Digital Corporate Identity with a Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective
(H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, 2020) Linda Christin Erlenkeuser
Study ID: 101422
Copenhagen Business School Kan-Ckomo1045U, Kandidatspeciale Mentor: Esben Karmark
15th September 2020
Character incl. spacing: 135.371 Page numbers: 77
Resumé
Undersøgelsen har til formål at udforske en mulig analysemetode, der adresserer fænomenet corporate identity i en digital kontekst. Hertil bliver forslået at betragte fænomenet med en kritisk diskurs analyse tilgang. Fairclough’s tredimensional model i kombination med Attride-Stirling (2001), Melewar (2003), og Balmer (2017) analysemodellerne skaber en ny ramme med navnet: Strategic Analyses Framework for a Digital Corporate Identity, for at kunne betragte en absolut digital corporate identity. Resulterende bidrager opgaven med at udvide corporate identity litteraturen ved at sætte en ny vinkel på fænomenet i en digital omgivelse. På den ene side illustreres, at corporate identity gøres mere håndgribeligt for driftsbestyrelsen og forsker ved at analysere tilhørende diskurser. På den anden side betragtes
implikationer for at anvende modellen på grund af manglende teknologiske ressourcer til at analysere den dynamiske og komplekse corporate identity i takt med den transparente digitalisering og
interessantgruppernes krav til en organisation.
Nøgleord: corporate identity, kritisk diskurs analyse, digitale omgivelser, interessantgruppernes prioritering
Table of Content
Resumé ... 1
Introduction ... 5
Problem Statement ... 6
Research Question ... 7
Delimitation... 7
Structure ... 8
Literature Review of Corporate Identity ... 9
Scholars CI Definitions and the Managerial Advantage of CI ...10
Scholars Variety of CI Research ...10
The Expanded One-Way Communication of CI ...11
The Diversity of CI Definitions ...11
CI and Stakeholder Relationships ...14
Stakeholder Definition and Stakeholder Salience Model ...15
CI in Relationships to Stakeholders ...15
Managing Stakeholder Relationships Online ...18
The Discourse Analytical Approach and CI ...22
Literature Review Conclusion ...25
A Digital CI Concept ...29
Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective ... 31
Critical Discourse Analysis Explanation and Introduction ...31
Critical Discourse Analysis and Norman Fairclough’s Theory ...33
Norman Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model ...34
The Dimension of Text...35
Discursive Practice ...36
Social Practice. ...37
CI Frameworks in the Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis ... 38
Transcription and Interpretation of the Research Material within Fairclough's Theory and CI Literature....39
Thematic Network Analysis ...40
Corporate Identity Traits Analysis ...43
Corporate Communication ...45
Corporate Design ...46
Corporate Culture. ...47
Behavior. ...49
Corporate Structure. ...50
Industry Identity. ...50
Corporate Strategy. ...50
The Purpose of the CI Analysis in the Light of the Text and Discourse Practice Dimension...51
Balmer’s Continuum and Social Practices ...52
Corporate Identity. ...54
Total Corporate Communications and Stakeholder Prioritization. ...55
Attributed Identity...58
Management Intervention Direction and Leadership...60
Strategic Analysis of Business Environment. ...64
Summary of Balmer’s Continuum and Social Practices ...64
The Strategic Analyses Framework for a Digital Corporate Identity Validity Test by an Example of H&M’s Digital CSR Communication ... 66
Method...66
Validity test ...67
Findings ...71
Discussion ... 72
Limitations ...74
Recommendation for Future Research ...75
Conclusion ... 75
References ... 78
Table of Figures FIGURE 1 FAIRCLOUGH'S THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODEL ...35
FIGURE 2STRATEGIC ANALYSES FRAMEWORK FOR A DIGITAL CORPORATE IDENTITY ...40
FIGURE 3STRUCTURE OF A THEMATIC NETWORK ...41
FIGURE 4CORPORATE IDENTITY TAXONOMY ...44
FIGURE 5THE CORPORATE IDENTITY, TOTAL CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, STAKEHOLDERS’ ATTRIBUTED IDENTITIES, IDENTIFICATIONS AND BEHAVIOURS CONTINUUM ...54
FIGURE 6AUGMENTED STAKEHOLDER PRIORITISATION FRAMEWORK...57
FIGURE 7THE THEMATIC NETWORK THEMES AND DISCOURSES ...69
Introduction
A forecast for online revenue development in eCommerce promises to grow from 14474.5€ to 2199.6€ million in Germany's fashion industry until 2024 (Statista, 2020b). Not only in Germany but
worldwide prognosticates progression in eCommerce and online retail from the year 2020 to 2024 (Statista, 2020c). An excellent example of the first hints of a future scenario is the second-largest clothing retailer H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, where inventory and price cuts contributed to decreasing H&M's market value since 2015. Currently, H&M heavily invests in technology resources to grow net-sales and works on shifting faster from physical to online retailing (Milne, 2020). The focus on eCommerce could counteract the decrease in the market share and instead increase its profit in the future. H&M's investments in improving online retailing might lead to the question of how they and other clothing companies stay competitive through corporate identity management concerning lockdowns and digital developments. Especially in the transparent digital environment, managers should not underestimate virtual stakeholder groups and their power of identification or disidentification with a firm. Virtual stakeholder groups influence an
