following five socio-cultural meanings were identified as being the

core parts of the intended retail brand identity: Only the best delicacies (a), honest, fair

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and flexible (b), attentive, hearty & and empathetic (c), Austrian Gemütlichkeit (d),

true feast for all senses (e). Each of the five meaning fields consists of a short reasoning

with some examples/principles that specify why the specific meaning field will attract

customers and other stakeholders in the long term. As an example the meaning field

“Only the best delicacies” contains the following description:

Figure 2: Building the Brand Identity based on Socio-Cultural Meanings

a) The focus on “only the best delicacies” increases the attraction and effective

demand across segments.

b) Every product category represents a particularly favored food product, snack, dish

or drink of the coffee house scene.

c) Less is often more! It eases orientation and decision making for interested guests.

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All other meaning fields together with the driving core competence are described in a

similar way. This mechanism promotes developing a shared mental picture of how

the intended retail brand identity should look like across all affected employees.

The description of the new brand identity provides the frame for all decisions and

activities for the evolving retail format. The main steps of phase one can be summarized

as follows: Step 1: Identifying socio-cultural meanings that were relevant in the past.

Step 2: Defining a pool of socio-cultural meanings that should be relevant in the future.

Step 3: Selecting the relevant socio-cultural meanings. Step 4: Defining the core

competence. Step 5: Construct and describe the intended retail brand identity.

Phase 2: Translating the brand identity into concrete touchpoint experiences and designing the new retail format In phase two this shared mental picture of the brand identity is translated into concrete

touchpoint experiences for the new retail business model (Reynolds, Howard,

Cuthbertson and Hristov, 2007). The core idea of phase two is to select and define all

relevant touch points of the new retail format along the main constituents of the new

format.

In a first step the most leveraging components of the new retail format are specified.

The new retail format consisted of the following constituents: assortment - covering

range of food products, dishes, drinks and services, style and atmosphere, employee's

appearance and behaviors, pricing and calculation, presentation and packaging, in

store/POS communication, convenience and food To Go. For each of this components

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concrete multi- sensory touchpoint experiences are derived in various sessions with

selected members of the microcosm and additionally invited employees.

Figure 3: Translating the Retail- Brand Identity into Touchpoint Experiences

Touch point experiences combining sensory, cognitive and affective stimuli have the

highest probability to initiate and maintain positive resonance in the minds and hearts

of customers and other stakeholders (Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello, L. 2009). In

several reflection meetings the five most attracting and differentiating touch point

experiences were chosen and defined during a feedback loop with the microcosm.

Figure 3 shows the three major components of the new format: style and atmosphere

(1), appearance and behavior of employees (2) and assortment (3). Within the field of

assortment, the touchpoint experience for beverages is defined as “customers receive

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the best looking and tasting cappuccino in town”. This touchpoint experience

comprises a sensory, a cognitive and an affective stimulus for consumers. First and

foremost, the ‘best cappuccino in town’ provides a sensory stimulus for the customers

in the form of smell, task, temperature, the sensation of the cup and so on. ‘The best

cappuccino in town’ provides also cognitive and affective stimulation for consumers.

It connects the consumers to the socio-cultural meanings of ‘true for all senses’ as well

as the ‘Mediterranean lifestyle’. Providing information about the regional roasting of

the coffee beans and the complex purchasing processes can support the cognitive side

of the touchpoint experience. The field of ‘assortment’ has a number of other defined

touchpoint experiences. These include:

a) customers receive products/dishes of optimal freshness, excellent taste and

natural, pure, ideally regional ingredients.

b) customers enjoy freshly baked dark and white bread with homemade

toppings.

c) customers enjoy the best tasting Sacher Tart, Apple Strudel and one

seasonal homemade cake from regionally favored suppliers.

The continuous translation of Cappuccino’s intended brand identity into concrete

multisensory touchpoint experiences along the major constituents of the physical

embodiment shapes and designs the unique profile of the new retail format. As will be

seen in the next section, in order to turn these intended touchpoint experiences into Graphic 4: Materializing the Retail Format

actual experiences, a number of behavioral, procedural, and structural adjustments and

alignments need to be specified and executed. For certain intended experiences such as

“the best looking and tasting cappuccino in town” only minor modifications might be

necessary. Others such as “freshly baked bread with homemade fresh toppings” need

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significant changes based on completely new purchasing and collaboration procedures

with big investments over several months.

Phase 3: Materializing the new retail format through aligning behavior, structure and processes

Phase three is concerned with defining the internal processes that are necessary to enact

the intended touchpoint experiences that create the intended retail brand identity. For

each touchpoint experience all necessary behavioral, procedural and structural changes

are undertaken to fulfil and continuously reproduce the intended touchpoint

experiences. Through this final phase the intended retail brand identity becomes

materialized.

Figure 4: Materializing the New Retail Format

DecorationShop Design

Employee TrainingLogistics External

PromotionsInfrastructure

Positive Resonance of Customers, Employees & other Stakeholders

Step 3: Apply to all Touchpoint experiences

Materialised Touch-point-Journey of

New Retail Format

Materialising Cappuccino's New Retail Format

Step 2: Aligning Structure, Processes and Behavior

Step 1: Select Touchpoint experience

“We offer the best and most beautiful Cappuccino in town”

• Structure: „Select and provide a high quality coffee machine“• Processes: „Find the right supplyer and brand of high quality coffee“• Behavior: „Train all employess in making the perfect capuccino“

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Figure 4 illustrates the general mechanism by which the components of the new retail

brand identity are enacted through aligning the behavior of the involved departments

and functions. To achieve intended touchpoint experiences of the particular component

of the physical embodiment, behavioral principles and necessary modifications of

established or new processes are determined. Figure 4 focuses on the intended

touchpoint experience “customers receive the best looking and tasting cappuccino in

town”. To enact this specific experience across a number of structural, procedural and

behavioral changes in the organization are necessary. First, the intended experience has

implications for the organizational spheres of Logistics,

Infrastructure and Employee Training. For the example of “Consumers receive the best

Cappuccino in town” three behavioral principles were selected and changed.

First, the purchasing process of the coffee beans was restructured according to the

following principle:

1. All coffee beans are sourced from the best regional suppliers/roasters or are

manufactured by Cappuccino itself.

This principle should secure a typical Italian Oriented Cappuccino roasting and has

wide range implications on the overall business model. The established sourcing and

purchasing processes had to be fundamentally changed. The historical sourcing from

big manufacturers needed to be substituted through regional or smaller coffee experts.

In the Cappuccino case this new sourcing needed several months of relationship

building with local specialists, various product tastings in the microcosm until the first

contracts with preferred suppliers were signed. The same procedure was undertaken for

all defined touchpoint experiences in the field of Assortment, including products, dishes

and drinks. Actions included that the new dark bread was first sourced from a specialist

bakery in Germany, later it was decided to bake it in the Interspar bakery, or that a

famous Viennese cook was hired to develop the unique parfaits.

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2. We use only aesthetically pleasing, high quality coffee machines, which guarantee

quality of coffees and foaming offering high comfort of handling at the same time.

This principle assists employees to prepare the best Cappuccino. Again this has an

impact on the established sourcing structure. The former low price purchasing strategy

of the buying department needed to be modified into a sourcing and testing of the best

price/performance relationship. The third component refers to a behavioral principle:

3. Every employee knows perfectly how to prepare and present the best and most

“beautiful” Cappuccino.

To materialize the intended taste and aesthetic appearance of the Cappuccino coffee it

was necessary to design a special training program for all employees, including the

cleaning team, for the first Cappuccino prototype in Graz. This training was performed

by a certified coffee sommelier. After a thorough presentation and explanation of the

unique ingredients (beans, milk, water, cups, spoons, sugar, mini-pastry etc.), for the

specified cappuccino experience all employees were introduced into the handling of

the new coffee machine. Every team member had to exercise until the coffee taste,

consistency of foam, the figure in the foam, temperature of coffee and cup, the placing

of the mini-pastry, timing and the presentation for the customer was perfect. As can be

seen from these few examples of behavioral principles many well historically

established processes and structures needed to be changed to turn the intended

touchpoint experiences of the new format into a perceivable, reproducible new retail

brand identity.

The selected three behavioral principles of the assortment mix are only one minor part

of the entire embodiment of the new designed Cappuccino Retail Brand Identity. The

concrete specification of intended touchpoint experiences, and the necessary

alignments, modifications and changes of structures, processes and behaviors were all

necessary to bring the new retail format into existence.

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Due to the new organizational brand identity the new Cappuccino distinguishes from

the old one in almost any aspect, e.g.

• Assortment – every product category represents a particularly favored

food product, snack, dish or drink of the coffee house scene which is

developed and produced by specialists, e.g. Sacher tart or apple strudel or

by Interspar itself, e.g. the new dark bread or the new Italian and Austrian

sort of coffee

• Style and atmosphere – modern but “gemütlich” or relaxed with a touch of

Mediterranean feeling

• Personnel – especially trained, everybody can prepare the essentials like

cappuccino coffee or the new freshly prepared bread snacks

In March 2016 – 18 months after its initiation – the first new Cappuccino opened its

doors in one of the biggest shopping centers in Graz, the capital of Styria. The

immediate and enduring positive resonance among consumers proves the successful

application of the BRFI process and accelerates the multiplication of the prototype into

new sites.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS This study makes a conceptual and a methodological contribution to retail innovation

and branding literature. The aim of this study is to connect the concepts of branding

and retail format innovation - characterized as outcome related touchpoint experiences

- into a conceptual three stage framework that that can be used to design retail format

innovation in a structured way (Sorescu et al., 2011; Baxendale et al., 2015) and to

innovate all forms of retail formats. The retail innovation process consists of the

definition of the retailer’s organizational brand identity, its translation into derived

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concrete touchpoint experiences and the alignment of organizational processes,

structures and behaviors continuously materializing the new format. This approach

extends existing research in the field of retail format innovation by shifting the brand

driven design of concrete touchpoint experiences into the center of innovation

processes. This implies that all supporting and organizational processes are aligned

around the defined touchpoint experiences specifying the new retail format. Under this

view any modification of a retail format must be seen as a modification of touchpoint

experiences, where the design of touchpoint experiences has effects on a wide variety

of organizational processes and the entire business model. To the authors knowledge

this is the first piece of research, which proposes a framework to integrate two main

core drivers of success and growth, retail format innovation and branding.

The theoretical contribution of the proposed conceptual framework is, that retail format

innovation must be understood as a process that can affect the entire organization,

including the customer experience and the governance of employees. Defining a brand

identity and deriving intended touchpoint experiences serves as the anchor around

which all organizational practices, structures and processes are aligned, this can include

both sides, value creation processes and value appropriation processes. The focus on

the retail format allows to consider all innovative customer related touchpoint

experiences and their organizational and supportive processes and alignments (Hristov

and Reynolds, 2015; Reinarzt et al., 2011), which bot draw in customers (generating

footfall) and help enhance product presentation to generate sales.

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The Cappuccino case provides an inquiry into the brand driven retail format innovation

process of a large Austrian food retailer. This inquiry has addressed the research

question of: How can the retail format of the ‘Cappuccino’ cafe be innovated in a

structured way and be linked to the new organizational brand identity of the coffee

house? And, how can this process be transformed into a universal framework for retail

format innovation?

Figure 5: Overview of Band-Driven Retail Format Innovation

Figure 5 summarizes the three main phases for the development of new retail formats.

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The chosen Cappuccino case illustrates prototypically how an action research

methodology can be employed to develop a framework that is applicable to all domains

of the retail industry. This shows that action research is a valuable methodology for

generating conceptual frameworks. The advantage of action research is that it provides

a benefit for both parties, access to the organization for the researchers and a guided

change process for the evolving new organization. It was found that a core driver for

the successful research process is an integrated social experience for all participants,

requiring continuous interaction between

organizational members from all hierarchical levels and the facilitating researchers in

an open and supportive environment. A number of practices were discovered, which

are crucial for successful action research and organizational change processes. This

includes a facilitating core team, an additional team comprising of members from all

hierarchical levels (microcosm), as well as the application of collaborative and creative

research techniques. This inquiry also found that managers and other organizational

members are not only informants in a research process, but that they can be valuable

partners and co-researchers that contribute significantly to the success of the research

and consulting process.

The BDRFI framework is practically applicable to all other domains of retailing and

service, such as fashion retailing, restaurants, hospitals, and hotels, where organizations

want to strategically design the way consumers and other relevant stakeholders interact

with them in new formats. It proves to be a useful framework for innovation projects

in the retail industry, were innovation is still (too) often driven by intuition,

improvisation and imitation (Reynolds, 2007). For practitioners the BDRFI framework

provides a number of implications. First, the BDRFI framework suggest that retail

format innovation must be understood as a holistic process, that affects all value

creation and appropriation activities. This implies that retail managers must consider

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that all dimensions of the retail format such as assortment, sales, design and

atmosphere, process innovation, information technology, new media, or payment

become multisensory perceivable during interactions with constituents of the format

and determine the quality of the entire touch point experience. Organizational retail

brand identity provides strategic focus and guidance to retail format innovations. The

transfer of the new retail brand identity into concrete multi-sensory experiences

supports the design of unique profiles for new service or retail formats. The intended

organizational brand identity becomes feasible and perceivable for employees. The

identification of behavioral rules initiates and supports the dissolving of historically

established behaviors and processes and facilitates organizational change processes.

This study offers avenues for future research and has a number of limitations. The

presented framework does not consider the specifics of online retail formats. It would

be interesting to study how online retail formats could be innovated in a brand driven

process or how an online retail presence can be integrated into an existing retail format.

For both questions the presented framework would provide solid grounds for further

investigations. Another avenue for future research would be following the main phases

of the customer journey of a particular retail or service business, could facilitate the

identification of multi-sensory touch point experiences and could support the design of

unique formats. Also the distinction between organizational identity and organizational

brand identity based on socio-cultural meaning needs further elaboration and

clarification.

