Abstract
A brand is one of the most exciting assets of a company. It has the obvious purposes of identification, recognition, and differentiation, which are mostly directed to the external environment. But it is also responsible for transmitting intangible value, and for that reason, in the last decades, research has been demonstrating that the brand is also a fundamental resource for building commitment and citizenship behaviors among organizational internal audiences. There is also academic evidence that highly committed members of staff are more open to take part of collaborative multidisciplinary activities and more predisposed to share their knowledge. Moreover, commitment tends to increase as a result of brand-related participatory experiences. This chapter suggests that participatory and technology-mediated internal branding activities build on brand knowledge conversion and transfer, hence preparing, holistically, the organization and its members of staff for a generic sense on the benefits of knowledge sharing.
TopBackground
A brand has always been the representation of a promise. When an organisation is designated by its name, an identity is being conferred to it, through a fixed, objective and functional element that makes up its brand. Traditionally, for most organisations, there is a tendency (and necessity) to maintain the organisational brand over a certain period of time, guaranteeing its identification and recognition among audiences. A brand must also lead to the differentiation of an organisation from its competition, in some cases in extremely saturated markets. The American Marketing Association defines brand as
Key Terms in this Chapter
Employee: Someone who works part-time or full-time, in a fixed-term or permanent position, under an employment contract and is paid for the completion of the contractual duties; a member of staff, regardless of his/her hierarchical level.
Human-Centered: Characterizes approaches that strategically include users at the core of their activities.
Participatory Ecology: A technological system of interactions in which the participation of its organisms is considered an essential component.
Brand Guidelines: Document(s) that essentially present(s) a set of rules explaining how the brand works; also commonly referred to as “brand standards,” “brand manual,” “style guide,” or “brand book.”
Artefact: A tangible or intangible human creation, representative of a culture or specific context.
Multidisciplinary Team: A group of individuals who have different vocational abilities, each providing specific contributions to the same project or objective.
Visual Identity System: A set of visual elements that help crystallize the brand, such as the name, the logo, the color palette, the selected typography, the extended visual language.
Computer-Mediated Communication: Human communication that takes place through the support and use of information and communication technologies and electronic devices.