organization's corporate reputation, which can influence the attitude towards an organization of other stakeholder groups (Rasche et al., 2017). Scholars emphasize that every stakeholder has different connotations concerning an organization's values, behavior, and communication. Therefore, corporate identity traits and hereof marketing activities affect a company (Balmer, 2017). Furthermore, businesses apply to stakeholders to value and respect them. Thereby, corporate identity awareness online can contribute to strengthening an organization's competitiveness and increase stakeholders' identifications of an organization.
Due to corporate identity literature, the presence of a company's corporate identity influences its differentiation strategies, image, reputation, and financial performance (Bravo et al., 2015). Thereby the question arises what businesses and researchers in corporate identity can submit other than adopting a global online mode.
The question is yet relevant due to declining sales because of the current lockdown caused by the corona crisis of 2020 (Statista, April 16, 2020a). A rather shocking example of the necessity for a digital presence during the Covid-19 crisis is the Irish textile discounter Primark. The retailer's business strategy did not include eCommerce, which resulted in a decreasing monthly turnover from £650M to £0.20 (Leitheiser et al., 2020). This example highlights that attractive turnovers depend on a digital presence, eCommerce, and with it, corporate identity management.
This paper focuses on digital corporate identity analysis because it is inevitable that sales and trading in the future involve digital platforms to attract customers. Additionally, corporate identity
literature should adapt to the digital age and provide profitable analysis tools to strengthen organizations.
A new approach that combines traditional corporate identity frameworks with a critical discourse analysis contributes to strengthening traditional corporate identity literature in a digital age and helps organizations understand the phenomenon under the current pressure for online presence and digital stakeholder interactions. It means that this theoretical paper, with a little empirical test, highlights corporate identity theory and analysis tools to estimate solutions through a critical discourse analysis perspective. Thereby, the critical discourse analysis combines linguistic practices in the form of texts and social practices, which is beneficial for managers if they set intended discourses to shape a corporate identity through marketing activities.
Problem Statement
Corporate identity is a phenomenon that shapes through traits and marketing activity processes.
The phenomenon envelopes, amongst others, corporate communication, and corporate communication is part of digital marketing. ECommerce involves communication processes to create B2B and B2C
relationships. Therefore, corporate identity is part of eCommerce. However, corporate identity literature
has been consensus-driven and has weakly been considered digital, especially concerning stakeholder groups and their salience.
The essence of this paper is to investigate corporate identity constructions with a critical discourse analytical approach because there are limited studies that explore identity construction strategies in online environments (The PAD Research Group, 2016), which means that the theoretical knowledge facilitates limited analytical tools to describe a corporate identity with a critical discourse analysis perspective in an online environment. It focuses on critical discourse analysis to understand managers intended corporate identity creation by setting particular discourses and impact stakeholders' behavior in the form of social practices. This new possibility to investigate a digital corporate identity seeks to detect a) the organizations' intended corporate identity, b) stakeholders' perceived corporate identity, and c) environmental impacts.
Accordingly, it illustrates how literature can strengthen digital corporate identity management and analyze organizations' identity presence online concerning the Covid-19 crisis and a digitalized future.
Research Question
How can existing literature strengthen digital corporate identity analysis combined with a critical discourse analysis perspective concerning the current pressure of businesses' digital presence, without corporate identity literature taking responsibility for digital corporate identity and stakeholders?