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Article 2

Ethical Branding as a Mediator for Employee Identity Work

Ethical Branding as a Mediator for Employee Identity Work: A Case Study1314

Philipp K. Wegerer German Journal of Human Resource Management (under review, second round) Abstract Over recent years there has been an emerging literature studying the role of corporate branding in the control of corporate culture, but as yet there is scant research on the relationship between branding and employee identity. This study addresses this research gap by analyzing how an ethical brand informs the identity work of employees. Respondents were found to adopt the discourse of the brand in the construction of their identity projects. The empirical findings reveal that in the case of branding, specific modes of identity work appear to be far more influential than others. In particular, it was observed that in the case study the brand informs the three modes of identity work: i) ‘self-definition by delimitation’, ii) ‘self definition as moral superior’, and iii) ‘providing a common sense of mission’. Keywords: Corporate branding, identity work, ethical branding, fair trade, employer branding

13 https://www.acrwebsite.org/web/conferences/proceedings.aspx 14 An earlier version was presented at the 2013 EGOS Conference.The study is accepted as a competitive paper for the 2017 ACR Conference (Rated C in VHB). The present version is conditionally accepted in GJHRM (Rated C in VHB).

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INTRODUCTION

The increasing significance of branding has created attention among a diversity of

research fields such as Marketing (Shaw & Jones, 2005; Aaker, 1997), Consumer

Culture Theory (Holt, 2012, 2006; Schroeder, 2009, Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001),

Strategy (Holt & Camerun, 2010; Hatch & Schultz, 2003), Organization Theory

(Jeanes, 2013, Kornberger, 2010) and Human Resource Management (Backhaus &

Tikoo, 2004). Within Organization Theory there is a growing body of conceptual

contributions that describes branding as an important organizing principle of post-

industrial capitalism, which builds upon the increasing socialization of capital (see

Alvesson 2013, Brannan et al. 2011, Kornberger 2010, Mumby 2016, Land and Taylor

2010) and the incorporation of ethics (Kornberger 2010, Jeanes 2013). Empirical

studies have found that brands exercise control by mediating social relations in and

beyond organizations (Müller 2017a, 2017b, Endrissat et al. 2016, Kärreman and

Rylander 2008), where the control effect of branding is not a one- directional, top down

process, but that brand control functions on the principle of incorporating sociality

(Jeanes 2013, Müller 2017, Land and Taylor 2010, Endrissat 2016, Rennstam 2013).

In addition, ethics has been identified as a central discoursive resource for employees

in their identity work (Kornberger and Brown 2007, Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003,

Brown 2006). Despite their conceptual proximity as discoursive constructs, there is

scant research that outlines how ethical branding is linked to employee identity work.

The primary aim of this paper is to study how employees draw on the narratives of an

ethical brand in order to construct meaning in and beyond their work. The theoretical

contribution of the paper links the concepts of employee identity work with branding

processes. The empirical contribution identifies three processes at work, when

employees draw on brands in their identity work. Empirically this study draws on a

case study of the Austrian Chocolate producer Zotter. The case was selected for two

reasons. First, the brand is very successful in valorizing the current fair trade and ethical

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consumption discourse. Second, the employees showed a remarkable high

identification with their job and interest in responsible consumption. It thus can be

considered a paradigmatic example for ethical branding and associated cultural and

identity based forms of brand control (Endrissat et al. 2016, Brannan et al. 2015,

Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Jeannes 2013).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This section develops a theoretical framework that builds upon existing research into

‘identity work’ and ‘reflexive self-identity’ as a basis for understanding the

organizational effects of brands. It starts by highlighting the significance of identity as

a reflexive project in late modernity (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Giddens, 1991;

Watson, 2008; Ybema et al. 2009, Newholm & Hopkinson, 2009). Corporate brands

exploit this reflexivity by offering their own symbolic resources to be drawn upon by

employees and consumers alike as a basis for their ’identity work’. The section closes

with considering the specific ‘modes of identity work’ (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002)

by which brands may affect the individual's sense of identity.

The concept of ‘identity work’ is built on Gidden’s (1991) premise that with the advent

of modernity, and the waning of traditional institutions for self-formation (e.g. the

church and family), the self has become an increasingly reflexive project. Giddens

(1991, p.5) argues that, “In the post traditional order of modernity … [t]he reflexive

project of the self… consists in the sustaining of a coherent, yet continuously revised,

biographical narratives, takes place in the context of multiple choice…”. The self “has

to be reflexively made [yet] individuals are forced to negotiate lifestyle choices among

a diversity of options”. The individual is thus confronted with irresolvable existential

questions - as Watson (2008, p. 124) puts it: “Identities or subjectivities are caught up

in contradictions and struggles, tensions, fragmentation, and discord.”

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The important argument is that the plurality of lifestyles creates a sense of ‘existential

anxiety’ and ‘ontological insecurity’ for the individual. To overcome this ‘existential

anxiety’ the individual is forced to draw on meaningful categories provided by

discourses in society, in order to narrate his or her individual life story. Numerous

studies pointed out that managerial inspired ‘organizational discourses’ are a central

source for individual identity work (Alvesson & Willmott 2002; Clarke et al. 2009;

Svenningsson & Alvesson 2003; Watson 2008). Brands are one such organizational

discourse that can be drawn up as a resource for identity work (Kärreman & Rylander,

2008; Kornberger 2010). Research on identity work and Social Identity Theory (SIT)

has argued that organizational discourses compete with other discourses in individual's

lives (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002), that brands can be seen as a resource for social

identities, that employees are not totally passive, but actively select or reject discourses

in their identity work (Clarke et al., 2009; Svenningson & Alvesson, 2003), and that

managerial discourses can never fully subsume the employee’s identity (Alvesson &

Willmott, 2002).

This paper argues that the ‘reflexive self-identity’ and the process of branding share a

common mechanism in their creation on the grounds that both rely heavily upon

storytelling and narrative construction in their enactment. For instance, Kornberger’s

(2010) eulogy to the brand society goes so far as to claim that in our modern post-

industrial society “brands are the most coherent forms of storytelling” (Kornberger,

2010, p. 111). Following Watsons’ (2008) extension of Social Identity Theory (SIT),

this paper argues that brand-stories have become an important element of ‘social

identities’ that consumers and employees draw on in the shaping of their own personal

self-identities. The basic premise of SIT is, that people develop their self- identity

through a processes of self- categorization to existing social formations or groups (e.g.,

Tajfel 1981; Tajfel and Turner 1985). The process of social identification is defined as

“the perception of oneness with or belongingness to a group, involving direct or

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vicarious experience of its successes and failures” (Ashforth and Mael 1989, p 34).

Most important, SIT argues that, because people continually strive for self-continuity

and positive self-esteem, they engage in behaviors that are consistent with their sense

of self to enhance their group and thereby their own social identity (Tajfel and Turner

1979).

Watson (2008) links the concepts of social identification (SIT) with individual identity

work and points out that we know very little about the relationship between ‘discourse’

and ‘identity work’. He argues that our common understanding of the relationship of

‘discourse’ and ‘self-identity’ is based on a ‘two-step model’, lacking an analytical

category explaining the act of including a socially available discourse in one’s ‘self-

identity’. He suggests a three-step model, by adding the category of ‘social identity’,

which was originally developed in Social Identity Theory (SIT) as a link between

‘discourses’ in society and ‘self-identity’. ‘Social Identities’ are personalized elements

of a discourse “in a way which makes them [the discourses] meaningful, accessible,

and appealing or unappealing to the individual” (Watson, 2008, p. 129). The analytical

category of ‘social identities’ allows to understand ‘identity work’ as “a coming

together of inward/internal self-reflection and outward/external engagement – through

talk and action – with various discursively available social identities” (Watson 2008,

p. 130). How does the concept of ‘social identities’ relate to brands?

Brands can serve as an ‘ambiguity coping practice’ (Kärreman & Rylander, 2008),

where successful brands exploit ‘ideological opportunities’ within society (Holt &

Cameron, 2010). Brands draw on, reflect and re-interpret discourses in society by

crafting meaningful stories that provide narratives that reframe these ideological

contradictions in terms of personal struggles that can be overcome. Thus, successful

brands provide meaningful ‘social identities’ for consumers and employees to position

themselves in the ideological landscape (Holt & Cameron, 2010). We can understand

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brands as carefully narrated ‘social identities’ (Watson, 2008) based on the absorption,

reflection and play with contradictions, discourses and cultural shifts within society

(Holt, 2002; Holt & Cameron, 2010). Brands draw on societal discourses in crafting

meaningful and desirable ‘social identities’ for employees.

Studies of identity regulation have pointed out that managerial discourses (e.g. on what

it means to be a manager) are in competition with other discourses in an employee’s

life (e.g. what does it mean to be a caring mother, a member of the local football club

etc.) (Svenningson & Alvesson, 2003). The brand can attempt to paper over such

contradictions by narrating a meaningful story about the job. The story is based on a

moral story, which, to a large extent, is narrated outside of the work organization

(Jeanes, 2013). Understanding brands as ‘social identities’ allows to understand how

employees construct their job as a meaningful activity, which contributes to both the

employees’ and the consumers’ lifestyles. How this process of identity regulation

works with respect to the corporate brand will be analyzed in detail later in the

discussion of our empirical findings.

This begs the question of how a brand constructs meaningful ‘social identities’.

Existing research conducted by Jeanes (2013) has shown the important role that moral

discourse plays in the process of branding. This paper extends this research by

revealing the specific ‘modes’ of identity work (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002) that are

employed in the construction of a branded identity. In the following analysis it draws

on Alvesson and Willmott`s (2002) conception of different ‘modes’ of identity

regulation to investigate the way that corporate branding can reframe these processes

of identity formation in an organizational context. ‘Identity regulation’ is a set of

“discursive practices [that] encompass the more or less intentional effects of social

practices upon processes of identity construction and reconstruction (Alvesson &

Willmott, 2002, p. 625). Alvesson and Willmott provide nine ‘modes’ by which a

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managerial discourse can affect employees in their identity construction, these being:

„[d]efining the person directly (1), defining a person by defining others (2), providing

a specific vocabulary of motives (3), explicating morals and values (4), knowledge and

skills (5), group categorization and affiliation (6), hierarchical location (7), establishing

and clarifying a distinct set of rules of the game (8), [and] defining the context (9)“

(Alvesson & Willmott 2002, p. 629- 632).

The modes “Defining the person directly” (1) and “defining a person by defining

others” (2) are two means of control that focus on the employee directly. The next three

modes of identity control are action oriented. This includes the modes “providing a

vocabulary of motives” (3), “exposed values and moral standards” (4) as well as

shaping the employees by their “knowledge and skills” (5). “Group categorization” (6)

and “hierarchical location” (7) are referred to as “social relations” regulating the

belonginess and differentiation of employees. The last two modes of control, “rules of

the game” and “defining the context” are seen as “the scene”, that set employee identity

in a wider social relation (Alvesson and Willmott 2002, p. 11- 15). The modes can

“occur simultaneously, indirectly and by the means of discourse, they can contradict,

as well as reinforce each other” (Alvesson and Willmott, 2001 p.15). The modes of

identity work can occur in rather simple and small settings, such as in business

meetings, within job- descriptions or the implementation of new terms, and in everyday

organizational practices. The findings of the present research show that in the case of

branding, the modes of identity work provide a fruitful analytical framework for

studying how an ethical brand informs employee identity work.

METHODOLOGY This research project started with an initial research interest in understanding how

employees draw on brands as discursive resources to construct meaning in and beyond

their work (Kärreman and Rylander 2008). I was looking for a brand that holds a well-

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known and high profile image in producing sustainable, and fair products and was

fortunate to find an interesting case through a personal contact with a retail employee.

What triggered my interest in the Zotter brand was that my contact person showed a

remarkable high identification with the organization and a very high commitment with

his job. I negotiated access to the organization and the terms of cooperation with the

head of marketing and was allowed to conduct interviews with selected members of the

management team, to visit the production site of the company, and to contact retail

employees working in the flagship stores operated by the brand. I was also provided

with a range of promotional material intended for internal and external use.

The main source of data for studying the identity work processes were semi-structured

interviews with 15 employees, including the company’s marketing director, the director

of distribution, and thirteen shop assistants employed at three flagship stores. My

sample strategy was to interview retail employees working in the flagship stores located

beyond the headquarter, because they have very little contact to the company. They

normally work alone, have little to no interaction to each other or the headquarter,

therefor the brand remains the primary resource through which they are informed about

organization. The company is rather small, which limited the availability of interview

partners. I do not consider this as a limitation because my data reached saturation very

early, which became apparent in the use of the very same phrases, stories, justifications

and narratives in the interview accounts.

I conducted the interviews between 2013 and 2015. In the first seven interviews, which

were conducted in 2013, I set the focus on generating an initial understanding of the

case and how employees experience the brand and think about broader social issues

beyond their work place. Initial interview questions asked respondents about their work

routines, related branding activities, their initial training and the working environment.

As the interviews progressed I shifted the themes towards personal issues, the

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justification of consumption habits, and more general topics such as their perspective

on globalization, capitalism and sustainability. The following interviews were

conducted in late 2014 and early 2015. These interviews focused on questions directly

related to personal ethics of the employees, their relation to brands ethics, and general

themes in their life. The interviews lasted 60 minutes in average, were voice recorded

and transcribed in German and translated into English. For reasons of confidentiality,

the interview partners remain anonymous.

Secondary data was an important resource for developing the first theme ‘constructing

a moral brand’. Data used included field notes and photo documentation from visiting

the production site and the shops, printed branding materials, newsletters, a monthly

company magazine, press releases, the webpage, social media, an authorized biography

of the owner (Wildner and Schober 2012), and coverage in national and international

media. This part of the analysis was done in an open and emergent approach which

followed the idea identifying the brands’ values, the main communication channels and

the brand messages. The author visited the production site three times, spending about

five hours each time in the factory and the endorsed visitors center, taking field notes

and photographs. In addition, the author visited all three brand retail stores observing

the retail environment as well as the interaction between employees and customers.

The analysis of the modes of identity work draws primarily on data from the interviews.

The first step was based on inductive coding. Following O'Leary (2011), I first grouped

the data along the categories “words used”, “rhetorical devices”, “metaphors”,

“statements”, noted emerging “patterns” and “concepts”, “bias” and significant

“quotes”. Finally, I abstracted and grouped the emerged patterns along common

themes. It followed an inductive approach identifying emergent themes and patterns

concerned with organizational branding processes within the data (Miles and

Huberman 1994, Flyvbjerg 2006). The next step of the analysis used this as a basis to

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analyze the modes of identity work in operation. In this step of the analysis I followed

Eisenhardt’s (1989) methodological principle of ‘enfolding literature’ where existing

conceptual developments are refined with reference to new data. Eisenhardt explains

that this iterative process is an essential feature of theory building which entails

“comparison of the emergent concepts, theory, or hypotheses with the extant literature.

This involves asking what is this similar to, what does it contradict, and why”

(Eisenhardt, 1989, p.544). In the final step of analysis I revisited the data (interviews,

documents, pictures, notes etc.) in an iterative process, which looked for the overall

patterns in the data and how they are related to the nine identity-regulating practices

put forward by Alvesson and Willmott (2002).

ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS Constructing a moral brand The Zotter brand can best be understood as a consistent moral story that is built around

a distinct set of values related to fair trade and organic production. The company shows

a close alignment between the organizational values, the overall business policy and

the visual and verbal brand expressions.

A distinct feature of the brand is its own, unique vocabulary. The brand values are

expressed with the messages of ‘fair trade certified’, ‘certified organic’, ‘bean to bar’

and ‘hand-scooped’. These messages are closely related to wider social discourses

concerning business responsibility within society. The labels of ‘certified organic’ and

‘fair trade’ are well established in societal discourses and have already a positive

meaning attached to them deriving from the respected work of environmental and

human rights social movements. The promotional material makes much use of the logos

of relevant social movement organizations such as ‘Lacon’ and ’Fair for Life.’ These

‘ready-made’ identities are constructed and maintained by external certification

organizations and allow the organization to communicate its core business values in a

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credible and easy-to-understand way. The two labels of ‘bean to bar’ and ‘hand-

scooped’ are the companies own creation. ‘Bean to bar’ refers to the unique in- house

production technique, whereas ‘hand-scooped’ expresses the largely hand-crafted

production process. Examples of the peculiar vocabulary are numerous: The chocolate

is produced ‘bean to bar’ and ‘hand-scooped’. The product families are labelled as

‘Logbook’, ‘Mitzi Blue’. The production site is a ‘manufactory’ and the visitor’s center

is called ‘Chocolate Theatre’, including the ‘Edible Zoo’. On the website, the owner’s

profession is given as ‘researching chocolate’ and each chocolate is labelled as a ‘tasty

adventure’. The product itself communicates all brand messages. The ‘hand-scooped

chocolate’ is produced ‘bean to bar’ and differs significantly from the classic brick

design in terms of size and shape. Every flavor of chocolate has its unique, artistic

design featuring a unique (often funny and metaphorical) name such as “Pink Coconut

and Fish Marshmallow“ or “Heaven on earth”, and a hand-drawn picture. The highly

unusual flavors and the enormous range of 365 different flavors are an integral part of

the organization’s communication strategy. Flavors such as the ‘blood’ or the ‘cheese’

chocolate immediately create a stir in the media, causing controversy among the

consumers and strengthening the reputation of Zotter as an extraordinary company (e.g.

Die Zeit, 2106; The Boston Globe, 2013; The Observer, 2008).

An integral part in the construction of the brand holds the visitors center called

‘Chocolate Theatre, which is the second-most visited tourist attraction in Styria. The

‘Chocolate Theatre’ can be understood as a material manifestation of the brand and a

well-designed brand experience, built as a walking tour through the manufactory. The

visitors are targeted on an intellectual, a sensual and an emotional level. After paying

the entrance fee, the visitors are asked to wait in a little cinema. The room is painted

black, the sound of insects creates an intense, jungle-like atmosphere, the walls are full

of artefacts and pictures, showing happy natives. An introductory film is shown to

visitors to highlight the contrast between the production methods of their competitors

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and the organization's’ own fair trade and organic approach to chocolate production.

The film’s explicit appeal to the values of fair trade and sustainability highlights the

moral dimension of chocolate production and serves to legitimize the premium price of

the product. After the film the visitors are equipped with an audio guide and can freely

walk along the 'Tasting Path'. The tour follows chronologically the production process

of chocolate. In each stage the raw material can be smelled, touched, tasted, and the

production process is itself explained. Along the tour the brand can be experienced with

all the senses where the consumption of chocolate is ritualized and aestheticized. Along

the ‘Tasting Path’ the visitor is educated to appreciate different qualities of the

chocolate’s taste, appearance and its production in order to develop an emotional

connection to the brand. One shop assistant explained this process in the following way:

“The reason [we built the Chocolate Theatre] is that everybody can try and taste

everything, that one can play Charley and the Chocolate Factory. And, that [the

customers] grapple with the topic of chocolate production. That they see that cacao

is an important raw material, that it is sold much too cheap, that the producers live

in terrible conditions and that our high price is completely OK”. (Shop Assistant 3)

The ‘Chocolate Theatre’ is not simply directed at its customers, but plays an important

role in the induction of new employees. All employees are obliged to attend a full day

at this site as a part of their training. It is the perfect example for an aesthetic brand

experience (Kornberger 2010). It touches all senses in order to create a

‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (total work of art), which propagates one’s experience of the brand

as part of an aesthetic experience.

Another dimension of the brand is the image of the face of the organization’s leader,

smiling and completely covered in with liquid dark chocolate plays an important role.

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Undoubtedly, the founder and CEO moved himself into the center of the brand. How

was that possible? The Marketing Director expressed it in the following way:

“Yes, [the interviews and newspaper articles are](…) very important. That is one

of our most important communication channels. It comes from having a man and a

face behind the brand. Somebody who stands in for his values and who can also be

attacked (…) there is this Josef Zotter, he can be touched, you can talk to him and

he says his opinion, and he has an opinion on many things…” (Marketing Director)

The image of the CEO presented by the media is very positive (Die Zeit, 2016; The

Boston Globe, 2013; The Observer, 2008). He is regularly presented as a lateral thinker

and a visionary, not only in terms of creating novel chocolate, but also in conducting

ethical and sustainable business in general. The communication in the media is built

around the mythologies of the charismatic, visionary leader, and the self-made

entrepreneur. His visual and verbal appearance in the media is performative for the

brand. The following three sections will point out how this moral brand influences the

identity work of its retail employees.

Self-definition by delimitation The data indicated that the employees used delimitation as a strategy to define what the

Zotter is and what it is not. Difference was a pattern that appeared in talking about

customers, competitors, products and the way of doing business. The emphasis was not

so much on what Zotter actually does or on what makes Zotter unique, but what Zotter

does (and of course does not do) as compared to ‘others’. The others, be it competitors,

customers or society, are framed as being “average”, “normal” or “mainstream”.

One instance of ‘self-definition by delimitation’ occurred when the interviewees talked

about the business policy of Zotter. Interview questions about topics such as Fairtrade

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and organic production were regularly answered in a negative, excluding way.

Interviewees explained what the others believe, think, and do wrong, and Zotter was

framed in opposition to them. The employees drew on the four brand messages

discussed above ('fair trade', 'organic', 'bean to bar' and 'hand-scooped') to differentiate

themselves from their competitors. However, questions about what the company

actually does were answered vaguely or by using common statements such as "Zotter

is fair trade" or “we are organic”. The interviewees explained Zotter's strategy by

highlighting how their competitors exploited native farmers and the environment and

that Zotter avoided this by sticking to fair-trade or organic production. It became

apparent that the employees used narratives, phrases and justifications found in the

various branding materials they are expose to. The brand values and brand messages

served as arguments for defining what “the others” are not: “the other are not fair trade”,

the others are not value driven”, the others do not produce bean to bar” where regular

justifications in the interviews. Employees also justified what the Zotter brand does not

have, or does not do. This included phrases such as “we have no PR strategy”, “we

have no Marketing”, “we do not conduct market research”, or “there is no strategy

behind”.

I referred to a market leader in order to prompt them to talk about competitors. The

difference and distance between Zotter and this other brand was so strong among

interviewees that it was not even perceived as a competitor. The competitor was

described as having a different product, serving a different market and having a

different manner of production and distribution. This sentiment was clearly expressed

by one shop assistant who explained that:

“There are chocolates [on the market] I doubt if they have cacao in them, they look

like they are only painted brown, they just taste like sugar, some of them have this

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white milk inside them, probably they don’t have milk in them, so [they consist]

only of sugar, basically they are sugar bombs.” (Shop assistant 3)

A second shop assistant expressed a similar point of view in which he defined the

competitors as producing a different product:

“(…) I used to eat Milka before, but since I know the difference, since I know what

is the difference between standard chocolate and ‘bean to bar’ I don’t eat that

anymore (…) I don`t know (…) this [other brand], that is something completely

different, it is chocolate but it is a product I would not buy.” (Shop assistant 10)

Another area of delimitation were the customers. Employees portrayed themselves as

the ‘true believers’ of the brand in contrast to consumers who were portrayed as being

less appreciative of the brand’s values. For instance, when discussing the ‘Chocolate

Theatre’ one shop assistant stated that:

“For sure, something stays in the employees’ minds. But when a customer was in

the ‘Chocolate Theatre’ five or six years ago, what stays in his mind is that he could

eat as much chocolate as he wanted to, and not that the beans have to be harvested

by hand. And I doubt that the people are really more sensitive for this topic after

their visit.“ (Shop assistant 7)

This employee clearly states his belief that Zotter’s values were far more influential on

the views of its own employees than on those of its customers. Another shop assistant

questioned the customer's’ commitment to sustainability and ethics in the following

way:

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“… they have the impression of a prestige organization. I don’t think that all people

see the Fair Trade, organic, sustainability concept that Zotter wants to be seen and

associated with, I don’t believe that. I believe that people basically think that it is

expensive chocolate.” (Shop assistant 1)

Questions were raised about the customer's’ commitments, where no such doubts

existed in the employee's’ own minds:

“There are customers who are well informed [about Zotter's business approach],

others have basic information and got in touch with the topic of sustainability

recently, and there are customers who ask directly in the shop what we are about.

But there is definitely a tendency among the customers towards the insight that they

are doing something good if they consume [Zotter's products] (…) but basically I

have the impression that the customers have less of an idea on the topic [of

sustainability and fair trade] than they believe.“ (Shop assistant 8)

Self-definition through delimitation is mainly facilitated by the modes of “defining the

person directly” (1), “defining a person by defining others” (2), and “explicating morals

and values” (4). The brand messages “fair trade” and “organic” provide a network of

morals, meanings and values (mode 4) for employees that help them to make sense

about their brand directly (mode 1). However, the interviews indicated that the brand

values were mainly used to define the others (mode 2) and in reference to define what

the own brand is. The brand values and messages create a strong division between

‘them’ vs. ‘us’, where the employees clearly distinguish themselves as being brand

believers in contrast to both their competitors and even their own customers.

Competitors were seen as exploiting nature and native societies, customers were

perceived as naive and ignorant, society is framed as blind and based on exploitation.

The interpretation of others in terms of the brand is used as a source of self-definition.

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The own brand is seen as caring for society and nature, as a responsible producer;

employees see themselves as experts in the chocolate business and as responsible

members of society. The role of the brand in this realm is that it provides narratives and

meaningful interpretative cues for the employees. This brings us to the next theme

prevalent in the branding process which explicitly provided moral categories and

arguments in which the employees interpreted the world.

Self-definition as morally superior Beside using the brand to define what the Zotter brand is by delimiting it from others,

employees positioned the brand and themselves as morally superior in terms of

consumption and production techniques. The two brand labels “fair trade” and

“organic” played a key role in this realm; both were regularly subsumed under the term

“sustainability” and used to define Zotter directly as a morally outstanding

organization. The position of Zotter was framed as “against profit maximization”,

“authentic” and “driven by its own values”. Phrases used by interviewees included “we

do not outsource sustainability” and “we stand behind what we say”, and Zotter is a

“credible”, “authentic” and “reliable “organization. When talking about the brand

strong emphasize was put on “being real”, “being moral”, and “being authentic”.

Interviewees also saw and presented themselves as morally outstanding individuals.

They expressed doubts about endless growth, profit maximization and reservations

towards capitalism and globalization in general. Western capitalism was seen as being

an exploitative, destructive force. Working for Zotter was seen as an ethical practice in

which these negative tendencies of capitalism are addressed. Working for Zotter was

seen expression of a different, responsible way of life. This ethical conception of

working for Zotter was expressed by one employee in the following way:

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„Hmm (...) to live up to Zotter's philosophy, Yes, I think I feel a kind of pressure,

because Zotter has for me (...) if I look at the label, they are so damn good that I

really want to try hard to do better [in following a sustainable lifestyle]. (Shop

assistant 10)

The charismatic leader played a central role in the portrayal of this ethical image, where

he was portrayed as a highly moral individual and as a role model for one's owns life.

For instance, the Marketing Director explained that:

“There is a name and a face which stands for his values. There is a personality, a

character that is transformed into our products. This is what most products do not

have anymore.” (Marketing Director)

The dimension of moral superiority can also be found in the justification of the high

price. Zotter is situated in the premium sector. Today a 70-gramme bar of Zotter

chocolate is sold on the market for roughly EUR 3.50; this is about three to four times

the price of a regular bar of chocolate. This high price was legitimized by the employees

on a moral level. The rationales given included “the complex production process”, “the

high quality of the raw materials”, and “the fair prices paid for raw materials”.

Additionally, the price is seen as “being calculated in a reasonable”, and thus “fair” and

“ethically correct” way. The price is seen as “credible” and “authentic”; it is the “

expression of the production costs”:

“Our price is not something that we calculate arbitrarily like a stock price, or that

we check the market for what we can get, or how much we can get out of the

customer for our product. It is actually very simple: it is the raw material plus

working hours, then we get a price X, and then of course we want to earn something,

so that the company can be successful. In sum this is the retail price. It is very

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simple; we all want a fair wage and a safe place to work. We cannot work or give

something away for free. We can only produce more cheaply if we buy cheaper raw

materials, but this would change the character of our product.” (Shop assistant 2)

The high price is seen as the expression of the brand ethical approach; it is justified as

being the result of a morally superior purchasing policy and production techniques. It

cannot be questioned as being illegitimate because it is the proof of the high quality of

the raw materials, the sustainable production methods, and the fair prices paid to

farmers for these materials. The chocolate is framed as a luxury product which must be

consumed in an ethically conscious way.