Delimitation
Corporate identity is a phenomenon connected to everything a company envelopes and where identity associations are possible. With it, corporate identity is part of corporate communication, design, culture, structure, strategy (Melewar, 2003). Every dimension has its definition, analysis models, and
theory. Corporate communication scholars even describe corporate communication as having its own identity. Nevertheless, this paper focuses on the phenomenon of corporate identity, excluding in-depth explanations about the related terms and their meaning. Furthermore, it focuses on a CI in specific circumstances, namely the global digitalization and online retailers' corporate identity presence within, e.g., corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder interactions.
Structure
The paper envelopes four significant parts: first, a literature review of corporate identity (CI), second, the critical discourse analysis perspective, third, CI frameworks in the perspective of the critical discourse analysis perspective, and fourth, testes the strategic analyses framework for a digital CI validity by an example of H&M's digital environment-friendly CI.
The first part is a critical literature review that addresses previous CI concepts and theory
limitations on three issues 1) CI concepts, 2) CI's relationship to stakeholders, and 3) CI in a digital age. The three topics are fundaments for this paper's contribution to CI literature because this paper suggests expanding CI frameworks with a critical discourse analysis in an online environment based on literature weaknesses. Therefore, the second part introduces critical discourse analysis and Fairclough's three- dimensional model. After that, the fourth part introduces the Strategic Analyses Framework for a Digital Corporate Identity. The framework combines the three-dimensional model with a coding analysis tool from Attride-Stirling (2001), and CI literature: Melewar (2003), and Balmer (2017). The framework aims to illustrate that CI literature can be analyzed with a critical discourse analysis perspective, and thereby strengthening the first sections analyzed gaps.
At last in chapter five, tested the validity of the strategic analysis framework for a digital CI with a little empirical test to prove its validity. The following Discussion deliberates limitations and further
research possibilities, e.g., by adopting technological resources to fasten the analysis process. Concludingly the answer to the research question outlines in the conclusion section.
Literature Review of Corporate Identity
The literature review identifies significant research related to CI and its stakeholder relationships, digital presence, and research methods. First addresses research that relates to CI concepts and definitions.
The second section focuses on studies about CI and stakeholder relationships offline and in a digital context. The third section reviews CI research methods with a discourse and critical discourse analytical approach - finally, the fourth section discusses a digital CI concept. Overall, the literature review divides into three main sections, which are the introduction of the understanding of CI, hereafter, the research syntheses of the mentioned areas, and at last, the literature review summary.
The studies collected address background knowledge and justification for this research because they address literature understandings and weaknesses. Thereby, it seeks to recognize the theoretical limitations of CI understandings in the mentioned areas. Furthermore, it seeks to inspire an expansion of the limitations and understand the phenomenon concerning digital perspectives of a CI. This perspective weakly incorporates in the literature, as argued in the next sections.
This critical literature review presents the latest CI research, where the research builds upon previous scholars' understandings. Previous, as well as the latest recognized research, regards in this paper to describe and understand the CI concept and its limitations. The aim is to angle understandings of the CI concept and emphasize the development of methodological approaches in the context of CI concepts because this paper's contribution is to look at CI from a critical discourse analytical perspective.
The literature was collected by academic journals and books that include the keyword: Corporate identity. The keywords, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, stakeholder, digital environment,
identity construction, corporate brand, corporate reputation, corporate communication, strategic communication, behavior, corporate culture, and strategic orientation emerge amongst the original keyword. Those keywords recognize because theory claims that a CI shapes in a process, which is organizational interaction and its occurring phenomena such as reputation and image. Therefore, the additional keywords and similar organizational phenomena recognize. The journals were collected from Google Scholar, and the following platforms: CBS Library, Science Direct, Sage Journals, Emerald Publishing, EBSCO host databases, Proquest eBook Central, and Taylor & Francis.
Scholars CI Definitions and the Managerial Advantage of CI
The CI concept section addresses understandings of CI to apprehend the phenomenon and its relationship to organizations' executives CI awareness. First addresses scholars and their variety of CI research. Secondly, it focuses on CI definitions, and third covers how CI contributes to organizations' competitiveness.
Scholars Variety of CI Research
Over the years, CI perceptions mainly occur from management perspectives. Cornelissen et al.