“Hmm, I think it is much better to pay a bit more for fair-trade chocolate. Personally,

I would spend more for one bar of fair-trade chocolate than for three bars of Milka

chocolate, because one chocolate bar a week is enough, just because there is no

reason to eat three bars of chocolate a week if I cannot afford it right now.” (Shop

assistant 5)

The employees understood themselves as experts in the field of ethical and sustainable

chocolate production, and, as indicated above, they showed a clear understanding of

the production reality in the mainstream chocolate production sector. This includes the

exploitation of the chocolate farmers, market inequalities and environmental issues.

Zotter is seen as being in opposition to those practices, as producing in a responsible

(‘organic’ and ’bean to bar”) and ethical correct (‘fair trade’) way. A very interesting

finding was, that when I asked in detail about Zotter`s practices and what the terms 'fair

trade' and 'organic' imply, the answers remained vague and differed significantly

between interviewees. Questions such as “What does it mean to be organic?" or “What

does it mean to be fair trade, what is that exactly?" were answered as follows:

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“Organic? There are these standards from the European Union. What organic

means? It focuses on the use of pesticides.” (Shop assistant 9)

“That means that these products should be more healthy than products produced

with pesticides, and that (the farmers) have certain requirements for the

environment and they way of production which they have to follow.” (Shop

assistant 7)

A second example illustrating this instance is the following dialog between the

researcher and a shop assistant:

I: “Is Zotter organic?

R: Yes!

I: What does this mean?

R: This means that the beans and all the other products (…) um… there are no

pesticides on them, because of course it`s much healthier, and, of course there is

also this health aspect, and I think you feel it also in the taste …” (Shop assistant

10)

A second shop assistant gave a very similar answer:

I: Is Zotter certified?

R: Yes, Zotter is certified!

I: Which certificates exactly?

R: (…) you are tricky (…) um we are organic and fair trade certified

(…)Wait it is on the packing (…).” (Shop assistant 4)

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These statements are examples of how the employees used the moral vocabulary

provided by the brand in giving moral justifications. However, they do not show any

deeper engagement beyond the narratives of the brand. This represents an interesting

insight, because it shows that the employees highly identify with the brand values, but

do not show any deeper reflection upon them.

Self-definition as morally superior is mainly based upon the modes of “providing a

specific vocabulary of motives” (3), “explicating morals and values” (4) and

“knowledge and skills” (5). These free modes are connected to each other and are

“action oriented” (Alvesson and Willmott 2002, p. 632). They construct a discoursive

landscape in which the work activities are carried out and what the appropriate work

orientation should be. These three modes construct a particular interpretative

framework through which employees understand their job and make sense about issues

beyond their immediate work. Studies have pointed to the promotion of “non-

instrumental work orientations” (Alvesson 1995) and the promotion of “being the best”

(Kärreman and Rylander, 2008) or social motives such as fun and community and “just

be yourself” (Fleming and Sturdy 2009). In the case of the Zotter brand the work

orientation is constructed through explicating morals and values around fair trade and

organic production and through providing knowledge and skills on the business

processes of the brand and fair trade and organic production in general.

Providing a common sense of mission The interviewees expressed a desire to spread the worldview of the Zotter brand and

convert the whole world (including me as researcher) to a new form of business. This

included a strong belief in the notions of ‘organic production’, ‘fair trade’ and

‘sustainability’. Zotter employees talked about converting their competitors to “better

business practices” and their consumers to responsible consumption. For instance, one

shop assistant replied:

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"Market participants, no we don’t talk about them in any evil or aggressive way,

(…) Zotter talked to one of these guys from Jupiter [an industry leader], it was at a

trade fair, he said you could rebuild your business, you could work sustainably, you

could work in a fair way. So he appealed to his conscience (…) but I think in those

companies the will for change is missing (…). And I think that’s the difference

between [them and] Zotter, which is a stable family business that does not want to

grow above a specific size within a given time period.” (Shop assistant 7)

The Director of Distribution expressed their relationship with farmers and farming

practices in a more diplomatic way:

“Everybody has to do their own thing, (…) It would be nice if they would stick up

more for where they purchase their cacao (…) We are interested in the farmer

behind the bean, but if I don’t have to deal (directly) with the farmer he can quickly

loose his face.” (Director of Distribution)

These statements expressed a sense of mission to transfer Zotter's business practices to

other organizations in order to create a sustainable society. One shop assistant described

Zotter's expansion plans not as a new business opportunity, but as a way of

disseminating Zotter's sustainability concept to other countries:

“[With the expansion to Shanghai] Zotter can teach the Chinese people, whose

economy is based mainly on the exploitation of resources, how to conduct business

in a sustainable way (…), that is really cool, this social-pedagogical approach, this

market education approach, that's really cool shit!” (Shop assistant 2)

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The missionary zeal of Zotter is also apparent in their relationship with the customers.

For instance, the 'Chocolate Theatre' were not seen as a marketing tool, but as a way of

ethically educating the consumers and of changing their minds in thinking about fair

trade, sustainability and the condition of our society in general. When asked about the

role of the chocolate theatre one respondent explained that:

“The reason [we built the Chocolate Theatre] is that everybody can try and taste

everything, that one can play Charley and the Chocolate Factory. And, that [the

customers] grapple with the topic of chocolate production. That they see that cacao

is an important raw material, that it is sold much too cheap, that the producers live

in terrible conditions and that our high price is completely OK”. (Shop Assistant 9)

Another shop assistant expressed a similar view:

“I think it is a good idea that people can learn and see how a bar of chocolate is

produced. That they understand how many steps go into making a bar of

chocolate…. that there is a lot of effort between a cacao bean and a bar of chocolate.

And that if you are a critical customer, I think that you are able to transfer that onto

other products, that there is a reason that some products cost more than others”

(Shop Assistant 11)

The "Essbarer Tiergarten” and the “Schokoladentheater” are not seen as a marketing

tool, but as a way of educating the consumers and of changing their minds in thinking

about fair trade, sustainability and the condition of our society in general.

I: “What about the Essbarer Tiergarten?”

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R: “(…) I think that’s generally a good thing, the hidden agenda is to show that the

schnitzel one can buy in the super market once was a pig, and that what we eat is

in fact animals (…) and that, as a customer, I have to accept that my schnitzel was

once a creature (…)”

I: “So you would say that (the Essbarer Tiergarten) has some effects?

R: “Yes definitely, that they [the customers] start at least to think, or if they don’t

start to think, that they are at least offended, and that somebody else starts to think

for them” (Shop assistant 7)

The shop assistants understood their job as containing a sense of mission that goes far

beyond selling chocolate. Their part-time job as a shop assistant is understood as

containing an ethical duty of educating the customers in responsible consumption

practices:

“(…) we have certain customers which show a strong awareness [for fair trade and

sustainability], and who have an awareness that they are buying organic and fair

trade products [at Zotter] (…) but of course that’s not everybody. That’s why we

try to bring it close to everybody. Because it is us who represent the company’s

philosophy and it is our duty to create and maintain this awareness (among the

customers).” (Shop assistant 2)

Taking these statements together, the employees framed the main objective of Zotter

as to educate its customers as well as the competitors and foreign societies in

responsible and sustainable business practices. The main purpose of the organization,

i.e. producing and selling chocolate, was treated almost as a by-product in a wider

societal mission.

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Creating a common sense of mission is clearly based upon the mode of “explicating

morals and values” (mode 4) and “providing a specific vocabulary of motives” (Mode

3) around changing the industry and transforming exploiting capitalism. It is also based

upon an implicit hierarchical location (Mode 7) of the entire organization as morally

outstanding. “Hierarchical location” is mainly based on “repeated symbolism”. The

Zotter brand distinguishes the organization and its members as morally superior to

others, such as the customer and competitors. The Zotter brand is an example for

“progressive companies where (...) the entire company and its members [are

constructed] as elite, e.g. through being organic (…) implying that organizational

members are ahead of the rest of the competition in their orientations and capacities”

(Alvesson and Willmott, 2002 p.630). It also points to the mode of “defining the

context” (Mode 9), which sets the organization in relation to a wider context, such as

globalization and capitalism in general. The organization assimilates such as wider

societal discourse and position itself within this context. In the case of Zotter the

organization positions itself in the anti-globalization and anti-capitalism movement. In

fact, the two labels of “fair trade” and “organic” serve as a means to position and locate

Zotter within the wider societal discourse on “sustainability”, “the end of growth”.

Zotter is seen as providing a role mode for organizations who want to become more

sustainable, but also as educating consumers towards transforming their lifestyle and

their consumption behavior towards fair trade and organic products.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The primary aim of this paper was to study how employees draw on an ethical brand

in order to construct meaning in and beyond their work. The paper began with

introducing the notion of ‘social identities’ (Watson, 2008) and identity work

(Alvesson & Willmott, 2002) in order to link the concept of ‘self-identity’ with the

concept of corporate brands. This perspective highlights how corporate brands can

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transform discourses in society into coherent brand-stories, which can be understood

as meaningful ‘social identities’ (Watson, 2008) used by employees in their ‘identity

work’. The paper then presents a case study which illuminates the various ways in

which a corporate brand informs and affects employee identity work. Drawing on the

“modes of identity work” introduced by Alvesson and Willmott (2002), the paper finds

that in the case study the brand facilitates employee identity work based upon “self-

definition through delimitation” (theme ii), “self- definition as morally superior”

(theme iii), and “a common sense of mission” (theme iv). The empirical case shows the

crucial importance of ethics for employee identity work and highlights how an ethical

brand successfully valorizes the contemporary discourses around sustainability and

responsible consumption. It thus provides an empirical example for the increasing

capitalization of sociality (see Alvesson 2013, Brannan et al. 2011, Kornberger 2010,

Mumby 2016, Land and Taylor 2010) and the incorporation of ethics (Kornberger

2010, Jeanes 2013).

An important finding is, that the ethical brand is largely built on the incorporation and

modification of available social discourses, around topics of organic production, fair

trade and sustainability (theme i). The employees draw upon these meaningful

narratives in the construction of their own self-narratives. This finding corroborates

with existing research that shoes that ethics is an important discursive resource for

identity work (Kornberger & Brown 2007, Jeanes 2013), and it extends research on

brand-mediated organizational control (Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Endrissat et. al.

2016, Müller 2017) by identifying specific process of identity work that are activated

by branding processes. Another finding is, that the moral values and stories that have

been drawn upon in the development of the brand directly mimic the brand-stories

found in successful social movement organizations. In fact, the social discourses that

the brand taps into are themselves brands associated with social movement

organizations such as the Fairtrade movement (Zick, 2008), the organic farming

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movement, and the organizations whose work is involved in supporting these social

movements.

Kärreman and Rylander (2008) have suggested that a brand can foster and confirm the

employees’ identification with the organization, but in their case of a consulting

company “the corporate brand is clearly different from the values that are lived by

organizational members” (2008, p.120). The case of Zotter reveals a somewhat

different picture. The brand is highly congruent with organizational culture and the

managerial vision of a new economic system beyond endless growth and capitalist

exploitation. This branding narrative as well as the high congruency between

communicated and lived values foster a very high identification between the employees

and the organization. The shop assistants experience their job as being part of a wider

social movement within society. And, the brand provides the employees with narratives

that help them to cope with contradictions in their work, their life and society in general.

This finding reveals a potentially significant implication for the effects of ethical

branding on employee identity work. Alvesson and Willmott (2002) identified an

‘emancipatory potential’ in identity work in terms of ‘resources for critical reflection,

and … a supportive form of social interaction’ (2002, p.637). This case study reveals

precisely such resources for critical reflection and a critical engagement with wider

social issues such as environmental concerns and fair trade. But the brand also defines

the very limits of this critical reflection process. This becomes apparent in the un-

reflected repetition of brand narratives, when making sense about competitors or others

and, in making sense about issues beyond their work environment. The ethical brand

provides a cleaned moral narrative that vanishes all contradictions and reduces the

complexity of ethical choices.

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Article 3

Brand-Mediated Ideological Edgework

Brand-Mediated Ideological Edgework: Negotiating the Aestheticized Human Body on Instagram - The Case of American Apparel15

Jonathan D. Schöps, Philipp K. Wegerer & Andrea Hemetsberger ACR Proceedings 2017 Abstract This paper enhances the understanding of how brands and consumers engage in brand-mediated ideological edgework on Instagram. Our study uses a performativity lens to investigate how the fashion brand American Apparel and consumers performatively (re-)construct the aestheticized social body. We identify six brand and consumer practices of brand-mediated ideological edgework.

INTRODUCTION Brands make vast use of social media platforms such as Instagram to connect with

“cultural intermediaries” and engage consumers (Carah and Shaul 2016, 69). Recent

research finds that consumers – on new sites such as Twitter or Instagram – rather use

brands in an instrumental manner for self-presentation, publicity, self-branding or

bragging (Arvidsson and Caliandro 2016; Marwick 2015; Presi, Maehle, and Kleppe

2016; Rokka and Canniford 2016). So, how can brands engage consumers? Contrary

15 see: https://www.acrwebsite.org/web/conferences/proceedings.aspx

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to these findings, the Instagram account of American Apparel (AA) – a fashion brand

that is well known for its controversial visual ads – provokes considerable consumer

reaction and gender-ideological discourse on Instagram. How do brands use visual

rhetoric to initiate ideological discourse on otherwise quite self-centered social

networking platforms? And how do these brand visuals mediate what Thompson and

Üstüner (2015) denominate as consumer ideological edgework?

Ideological edgework refers to marketplace performances of consumers that “challenge

orthodox gender boundaries, without losing sociocultural legitimacy” (Thompson and

Üstüner 2015, 1). Thompson and Üstüner (2015) describe ideological edgework as a

form of gender work, but focus on the consumer as primary actor. However, brands

also play a significant role in the (de-)construction of social reality, and market

morality. Prior research describes the active role of brands as facilitators of networked

brand performativity (von Wallpach, Hemetsberger, and Espersen 2017), and as

catalysts of moral coalition formation (Stoeckl 2014). Research on the facilitating and

catalyst role of brands in ideological discourse is scant.

This study aims to investigate into the role of brands as mediators of ideological

edgework on social networking sites. Our analysis focuses on the visual and textual

discourse that enfolds on the Instagram account of American Apparel. We analyze the

visual performances of the brand, as well as brand-mediated consumer practices, and

how these practices co-construct (body) ideologies in the digital marketplace. Findings

reveal three brand, and three consumer practices. The brand authenticates, sets agendas

and sensitizes through provocative visual performances of the body. Consumers

textually applaud, moralize, and negotiate. We introduce and discuss the notion of

brand-mediated ideological edgework, point out limitations of this study, and offer

future research possibilities.

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THEORY Brands and consumers on social media In the age of digitalization, social media became an indispensable medium for brands

to connect, communicate, and interact with consumers. Scholars find that consumers

do interact with brands on social media, but use brands merely as a mediation device

to gain publicity, and self-promotion (Arvidsson and Caliandro 2016; Marwick 2015;

Presi et al. 2016; Rokka and Canniford 2016). These consumer practices do not lead to

the development of a collective identity around the brand of interest (Arvidsson and

Caliandro 2016), but rather to a multitude of identities that can destabilize the “spatial,

temporal, symbolic and material properties of brand assemblages” (Rokka and

Canniford 2016, 1). Closely related to this phenomenon is the notion of the

microcelebrity (Marwick 2015). Microcelebrities mimic celebrity culture by “using the

familiar trappings of thin but buxom bodies, sports cars and designer clothes” (Marwick

2015, 157). These studies rely on the concept of the “demiotic turn,” which describes

the possibility to acquire mass audiences through the display of “a set of physical and

aesthetic criteria” (Markwick 2015, 157). The relationship between brands and

consumers can be described as unidirectional, where consumers use brands as means

to gain publicity in social networks. On the other hand, studies point out micro-

practices of consumers that aggregate and eventually change social institutions, such

as fashion (Dolbec and Fischer 2015; McQuarrie, Miller, and Phillips 2013; Scaraboto

and Fischer 2013). Our aim is to extend this stream of research by studying how

consumers and brands co-construct and challenge dominant ideological formations

around idealized body and gender norms. Performativity theory offers a theoretical lens

that allows investigating the co-construction of social norms through brands and

consumers.

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Performativity Theory This study draws on performativity theory (Austin 1975; Butler 1993, 2010; Callon

1998; Lash 2015) in order to investigate how a brand visually performs the human body

on Instagram. The central idea of performativity theory is that social reality, in our case

the human body, is constructed through repetitive performances by brands and

consumers. Performativity is constituted through the three elements of actors (brand

and consumers), performances (the body), and socio-materiality (visuals) (Lucarelli

and Hallin 2014). Performativity theory is based upon the idea that linguistic acts,

practices, and visuals form a (perlocutionary) force that shapes reality (Austin 1975;

Butler 2010). In the context of this study, this implies that a brand’s visual

performances combined with consumers’ linguistic acts provide a discursive

space, in which these two actors negotiate conceptions of the human body. A

performance of the body is a “stylized repetition of acts” by multiple actors (Butler

1990, 140), that is, the hegemonic body ideal is itself a constant and repeated effort to

imitate its own idealizations. The representation of the body by fashion brands can be

subversive to the extent that it reflects on the imitative structures of hegemonic body

representations. Thus, fashion brands can produce and dispute body ideals and claims

for naturalness and originality.

This study focuses on a brand’s visual performances of the human body, and how this

perlocutionary act is re-constructed by the brand’s audience. We study socio-material

(Instagram brand images), as well as linguistic acts (comments of consumers) (Callon

1998). Applying this performative view onto the co-construction of human body

aesthetics in the context of Instagram provides a more nuanced understanding of how

brands and consumers contribute to the performance of the human body in the digital

marketplace.

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METHODOLOGY Our study uses a netnographic approach to investigate how a brand mediates

ideological consumer discourse in the digital marketplace (Bartl, Kannan, and

Stockinger 2016; Kozinets 2015). Our primary source of data was the Instagram

account of American Apparel (@americanapparelusa) as a prime example of a brand

that induces ideological discourse through controversial visual body performances on

Instagram. We collected 2528 posts from a total of 4842, covering a time frame from

2012 to 2017. We browsed through all Instagram posts of AA and selected all posts

with an extensive comment section. The final sample comprised 37 Instagram posts

with slightly more than 8000 comments in total. Data analysis encompassed an iterative

process of inductive categorization (Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006; Spiggle

1994) and abstraction to derive major themes related to the visual performances of AA

and the textual discourse of the consumers. An interpretive group of three authors

coded independently, and reached final consensus and intercoder reliability in

extensive rounds of discussion (Arnold and Fischer 1994; Kreiner et al. 2006).

FINDINGS The majority of brand accounts on Instagram show little to no interaction among

consumers in the comment section, or between consumers and brands (Arvidsson and

Caliandro 2016). In contrast, we found an extensive discourse among consumers,

reacting to non-conventional brand-mediated portrayals of the human body, for

instance to a portrayal of an elderly model, a gay couple or other body forms and

performances that deviate from prevalent fashion market ideologies (Dolbec and

Fischer 2015). Consumers draw on the visual performances of the AA brand and

address previous comments of other consumers in their attempt to (re-)construct

ideologies of the human body. In the following we provide a detailed description of the

discursive practices of the brand and the consumers (Table 1).

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Visual brand performances: Authenticating, agenda-setting and sensitizing

We find that the posts that trigger extensive consumer discourse employ a number of

authenticating performances (Arnould and Price 2000) that embrace the natural and

imperfect nature of the human body. Performances include featuring employees as

brand models. The brand intentionally uses the hashtags #AAmodel or #AAemployee

to emphasize whether the model is a professional or an employee. Sometimes the brand

links the Instagram username of the model or the employee in the caption. AA also

commonly adds personal interests of the models in the caption; that is, personalizing

the ads to diminish the objectification of the depicted female bodies. Diversity is

emphasized by depicting all body sizes and shapes, as well as all ethnicities and age

groups in their ads. The posts are neither photo-shopped, nor retouch the depicted

bodies. Various posts exhibit natural features of the human body, i.e. armpit hair on

women, nipples or women with visible stretch marks, practices that aim to subvert the

normalized social body, authenticating naturalness instead.

Agenda-setting contrasts the socialized body with ‘out of the norm’ visuals thus setting

a mental agenda for public discourse (Ragas and Roberts 2009; Sutherland and

Galloway 1981). AA, for instance, supports minorities, i.e. the LGBTQA+ community.

For example, an ad depicting two black gay men featured the caption: “American

Apparel celebrates sexuality! #LegalizeGay.” AA further cooperates with activist

movements, i.e. the Human Rights Campaign, and challenges ideologies of youth by

portraying Jacky O'Shaughnessy, a 64-year-old model, for their campaign “Sexy has

no expiration date.” Agenda-setting performances question aestheticized body

ideologies that go beyond the institution of fashion, addressing the social body. AA’s

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agenda-setting addresses consumers to follow the brand’s effort to challenge societal

issues.

A third performance of brand-mediated ideological edgework is sensitizing through

visuals (Hirschman and Thompson 1997). The edgy and provocative ads differ from

mainstream ads pursuing contemporary norms of human body shape, health, or

hygiene. AA regularly depicts bodies that deviate from aesthetic ideologies, i.e.

pregnant or hairy women. Sensitizing refers to practices of repetitively introducing

visuals that raise awareness of the implicit persuasiveness of the normalized social

body. That is, AA’s visual performances can be interpreted as an attempt to

problematize taste regimes and management of corporeality in contemporary society

(Bauman 2005; Dolbec and Fischer 2015).

Brand-mediated consumer practices: Applauding, moralizing and negotiating

How does the brand’s audience react to brand performances? First, we find that

consumers applaud the brand. They do so textually, i.e. “Love it!” but also sign-based,

using emojis. We find that consumers embrace the visual performances of the brand on

Instagram to express visions of a different human body ideology. For example, one

consumer commented on an ad depicting model Jacky O'Shaughnessy: “I am so

fucking proud to have a company like this based in America. #gousa #AAlove.”

Moreover, consumers embrace the idea of “real human beings” that defy “the made

up concept of beauty” in our society. Consumers further defend the brand against

negative comments and brand-attacks of other consumers. They bond with the brand to

“shatter the delusions [...] of youth obsessed culture,” emphasizing the collaborative

character of ideological edgework (Fournier 1998).

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Second, in response to AA’s brand performances we find moralizing consumer

discourse (Luedicke, Thompson, and Giesler 2010). Consumers regularly attack the

depicted human bodies. Human bodies that deviate from beauty conventions are

targeted with negative comments in an attempt to (re-)stabilize current social norms of

beauty and social order. Consumers do not only attack the depicted human bodies, but

also the LGBTQA+ community as such, religious beliefs of other consumers, and AA

itself for their attempt to break institutionalized norms of beauty, sexuality, and

religion. For example, one consumer commented: “American Apparel goes too far to

break the boundaries of “beauty” sometimes.”

In contrast, counter-ideological moralizations defend brand-mediated edgework and

argue for freedom of speech and belief. We find that these consumers verbally defend

the brand’s visual rhetoric. As one consumer put it: “I love how you all are shattering

standard societal beauty norms.” Moralizing consumer discourse addresses the brand

or other consumers directly, mostly by the use of the affordance “@[username]”.

Consumers and the brand form a moral coalition and destabilizing force to break the

rigidity of social conventions and beliefs in normalized body aesthetics.

Third, we also find that consumers negotiate body-related ideologies initiated by the

brand’s visual performances (Rokka and Moisander 2009; Thompson and Hirschman

1995; Thompson, Rindfleisch, and Arsel 2006). Negotiations comprise gender-related

ideologies, i.e. what does it mean to be a woman or a man in our society; where does

beauty start and where does it end. For instance, consumers discuss the role of body

hair and shaving practices. An ad of AA featuring a young woman showing her armpit

hair initiated negotiations of women’s liberation, and why men do not have to shave

off armpit hair, but women do. In defense of armpit hair, a consumer comments: “YES.

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Just a huge yes to promoting females loving their body even they don’t match standards

for women these days.”

Similarly, consumers negotiate body sizes and shapes (Scaraboto and Fischer 2013), or

argue for more ethnic diversity and sexual freedom. Consumer negotiations comprise

discourse of liberation and empowerment and include consumers as well as the brand.

In contrast to moralizing, negotiating practices articulate consumers’ opinions towards

societal ideologies per se. Brand-mediated ideological edgework is applauded as

liberating and at the same time contested for simply abusing human bodies for

marketization.

DISCUSSION This paper introduces the notion of brand-mediated ideological edgework to illustrate

how brands induce consumer discourse that challenges societal ideologies and norms.

Interestingly, in the case of AA, we find that a commonly monologue oriented social

media platform provides a discursive space enabling powerful visual rhetoric for brand-

mediated ideological edgework. Our notion of brand-mediated ideological edgework

extends Thompson and Üstüner’s (2015) perspective by showing how a brand becomes

a central actor in ideological edgework. We define brand-mediated ideological

edgework as a brand’s effort to mediate consumer ideological discourse that

destabilizes and (re-)stabilizes social convention and order. Ideological edgework thus

becomes collaborative work of diverse market actors, embracing brand performances

that exert an intentional (illocutionary) force (Austin 1975; Butler 2010) followed by a

perlocutionary act visible in consumer discourse (Schechner 2006).

Our study shows that social formations around a brand within a digital environment are

more multifaceted than the notion of brand public implies (Arvidsson and Caliandro

2016). Our findings suggest that social media based consumer culture may very well

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be structured by discourse, and not only by affects, intended to generate publicity and

fame (Arvidsson and Caliandro 2016; Marwick 2015; Presi et al. 2016; Rokka and

Canniford 2016). The case of American Apparel demonstrates that brands mediate

consumer discourse in that consumers use brand rhetoric to express their concern and

form coalitions with brands to engage in ideological edgework about beauty ideals,

body, and gender norms.

This study has two main limitations. First, our study focuses on one brand and one

digital platform. Second, findings are still exploratory. Further research should

therefore investigate ads in detail, i.e. using a critical visual analysis (Rokka and

Canniford 2016), and adopt a processual perspective in order to capture the dramaturgy

of brand-mediated ideological edgework. Social network analysis could further

illuminate central themes and key players that manifest the public negotiation of the

human body in the social network of a brand.

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Visual Brand Performances

Examples of Visual Brand Performances

Authenticating ● Naturalizing the human body ● Displaying the imperfect human

body, i.e. stretch marks ● Displaying diversity, i.e. body

shapes, sizes, ages, ethnicities ● Personalizing the ad, i.e. “Meet

Jacky”

Agenda-setting ● Expressing solidarity with minorities

though the use of hashtags, i.e. “#LoveConquersHate” or by producing products that express solidarity , i.e. “This month purchase a shirt or tote and proceeds will support the Equality Act and the fight to end #LGBTA discrimination”

● Adding agenda-setting captions and hashtags to the IG posts, i.e. “#LegalizeGay” or “#MakeAmericaGayAgain”

Sensitizing ● Edgy and provocative visual

performances ● Display of ideology-deviant human

bodies in an aestheticized fashion ● Provocative captions and hashtags,

i.e. “Sexy has no expiration date”

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Consumer Practices Examples of Consumer Practices

Applauding ● Expression of positive feelings

towards the depicted human body, i.e. through comments, likes and emojis

● Embracing the brand’s visual performances

● Embracing the marketing style of AA

“This is beautiful, she is beautiful and the commentators on the AA Instagram are always so disappointing. This is a great ad and those who think a human body past a certain age is gross are just ignorant. This deserves more positive comments and I applaud AA for not letting comments like these stop the use of models of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors” “Beautiful! Let’s shatter the delusions we’ve created in this youth obsessed culture! I hate to tell you guys, but just as she was a young woman once, so shall each of us age. Let’s accept that and not judge people based on their age. How is that any better than judging based on ethnicity or gender?”

Moralizing ● Attacking

○ the depicted human body ○ the brand ○ minorities, i.e. LGBTQA+

community ○ religions

● Defending ○ the depicted human body ○ minorities ○ freedom of speech ○ freedom of belief

“Shame on your company @americanapparelusa! Maybe you should just try to make quality clothing to sell your product instead of using porn to draw attention. On a side note your clothing is boring and monochromatic” “Everyone has their own beliefs no matter what religion is. We need to stop those who want to cause harm to innocent people. No matter what religion, race, gender or sexual orientation we cannot let people die cause of what they are. Humans are all born equally and we need to join together and share peace and love with the world! Violence isn’t the answer. LOVE IS!”

Negotiating ● Gender ideologies

“[...] because for decades now women have been molded to fit a certain image and if you don’t meet up to this image you aren’t

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● Female objectification vs. liberation and empowerment

● Freedom of the feminine body ● Ethnic diversity ● Freedom of sexuality

worthy, beautiful, etc so with her not giving a fuck about the natural hair she has and that we were ALL born with and sharing her confidence with the world, can uplift and encourage a way bigger movement than just you and I and everyone else commenting on this damn thing. Not sure why this needs to be explained to so many women it’s frightening and the only gross thing about this fucking post” “[…] Anyway. Only us women argue about body hair. I, myself, don’t like hairy armpits, vagina, upper lip, or nothing that looks ungroomed. No hair on those parts of my body make me feel clean and feminine. I don’t even like too much hair on men. So it’s not a “I’m a sheep who follows society’s rules about women.” But I guess didn’t do my research enough to know that nothing screams out “I am a rebel” or “f*** you, society rules!!” like hairy women. #VivaLaBush (tree-emoji) I’m out.”

Table 2: Findings Brand- Mediated Ideological Edgework

Article 4 Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding

Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate Branding16

Philipp Wegerer & Iain Munro Organization (forthcoming)

Abstract Recent research within the field of organization studies has begun to map out the social and political effects of ethical branding on consumers, employees and society, yet the relationship between employees and brands is still an under- developed area of research. The aim of this paper is to investigate how an ethical brand is perceived by its employees and to reveal contradictions that emerge when employees make sense about their brand. The paper develops an empirical case study which analyses the “ethical ambivalence” that is present in the employees’ understanding of this brand. The analysis reveals ambivalences between: i) the high employee identification with the brand in contrast to their ignorance of its specific values and practices, ii) the aims of the brand pedagogy, and the admission that these had little effect in practice, and iii) the ambivalence in the stated aim to ethically transform the industry in contrast to maintaining an exclusive market niche. The paper makes the following contributions to research into branding: i) it provides an empirical case study which reveals the contradictions in the employees understanding of their company’s brand, and ii) it introduces the concept of “ethical ambivalence” as a way to understand these contradictions, showing how this ambivalence permits only a very restricted level of critical reflection about ethical issues.

16 see: http://journals.sagepub.com/loi/orga

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INTRODUCTION Brands have been described as a key organizing principle of post-industrial capitalism

(Arvidsson 2007, 2014, Brannan et al. 2011, Kornberger 2010, Land and Taylor 2010,

Mumby 2016). Within the existing literature on corporate branding contrasting

accounts have been developed, where some authors have framed brands as a potentially

liberating force for ethical consumption and consumer identity creation (Caruana and

Crane 2008, Kornberger 2010, Newholm and Hopkinson 2009, Palasso and Basu

2007), and others have criticized them as being built on the exploitation of the unpaid

labor of consumers and employees (Arvidsson 2007, 2014; Cova and Dalli 2009, Land

and Taylor 2010, Mumby 2016, Willmott 2010). The primary focus of recent empirical

research into branding within organization studies has been on the role of brands as

mediators of meaning within organizations and their role in employee identity work

(Brannan et al. 2015; Endrissat et al. 2016; Jeanes, 2013; Kärreman and Rylander 2008,

Müller 2016). These studies frequently note the fact that brands can never completely

subsume worker identity and that opportunities for critical reflection are always

present, but as yet there has been relatively little investigation of the tensions and

contradictions that might form the basis of such critical reflection. The primary aim of

this paper is to investigate how an ethical brand is perceived by its own company

employees and to reveal the ethical ambivalence at play in employee accounts of their

brand ethics.

This paper develops an empirical case study of the successful niche market chocolate

producer, ‘Zotter'. This company was selected primarily because it has a high

reputation within the industry for its ethical brand image, which is grounded in its

production of sustainable, organic, Fair-Trade products. It has won also numerous

awards for its efforts to develop a truly ethical brand. This paper makes the following

contributions to research into corporate branding: i) it provides an empirical case study

of an ethical brand, which reveals contradictions in the way employees make sense of

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their brand, and ii) it introduces the concept of the “ethics of ambivalence” as a way to

understand these contradictions, and how this ambivalence permits only a very

restricted level of critical reflection about ethical issues.

The paper begins with a literature review of corporate branding observing that different

approaches to branding exist within the literature including functionalist and

interpretative approaches, but the focus of the present inquiry is primarily on critical

and ethical approaches to this field of inquiry. Next, the paper develops an empirical

case study of Zotter’s ethical brand. The empirical study first shows the key

mechanisms the company uses to promote its ethical brand, and then analyses the

ambivalence that is present in the employees’ accounts of this brand. The paper

concludes with a discussion of how the “ethics of ambivalence” permits only limited

space for critical reflection about ethical business practice within capitalism.

MEDIATION AND THE ETHICS OF AMBIVALENCE IN BRANDING Brand research has its conceptual roots in early marketing science, in the growing

concern for the creation of customer loyalty and the distribution of mass-produced

commodities at the turn of the 20th century (Alderson 1957, Kotler 1967, McCarty

1960). Research within this functionalist tradition was built upon an understanding of

brands as managerial tools that could help to govern the various needs of business

organizations such as product distribution (Nox and Bickerton 2013), human resource

management (Backhaus and Tikoo 2004, Miles and Mangold 2007) and corporate

communications (Balmer and Gray 1999, Balmer and Dinne 2001, Hatch and Schultz

2003). Brands were seen as managerial objects, eventually becoming a quantifiable

form of equity (Aaker 1991 and 1996, Keller 1993). Brand management was thus

conceived as a marketing tool and “a source of sustainable, competitive advantage for

the organization” (Miles and Mangold 2007, p. 77), where brands have become a

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‘distinct mode of capital accumulation’ (Holt 2006, p. 300). As we shall see below, this

mainstream marketing perspective on branding has been criticized for its overemphasis

on managerial agency in the branding process and for paying too little attention to

understanding how brands are interpreted and constructed by other stakeholders.

An interpretative approach to branding has revealed how brands act as mediators of

meaning and has been developed in the diverse fields of research including semiotic

theory (Manning 2010, Perez and Barion 2013, Santos 2013), consumer culture theory

(Arnold and Thompson 2005, Cornelissen, et al. 2007, Csaba and Bengtsson 2006, Holt

2002, 2006, 2016, Muniz and O’Guinn 2001, Vargo and Lusch 2004) and within

organization studies itself (Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Ashcraft et al. 2012, Brannan

et al. 2015, Lair 2015, Kornberger 2010). Research within the fields of semiotics and

consumer culture theory tends to focus on the way in which the meaning of brands is

interpreted and co-constructed by stakeholders outside the company. This interpretative

approach understands brands as powerful cultural artefacts that emerge as part of an

interactive process shaped by ‘cultural rituals, economic activities and social norms’

(Schroeder 2009, p. 124). Consumer culture theory has emphasized the role of brands

in consumer identity construction (Belk 1988) and as a provider of cultural resources

for subcultural distinction (Holt 2010, Newholm and Hopkins 2009, Tilley 1999 Muniz

and O’Guinn 2001, Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Branding has become a

‘universal category’ of mediation and communication in modern consumer societies

(Santos, 2013, p.510). Brands can thus be understood as semiotic mediators that operate

both as a ‘symbol’ that can be controlled by management, and an ‘interpretant’ – an

‘effect on the mind’ that is created by the consumers themselves (Santos, 2013).

The role of branding as a semiotic mediator has also been developed in more overtly

critical accounts of the branding process (Arvidsson 2007, Mumby 2016). Brands can

be considered to act as ‘mediators’ in two related respects. Firstly, this process of

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meditation has been explained as acting on a subjective level where brands serve as ‘an

idealized image that one strives to become’ (Kornberger 2010, p. 92) and an ‘ambiguity

coping practice’ for employees (Kärreman and Rylander 2008). Secondly, brands act

as an ideological ‘mediatory mechanism’ in articulating the relationship between

capital and society (Mumby 2016, p.5). On an ideological level brands mediate between

local organizational practices and wider processes of capitalist subsumption (Arvidsson

2007, Holt and Cameron 2006, Mumby 2016). Mumby has explained that the

organizational practices associated with branding entail ‘aesthetic and emotion based

work…’ where ‘branding is the mechanism through which capital is socialized’

(Mumby 2016, p.4, 6). This form of corporate exploitation has been described in terms

of the appropriation of the free labour of consumers, employees and communities

(Arvidsson 2005, 2014, Cova and Dalli 2009, Caruana and Crane 2008, Land and

Taylor 2010) and in terms of the intensification of the managerial control over

organizational culture (Endrissat et al. 2016, Kärreman and Rylander 2008) and

corporate ethics (Jeanes 2013, Mumby 2016). Recent work by Arvidsson (2007) and

Mumby (2016) has suggested that ethics itself plays an important role in this process

of subsumption in the creation of “ethical capital” and an “ethical surplus” that can be

exploited by means of branding. The ambivalent nature of this “ethical surplus" is the

particular focus of the present inquiry.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the ethics of branding (Arvidsson

2007 2014, Egan-Wyer et al. 2014, Jeanes 2013, Klein, 1999). Muhr and Rehn (2014)

have highlighted how companies use the narratives of human rights activists in the

branding and selling of their products. Social movement organizations (SMOs) such as

Fair-Trade have themselves been criticized as a branding activity that achieves little

more than the ‘romantic commodification’ of third world products (Zick 2008).

Rowlinson’s (2002) historical research into the brand of Cadbury’s chocolate has

revealed how its ‘brand experience’ presents a ‘Disneyfied’ version of its corporate

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history, cleansed of all morally questionable activities that might otherwise tarnish the

brand, such as the company’s involvement in British imperialism and its past use of

slave labour. This critical literature suggests that rather than being a solution to the

problems of contemporary capitalism, ‘ethical brands may indeed repress – or at least

obfuscate – the most urgent ethical questions in capitalism’ (Egan-Wyer et al. 2014,

p.1; see also Arvidsson 2014).

One consequence of the wide variety of approaches to brand research is that it is not

easy to provide a single, incontestable definition of this phenomenon. Manning’s

(2010, p.34) overview of the literature has concluded that ‘there is virtually no

agreement on what brand is or means’. To a large extent one’s definition of branding

will depend upon the particular paradigmatic assumptions in which one’s inquiry is

based (Kornberger 2010). Our own study is grounded upon a critical conception of

branding, which considers branding as a constitutive element of communicative

capitalism that ‘mediate[s] processes of meaning construction’ (Mumby 2016, p.1).

The following analysis of employees’ accounts of their corporate brand highlights

numerous tensions and contradictions in this process of mediation, where the brand acts

as an ambivalent mediator between divergent business goals and broader ethical values.

Ambivalence has been identified in previous research as a critical dimension of

branding (Banet-Weiser, 2013; Mumby, 2016), but these studies have yet to investigate

how this ambivalence plays out in the context of specific organizations. Mumby (2016)

has explained the role of ambivalence in terms of an indeterminacy of meaning that

enables brands to mediate between the logic of the individualistic neoliberal self and

more ‘meaning-based communities’. Banet-Weiser (2013) has proposed that

ambivalence provides a ‘productive space´ in which critique is still possible within a

brand society. In a similar vein Egan-Wyer et al. (2014, p.7) have argued that ethical

brands are constructed around a dilemma between ethics and capitalism. Like Banet-

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Weiser (2013) they believe that this dilemma offers the consumer an ethical choice

where‘[i]t is in the act of pondering that choice that the consumer is acting ethically’

(Egan-Wyer et al., 2014, p.7). The present analysis reveals that the ambivalence of

ethical branding allows for only a very restricted level of critical reflection. This inquiry

argues that although ambivalence is symptomatic of the contradictions of consumer

capitalism as previous studies have indicated (Arvidsson, 2007; Banet-Weiser, 2013;

Egan-Wyer et al. 2014; Mumby, 2016), this should not be interpreted as a productive

space of resistance, but is itself a symptom of the subsumption of the domain of ethics

as a form of capital. The idea of “ethical branding” ignores the very possibility of a

more fundamental contradiction between ethics and capitalism. The ambivalence of

existential ethics is therefore not one whereby ‘consumers are attracted to brands that

give them the possibility to think about ethics’ (Egan-Wyer et al. 2014, p.7), but one

which rejects the very idea that ethics can be delimited by the choices offered by

consumer capitalism. Rather than acting as a form of resistance to capitalist

exploitation, ambivalence can divert us from more fundamental critical and existential

choices that capitalism presents to us. We will now describe the research design used

to investigate our case and ambivalence present in the employees’ accounts of their

company’s ethical brand.

RESEARCH DESIGN This research project started with an initial research interest in understanding how

employees draw on brands as discursive resources to construct meaning in and beyond

their work (Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Jeannes 2013). We selected a company that

had a high profile ethical brand image, grounded in the production of sustainable,

organic, Fair-Trade products. This particular company is well placed to serve as a

“critical case” (Flyvbjerg, 2006) of ethical branding given its success in creating an

ethical brand image. Access to the organization and the terms of cooperation were

negotiated with the head of marketing. We were allowed to observe operations within

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the main production site of the company, conduct interviews with employees working

in the flagship retail outlets, as well as with members of the company’s senior

management team. We were also provided with a range of promotional material

intended for internal and external use, including PR material and employee training

material.

The primary researcher visited the production site over three days in order to observe

the factory and the visitors’ center, taking field notes, photographs and interviews with

the management team. The main source of data were 17 semi-structured interviews

with the company’s marketing director, the director of distribution, three retail

managers and twelve retail assistants employed at three flagship stores. The interviews

focused upon respondents’ work routines, related branding activities, initial training

and their working environment. As the interviews progressed we refined our interview

guideline to include a greater focus on brand ethics and the contradictions and

ambivalences that emerged in our data. The interviews lasted 60 minutes on average.

The interviews were voice recorded and transcribed in German and translated into

English by the primary researcher. Secondary data sources were also an important

resource for gaining an understanding of the brand, which resulted in the development

of the theme ‘the aesthetic representation of an ethical brand’. The secondary data

included printed branding materials, newsletters, a monthly company magazine, press

releases, the webpage, social media and coverage in national and international media.

The first step in the data analysis followed an inductive approach identifying emergent

themes and patterns within the data concerning organizational branding processes

(Miles and Huberman 1994, Flyvbjerg 2006). The identification of emergent themes

was also guided by an initial interest in identity control and ethics (Alvesson and

Willmott 2002, Kärreman and Rylander 2008, Jeannes 2013). The analysis proceeded

by using both first order concepts and second order concepts (Van Maanen, 1979). The

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first order concepts that are identified in the following analysis give voice to the

respondents themselves concerning their opinions about the company’s ethics and

its branding processes. The second order concepts “are those notions used by the

fieldworker to explain the patterning of the first-order data.” (Van Maanen, 1979,

p.541). These second order concepts emerged from our own grouping of

various contradictory statements made by the respondents, which we describe using the

umbrella notion of the “ethics of ambivalence”. Three key themes emerged concerning

the way in which the employees expressed ambivalence towards the company brand,

including: i) ambivalence between the high employee identification with the ethical

brand but their ignorance of actual ethical practices, ii) ambivalence between the

brand’s ethical pedagogy and the persistence of ignorant customers, and iii)

ambivalence between the goals of transforming the ethics of the chocolate industry

whilst maintaining their market niche. We shall now explain the analysis of our

findings in greater detail.

FINDINGS Our description ambivalence in Zotter’s brand begins with an explanation of the ways in

which the ethical brand is created and represented on different platforms and media.

The findings reveal a high degree of consistency in the employees’ accounts of their

company and its brand, however, a great deal of ambivalence emerges from their

accounts of external groups particularly their customers and competitors. This

ambivalence reveals that despite overt statements of employee identification with the

brand, the branding processes are by no means successful in the attempt to reconcile

pragmatic business goals with other ethical commitment to environmentalism and Fair-

Trade.

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The aesthetic representation of an ethical brand Zotter’s branding strategy draws heavily on the use of a unique brand vocabulary

combined with a distinctive visual aesthetic. The brand vocabulary has two main

characteristics, the first concerning the creation of branded neologisms for company

processes and products, and the second concerning the extensive use of vocabulary

taken from the Fair-Trade and environmental social movements. The artisanal

production process is explained in terms of a brand vocabulary including terms such as

‘hand-scooped’ and ‘bean-to-bar’ which relate to the hand-made aspects of the

chocolate production and the ‘Edible Zoo’ which refers to its organic farming methods.

An important dimension of the brand is the 365 different chocolate flavours in its

portfolio, including unusual ingredients like pumpkin seeds, chili or bacon, each of

which has its own unique artwork where the wrappers are custom designed by a

freelance artist. The wrappers also display information explaining the moral ideals

underpinning its production process, including the company’s organic farming and

Fair-Trade certifications. The brand draws directly on wider social discourses derived

from social movement organisations. The labels of ‘organic’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘Fair-

Trade’ are well established in the respected work of environmental and human rights

social movements organisations. These same labels were typically used by the

interview respondents in this study to define Zotter as a morally outstanding

organisation:

‘… we are organic… we are Fair Trade…we also make sure that our wrapping is

sustainable, and … we do not harm the environment with our activities.’

(Retail Assistant)

The Zotter brand exploits a range of aesthetic and cultural processes of interaction to

mediate between the company and wider social concerns about the ethics of production

and consumption. About 250,000 visitors a year pass through Zotter's visitors center.

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An integral part of the factory tour is a film, which is shown to visitors to educate them

about chocolate production and to highlight the contrast between their ethical

production methods with those of their competitors. The film has a pedagogical

function that focuses explicitly on the ethics of Fair-Trade and sustainability and is

designed to highlight both the moral and immoral dimensions of chocolate production.

After the induction film the visitors are equipped with an audio guide and can freely

walk along a 'Tasting Path’ through the ‘Chocolate Theatre’. This tasting path is

designed as a rich sensory experience where the raw material can be smelled, touched

and tasted at each stage of production. The Chocolate Theatre is a genuine production

factory, but at the same time this “theatre” provides a carefully managed aesthetic

experience offering a “Disneyfied” view of chocolate production (Rowlinson, 2002).

One retail assistant explained the pedagogy of the Chocolate Theatre in the following

way:

‘The reason [we built the Chocolate Theatre] is that everybody can try and taste

everything, that one can play Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And, that [the

visitors] grapple with the topic of chocolate production. That they see that cacao is

an important raw material, that it is sold much too cheap, that the producers live in

terrible conditions and that our high price is completely OK’. (Retail assistant)

The Chocolate Theatre also plays an important role in the induction and training of new

employees. All retail assistants are obliged to attend two full days at this production

site and to participate in the Chocolate Theatre and work on the production process

itself. An important feature of the Chocolate Theatre is the ‘Edible Zoo’ which entails

a petting zoo for children and a 68-acre organic farm that supplies meat to the visitors

restaurant. The ‘Edible Zoo’ is defined by Zotter in terms of values including

sustainability, organic farming practices, love and respect:

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‘Look the Food in the Eyes: Animals and plants are creatures and not products…

We intend to treat them with love and respect…. [Zotter] asks all visitors to take

their places, in order to enjoy what is thriving in the Edible Zoo: species-appropriate

animal husbandry on 27 hectares, with numerous farm animals threatened by

extinction, energy-autonomy, and a closed ecological cycle. With the Edible Zoo

Zotter places an emphasis on transparency, sustainability and innovation.’ (Zotter,

2017a.)

The company claims without any sense of irony that it treats its animals with love and

respect not because they are the ‘most profitable animals’ but because the ‘meat tastes

the most delicious’ (Zotter, 2017b). In the Edible Zoo visitors can walk around, see,

feel, touch and smell the animals. This aesthetic encounter is designed to create an

emotional connection between the visitor and the brand. With the ‘Edible Zoo’ Zotter's

brand mediates between the relatively isolated act of chocolate consumption and wider

ethical values associated with a sustainable lifestyle. What Zotter presents in this 'Zoo’

is the material manifestation of a vision of a better, more sustainable world. In addition

to these important venues for the inculturation of the Zotter brand, the company makes

use of a diversity of additional communication channels. This includes a regular

newspaper (‘Nibble News’), regular interviews in traditional mainstream media, and a

strong presence on social media platforms. Despite the lengths that Zotter has gone to

in order to create an ethical company and an ethical brand, the discourse of employees

themselves revealed a number of tensions and a level of ambivalence concerning its

ethical brand, as we shall see in the subsequent analysis which focuses on these points

of ambivalence.

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Ambivalence between the high employee identification with the brand but ignorance of its ethical practices The first major point of ambivalence concerned the employee’s high identification with

the ethical brand, but these same employees had great difficulty in articulating exactly

what these values and practices involved. All of the respondents that were interviewed

claimed to identify very strongly with the brand values:

‘Hmm (...) to live up to Zotter’s philosophy, Yes I think I feel a kind of pressure

(...) if I look at the label, they are so damn good that I really want to try hard to do

better [in following a sustainable lifestyle].’ (Retail assistant)

‘I only stand here [as a shop assistant] – this I really have to say – because it is

Zotter and because it is this product. If it was not Zotter I would not work here, that

is clear, I have to say that’. (Retail Assistant)

‘Be it the environment, be it humanity, all those values are represented in this

company. All my personal values are reflected by Zotter. I mean, I know nobody

like (...)[our CEO] who truly lives by [these values] as an entrepreneur. That is not

marketing really, this is reality – an attitude towards humanity and nature that

comes from the heart.’ (Sales Manager)

Without exception all respondents expressed high identification with the company and

its brand, with quite explicit affirmations such as, ‘they are so damn good that I really

want to try hard to do better’, ‘If it was not Zotter I would not work here, that is clear,’

and ‘All my personal values are reflected by Zotter’. Despite these espoused

commitments to the company and its ethical values, the interview respondents did not

show any in-depth knowledge of Zotter’s ethical practices. Discussion of specific

company practices elicited only generic statements such as ‘Zotter is Fair-Trade’. If

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questioned about what Fair-Trade, organic or sustainability actually meant, the answers

remained vague:

‘Organic? There are these standards from the European Union. What organic

means? It focuses on the use of pesticides.’ (Retail assistant)

‘That means that these products should be more healthy than products produced

with pesticides, and that (the farmers) have certain requirements for the

environment and they methods of production which they have to follow. ’ (Retail

assistant)

Another employee explained the notion of organic chocolate as follows:

‘This means that the beans and all the other products (…) um… there are no

pesticides on them, because of course it’s much healthier, and, of course there is

also this health aspect, and I think you feel it also in the taste … um, we are organic

and Fair-Trade certified (…) Wait, it’s on the packaging (…).’

It was clear from these accounts that the respondents did not possess a detailed

knowledge of the company’s own ethical practices, especially relating to Fair-Trade

and organic farming. These findings revealed a tension in the responses of employees

who, on the one hand claimed a high identification with their company's brand ethics,

but at the same did not possess any detailed knowledge of the values or ethical practices

that underpinned this brand. Perhaps such identification was possible precisely because

of this ignorance. To some extent this may be understood in terms of what Mumby

(2016, p.4) has described as the ‘complexity reduction which lie[s] at the heart of

branding […] through the creation of ready-made narratives’, where the evidence from

this case demonstrates that little is known by the employees about the details of the

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company’s ethical practices beyond the repetition of relatively simple brand messages.

The respondents’ claims to be firmly committed to the company’s ethical ideals and

practices which in fact they know very little about indicates ambivalence over their

commitment to these values where the ready-made brand narratives are repeated in

place of a sincere moral inquiry.

The ambivalence between the aims of brand pedagogy and the “ignorant” customer The analysis of the transcripts also revealed ambivalence surrounding the perceived

pedagogic effects of ethical branding on customers. This ambivalence is apparent in

the contrasting views expressed by the employees, where conflicting accounts were

given concerning the brand’s role in educating customers about the ethics of

sustainability and Fair-Trade. On the one hand the employees offered enthusiastic

accounts of the brand values and company ethics, but on the other hand, they expressed

skepticism about the actual effects of such ethical branding on their customers.

Respondents frequently described the beneficial effects of the brand in terms of

inculcating greater awareness about the ethical issues of chocolate consumption and in

supporting the ‘critical customer’:

‘I think it is a good idea that people can learn and see how a bar of chocolate is

produced. That they understand how many steps go into making a bar of chocolate

[…..] that there is a lot of effort between a cacao bean and a bar of chocolate. And

that if you are a critical customer, I think that you are able to transfer that onto other

products, that there is a reason that some products cost more than others.’ (Retail

assistant)

‘[The Edible Zoo is] basically a good thing. The hidden agenda is to show that the

schnitzel one can buy in the supermarket once was a pig, that in fact we eat animals.

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And as nice as a cow can look to us, eventually it will be on our plate… and that as

a customer I have to accept this fact… that my schnitzel once was a creature. I think

that is totally justifiable.’ (Retail assistant)

The respondents explained the role of the Chocolate Theatre and the Edible Zoo as a

way of ethically educating the customers about Fair-Trade, sustainability and the

condition of the chocolate industry. The work as a retail assistant was described as

involving an ethical duty of educating the customers in responsible consumption

practices:

‘(…) We have certain customers who show a strong awareness [for Fair-

Trade and sustainability] and who have an awareness that they are buying organic

and Fair- Trade products [at Zotter] (…) but of course that’s not everybody. That’s

why we try to acquaint everybody with [these ideas]. Because it is us who represent

the company’s philosophy and it is our duty to create and maintain this awareness

(among our customers).’ (Retail Assistant)

All interview respondents emphasized the pedagogic aspects of their work, to educate

‘the critical customer’, to ‘represent the company’s philosophy … it is our duty to

create and maintain this awareness’, where ‘The hidden agenda is to show that the

schnitzel one can buy in the supermarket once was a pig, that in fact we eat animals.’

Such accounts lie in stark contrast with the quite different explanations that were

offered when the employees were asked specifically about their interaction with

customers rather than their opinion of the brand. Employees often portrayed themselves

as the ‘true believers’ of the brand in direct contrast to their consumers, who they

portrayed as being less appreciative of the brand’s values. When discussing the effects

of the brand on their customers, one respondent explained that:

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‘For sure, something stays in the employees’ minds. But when a customer was in

the Chocolate Theatre five or six years ago, what stays in his mind is that he could

eat as much chocolate as he wanted to, and not that the beans have to be harvested

by hand. And I doubt that the people are really more sensitive to this topic after

their visit.’ (Retail assistant)

This view was commonly expressed by the respondents:

‘I mean, if I want to look at it critically, I think one has to ask oneself whether it is

necessary for so many people to run through our production site on that scale (…)

because most of them only come to taste the various chocolates. I think 80% of the

people only come to taste the chocolate…. I doubt that what Zotter intends with

this transparency of the production process reaches the customers in the same way

as it is intended.’ (Retail assistant)

‘… there is definitely a tendency among the customers towards the insight that they

are doing something good if they consume [Zotter’s products] (…). But basically I

have the impression that the customers have less of an idea about the topic [of

sustainability and Fair-Trade] than they believe.’ (Retail assistant)

These accounts reveal a great deal of ambivalence on the part of the respondents

concerning the effects of the ethical branding on their customers, stating that, ‘I doubt

that people are really more sensitive to the topic after their visit’, ‘I doubt that what

Zotter intends with this transparency of the production process reaches the customers’

and ‘the customers have less of an idea about the topic [of sustainability and Fair-

Trade] than they believe’. The views of the employees were clearly ambivalent, where

on the one hand they expressed great enthusiasm about the pedagogic aims of their

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ethical brand, whilst on the other hand they conceded that these branding processes had

relatively little effect on the ethics of their customers in practice.

Ambivalence between transforming the industry and maintaining the company’s market niche Although respondents explicitly drew on the ethical discourses of environmental and

Fair- Trade social movements to describe the nature of their work, there were occasions

where employees stated that there are clear differences between the work of Zotter and

the work of radical social movements. This ambivalence was particularly manifest in

their contradictory claims about the position of Zotter within the chocolate industry,

where they justified the need to maintain their market niche at the same time as arguing

for radical change in the industry, which would undermine this niche. Interview

respondents tended to describe their competitors as being very unenlightened producers

where the industry itself was in need of radical change, as is clear from the following

accounts:

‘No, we don’t talk about them in any evil or aggressive way, (…) [our CEO] talked

to one of these guys from Jupiter [an industry leader], it was at a trade fair. He said

you could rebuild your business, you could work sustainably, you could work in a

fair way. So he [our CEO] appealed to his [Jupiter representative’s] conscience (…)

but I think in those companies the will for change is missing (…)’

The Marketing Director referred directly to competitors in explaining the importance

of Fair- Trade practices for Zotter’s business model:

‘It would be nice if they [competitors] would stand up more for where they

purchase their cacao (…). We [Zotter] are interested in the farmer behind the

bean…’

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One respondent described Zotter’s expansion plans into Chinese markets as a way of

transforming the industry by exporting Zotter’s ethical business model to other

countries:

‘[With the expansion to Shanghai] Zotter can teach the Chinese people, whose

economy is based mainly on the exploitation of resources, how to conduct business

in a sustainable way (…), that is really cool, this social-pedagogical approach, this

market education approach, that’s really cool shit!’ (Retail assistant)

These accounts described Zotter as being morally superior to their competitors and

proposed that the industry is in need of fundamental transformation, where their

competitors need to ‘rebuild [their] business… work sustainably, …work in a fair way’

and should ‘stand up more for where they purchase their cacao’. However, a quite

different account was given of their industry role when employees were asked about

the brand’s niche market status and its high price. Zotter chocolate is sold on the market

for roughly four times the price of a regular bar of chocolate – an extremely high price.

When discussing its high price, employee accounts acknowledge that the ‘ethical’

character of their product is relatively limited to a niche market:

‘… [Zotter is] a prestige organisation. I don’t think that people see the Fair Trade,

organic, sustainability concepts that Zotter wants to be seen and associated with; I

don’t believe that. I believe that people basically think that it is expensive

chocolate.’ (Retail assistant)

‘… of course we want to earn something so that the company can be successful…

It is very simple: we all want a fair wage and a safe place to work. We cannot work

or give something away for free. We can only produce more cheaply if we buy

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cheaper raw materials, but this would change the character of our product.’ (Retail

assistant)

These accounts acknowledge that the company's pursuit of its wider ethical goals is

severely constrained by the high price of its product and its niche market status. In fact

the distinctiveness of the company brand is grounded in its niche market status and its

very high price. The high price cannot be questioned as being illegitimate because it is

the proof of the high quality of the raw materials, the sustainable production methods,

and the fair prices paid to farmers for these materials.

Ambivalence is clear in these accounts of the company’s divergent goals which aim

both to maintain its market niche in the chocolate industry as an ethical producer while

simultaneously aiming to transform the ethical practices of the entire industry. To some

extent this was recognized by respondents, where one sales manager remarked that

despite the company’s admirable claims for wider industry change, that, ‘It is not our

job to change the world…’. There was clear recognition from the respondents that the

continuing success of the company was dependent upon industry inertia and the

maintenance of their own high priced niche market. We now turn to a broader

discussion and critical evaluation of the significance of these different aspects of

ambivalence for our understanding of the ethics of corporate branding.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The findings reveal that although employees show a remarkably high identification

with their company’s ethical brand image, a deeper ambivalence’ subsists in their

accounts of this brand. The company’s ethical claims about its sustainable and Fair-

Trade practices are not in dispute here, however, these claims move well beyond a

description of its internal company operations, and extend to claims regarding the

values of its employees, its customers, and serving as a vanguard for the ethical

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transformation of the industry. It is about these broader claims of the brand that the

employees became highly ambivalent.

Arvidsson (2007, p.23) has suggested that with the emergence of ethical branding the

“unethical nature of capitalism seems to have been surpassed…” where it “remediates

the ethical”. This inquiry sheds light into this “remediation of the ethical”, revealing

that although employees are committed to their company's ethical brand they are also

highly ambivalent about the limitations of its effects in practice. The employees appeal

to the company’s brand values in order to critique unethical business practices of

capitalism in general whilst they simultaneously identify themselves with the brand

itself, and its ethical niche market. In this case ethical branding can be seen to offer

only a limited critique of business ethics, which permits a niche co-existence within

capitalism that avoids more radical ethical challenges to modern consumer capitalism

(e.g Klein 1999).

Mumby (2016, p.10) has explained that brands embody a ‘politics of ambivalence’ in

mediating the contradictions that arise between their appeals to an individualistic

neoliberal self on the one hand and “meaning-based communities” on the other.

Mumby's (2016, p.18) critical analysis of branding has observed that “branding

possesses its own internal … contradictions that lay it open to immanent critique and

resistance”. In a similar vein Banet-Weiser’s (2013, p.231) original conception of the

politics of ambivalence highlighted the ‘productive space of ambivalence’ in which

critique is still possible within a brand society. The present study highlights a somewhat

different aspect of this ambivalence, which entails an accommodation within the

existing capitalist system to maintain a profitable niche market, rather than offering

more radical resistance to capitalism or protest against the exploitative practices of the

industry. In this respect Klein (1999, p.300) reminds us that “marketers have always

extracted symbols and signs from the resistance movements of their day”.

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Building on extant studies of how ethical branding acts as a mechanism for cultural

control (Brannan et al. 2015; Endrissat et al. 2016; Jeanes, 2013; Kärreman and

Rylander 2008, Müller 2016; Mumby, 2016) the present study shows how the brand

permits employees to draw upon ethical discourse to understand their work whilst

forestalling more fundamental questioning of the kinds of choices that consumer

capitalism and ethical branding offer. In contrast to studies that have argued that

ambivalence provides a foundation for the immanent critique of capitalism (Banet-

Weiser 2013, Mumby, 2016), this case shows that the ambivalence over the brand

ethics is little more than a symptom of the subsumption of ethical discourses by a

company, which allows it to present a superficial critique of capitalism at the same time

as exploiting a comfortable market niche within this very system. In this respect the

ambivalence of the brand serves as a tactic of cooptation of ethics in the service of

capitalism, rather than resistance to capital. This paper makes the following

contributions to research into corporate branding: i) it provides an empirical case study

of an ethical brand which reveals the contradictions in the employees’ accounts of their

company’s brand, and ii) it introduces the concept of the “ethics of ambivalence” as a

way to understand these contradictions, showing how this ambivalence permits only a

very restricted level of critical reflection about ethical issues. The ethics of ambivalence

here is less a sign of resistance to power, than a symptom of the kinds of tensions that

emerge when putting ethical discourses in the service of a niche brand.

This case study does not suggest that all forms of ambivalence are equally conservative

in nature. In fact, some early theorists of the ethics of ambivalence were the

existentialist philosophers who diagnosed the radical choices they faced in the French

Resistance and as committed activists after the war in terms of ethical ambivalence (de

Beauvoir, 1948; Sartre 1948). They argued that the decision to engage in active

resistance against a tyrannical system entails a fundamental ambivalence where no

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transcendental moral code can act as a guide. This radical ambivalence concerned

whether to work within the system, as is the case in the present study, or to take direct

action to oppose it in toto. In this light, we would note that the the ‘ethics of

ambivalence' is neither conservative nor radical in itself, but is entirely dependent upon

the political implications of the choice faced by the individual concerned. The

ambivalence in this case emerged from the contradictory claims being made by

employees concerning the brand, rather than any radical protest to challenge the

prevailing existing system of exploitation.

Being based upon a single case, the standard limitations relating to its generalizability

are applicable (Becker, 2014). Nevertheless, given the prominence of ethics in the

creation of its brand image this company serves as a “critical case” that may be

extended to other comparable cases which use similar branding discourses and it is thus

generalizable in its “force of example” (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p.228). This paper has opened

up a number of avenues for future research. The concept of ethics of ambivalence

requires further research. Extant research into branding has argued that ambivalence

opens up possibilities for resistance (Banet-Weiser 2013), however, the present inquiry

has shown that for this particular case study precisely the opposite is the case - here,

ambivalence and the increased socialization of capital operate side by side. The

ongoing corporate socialization of capital could also be fruitfully investigated further

in terms of the contradictions that are being generated in the corporate world’s attempts

to co-opt broader ethical discourses. The present study suggests that we must more

clearly articulate a vision of how we can better confront the dangers of increasingly

‘market mediated… relations’ (Willmott 2010) and open up more ethical fundamental

questions that modern consumer capitalism poses for us.

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FORMAL REQUIREMENTS

This dissertation follows the standards outlined in § 8 of the Curriculum PhD of the

PhD Program in Management at the University of Innsbruck, School of

Management. According to these standards, a cumulative dissertation requires a

research synopsis and a minimum of three papers corresponding to the quality

standards of international journals; at least one single-authored paper; and a

minimum of 3 points. In case of co-authored papers, the amount of points attributed

to the publication is multiplied by 3/(n+2), n being the number of authors of the

paper. The synopsis should position the articles in the overall context of the

respective field of research and reflect on their relevant methodical and

methodological premises and implications.

This dissertation comprises four peer-reviewed articles and a research synopsis. All

articles are published, accepted or conditionally accepted:

• Article No.1 is published in the International Journal of Retail and Distribution

Management (ranked as C in VHB) and can be accessed online via

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJRDM-10-2016-0181

• Article No. 2 is a single writen paper, which is accepted as a competitive paper

for the 2017 ACR Conference in San Diego (ranked as C in VHB). I decided to

include a sustantially revised and extended version, which is currently under review

(second round) in the German Journal of Human Resource Management (also

OVERVIEW PUBLICATIONS

188

ranked as C in VHB). This version provides more space for presenting the data and

the theoretical grounding and has a stronger focus on brand-mediation processes.

• Article No. 3 is accepted as a competitive paper for the 2017 ACR Conference

and will be published as a full paper in the ARC Proceedings (ranked as C in VHB).

• Article No. 4 is conditionally accepted for publication in the Journal

Organization (ranked as B in VHB). It can soon be accessed via:

http://journals.sagepub.com/loi/orga.

Title Journal co-authors

Ranking (VHB)

Points

1 Brand-driven retail format innovation: a conceptual framework

International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management

1 C 0.75 published

2 Corporate Branding as a Resource for Employee Identity Work

ACR Proceedings

0 C 1 accepted

3 Brand-mediated Ideological Edgework

ACR Proceedings 2 C 0.6 accepted

4 Ethics of

Ambivalence in

Corporate Branding

Organization 1 B 1.5 conditionally accepted

Total Number of Points 3.85 Table 3: Overview of Publications and Points.

• The research synopsis situates the four research articles within brand research.

Reflects upon the paradigmatic premises and the research process. It concludes with

outlining how the four papers contribute to the overall theme of the dissertation.

OVERVIEW OF PUBLICATIONS In the course of my PhD project I conducted a number of other publications and

conference presentations that I did not formally include in my PHD. The following list

provides an overview of all publications I conducted during my time as a PhD Student.

Publications and Conference Proceedings17

Schöps, J., Wegerer, P. K., & Hemetsberger, A. (2017). Brand-mediated

Ideological Edgework: Negotiating the Aestheticized Human Body on Instagram

- The Case of American Apparel. In ACR Proceedings. San Diego.

Wegerer, P. (2017). Corporate Branding as a Source for Employees’ Moral Identity

Work. In ACR Proceedings, San Diego.

Botschen, G., & Wegerer, P. K. (2017). Brand-driven Retail Format Innovation:

A conceptual Framework. Journal of Retail and Distribution Management. In:

International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management. 45(7/8), 874-891.

Wegerer, P. K., (2017). The influence of ethical branding onto employee identity

work: A case study. German Journal of Human Resource Management.

(conditionally accepted)

17 Publications in bolt are a part of the publications of the dissertation

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190

Wegerer, P. K., & Munro, I. (2017). The Ethics of Ambivalence in Corporate

Branding. In Organization. (conditionally accepted).

Schöps, J. D., & Wegerer, P. K. (2017). Market-mediated ideological edge-work: The

visual representation of gender by the fashion brand American Apparel. In FAG

Workshop. Vienna.

Botschen, G., & Wegerer, P. K. (2016). Drivers of Brand Resonance (DBR): A

practical Tool for Governing Enduring Brand- Stakeholder Relationships. In 11th

Workshop on organizational Change and Development, Vienna.

Wegerer, P. K. (2015). Bicycling in Urban Landscape: Exploring Discursive, Cultural

and Spatial Dynamics. In: Cities as Multiple Landscapes. Campus Verlag, Innsbruck.

Wegerer, P. K., Stöckl, V., & Gabl, S. (2015). Contesting Space. ACR Conference

2015, San Diego.

Wegerer, P. K. (2015). The Visual Mode of Meaning Construction: Stakeholder

Framing of the Bicycle Discourse in Austrian Cities. In K. Huseman & R. Gross (Eds.),

Brand Camp (Vol. 6). Innsbruck: University of Innsbruck.

Wegerer, P. K. (2013). Exploring the unconscious Dynamics between Corporate

Brands and Organizational Identity: A case study on the Austrian Chocolatier

ZOTTER. EGOS Conference, 1–26.

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191

Public Talks and Media Coverage

Wegerer, Philipp K. 2015. “The spatial transformation of cities: The case of

Innsbruck.” In: Velocity. Nantes.

Wegerer, Philipp K. 2016. “Was ist nur los mit unserer Jugend?” (Studiogast), Radio

Tirol, 19. April 2016.

Wegerer, Philipp K. 2016. „Wie der Radtrend unsere Städte verändert.“ (Vortrag) Haus

der Begegnung, Innsbruck, 11.Februar 2016.

Wegerer, Philipp K. 2016. „Das Auto im Rückwärtsgang: Erkenntnisse aus der

Konsumforschung.“ (Vortrag) Imst, 17.Februar 2016.

Wegerer, Philipp K. 2016. „Das Auto im Rückwärtsgang: Erkenntnisse aus der

Konsumforschung.“ (Vortrag) Wörgl, 7. März 2016.

Wegerer, Philipp K. 2016. „Die Macht des Diskurses: Wie Radfahren in der

Öffentlichkeit dargestellt wird.“ (Workshop für die Radlobby Österreich) Wien, 11.

März 2016.

Bartos, Melanie & Wegerer, Philipp K. 2015. „Nicht ohne Mein Rad.“ Wissenswert:

Magazin der Leopold Franzens Universität Innsbruck, 6. Oktober 2015.

EIDESSTATTLICHE ERKLÄRUNG

Ich erkläre hiermit an Eides Statt durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift, dass ich

die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig verfasst und keine anderen als die

angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich

oder inhaltlich den angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche

kenntlich gemacht.

Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht als

Magister-, Master-, Diplom- oder Doktorarbeit eingereicht.

Innsbruck im Oktober 2017 Philipp K. Wegerer