(2012) claim that analytical CI models, e.g., from Abratt (1989), and Olins (1989) often assume a one-way communication process form the company's spokesperson, to stakeholders. As such, did Shannon and Weaver (1949) who say that total corporate communication presents controlled communication that reminds of one-way communication models. Another example is Bernstein (1984), who expressed the issue of corporate communication in terms of the traditional one-way, sender-receiver, communication. Overall, CI scholars research the phenomenon from a managerial perspective. The focus on CI management causes
a linear approach to CI studies. The linear approach especially notices in the journals of Balmer (1998), Melewar (2002), Motion and Leitch (2002), and Bick et al. (2003).
The Expanded One-Way Communication of CI
One alternative for a less linear understanding of CI management is connecting the one-way communication approach to the organizational environment and stakeholder prioritization. The connection helps scholars and managers to expand CI literature and management opportunities.
The purpose of the studies from Balmer (2017) and Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) are less linear because they further discuss CI strategical importance, including corporate reputation and image, and stakeholders' attention. The studies have in common that they argue for a CI that is held stable by
communication. Balmer (2017) expands and introduces the stakeholder engagement in the context of CI in his paper 'The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders' attributed identities, identifications and behaviors continuum' by forming a continuum from collected literature of CI indifferences in organizational behavior in an orthodox and heterodox perspective by re-assessment of twenty years CI literature. Balmer's (2017) paper benefits CI literature with a marketing approach to CI, which includes other variables that shape a CI, e.g., the impact of a changing environment. Thereby, he emphasizes the diversity of impacts that CI attracts.
The Diversity of CI Definitions
Balmer (2017) expresses his notion of CI as a wheel of change, which never stands still:
Corporate identities are never entirely "fixed": they are in a constant state of flux. They are not immutable. Internal or external change often has a domino effect in terms of an entity's CI traits
and corporate marketing activities, viz: "the corporate identity wheel of change" (Balmer, 2001a).
This is especially apparent in terms of key identity interfaces. (Balmer, 2017, p. 1474)
Balmer (2017) states that CI is a negotiation and a dynamic process which, amongst others, shapes by external environmental changes. Other scholars contributed to the understanding that CI shapes through negotiation processes. Van Riel and Fombrun (2007), e.g., features the connection between a CI and its relation to corporate image and reputation, where a portrait CI through visible, transparent, and
consistency extends directly to the most influential corporate image or reputations. Thereby, CI embodies by a representation of a symbol, which associates with value. This representation marks visual identity to the overall CI (Bernstein, 1984). To this, Hatch and Schultz (1997) understand that the organization's culture cultivates symbols and local meanings, which represent an organization's CI.
Melewar et al. (2005) research supports those notions similarly and states that CI is a concept that has different connotations for every stakeholder. The previous definition of CI states it as the result of CI communication that creates meaning, "the set of meanings by which a company allows itself to be known and through which it allows people to describe, remember and relate to it" (Melewar, 2003, p. 195).
Melewar (2002) creates a holistic model to explain the CI concept by examining past definitions, models, and specific CI elements. He categorizes the definitions into practitioner-based CI definitions and academic-based definitions. Thereby, the findings were that CI constructs of four dimensions, which are,
"product class image, brand image, brand user image and corporate image, and image of the nationality of the corporate body" (Melewar, 2002, p. 77). Melewar’s (2002) research proves that CI relates to an organization's brand and image.
Beyond this statement, the research concludes managerial implications in the form of the undiscovered pieces of the concept to identify the salience areas of CI, that managers should target. In 2003, Melewar (2003) advanced his findings and introduced the proposed CI taxonomy with four subconstructs of the CI dimensions: communication and visual identity, behavior, corporate culture, and
marketing conditions. The ‘multi-faceted taxonomy’ proposes that CI has traits, which occur from corporate communication, visual identity, culture, corporate behavior, structure, strategy. Balmer (2017) draws on Melewar's (2003) the multi-faceted taxonomy to estimate the phenomenon.
In addition to other listed literature in his paper, Balmer (2017) concludes that the meaning of CI seems to include every essential characteristic through everything an organization does. As Balmer (2001, 2017) argues, 'what an organization does' includes the organizational behavior perspective.
Similar to Melewar's (2003) CI approach, the article of Tourky et al. (2019) tries to clarify the CI concept through a multidisciplinary approach to improve the CI understanding. They argue that CI has become an essential element of differentiation strategies that impact an organizations' image, reputation, and financial performance. "CI, encompassing values, behavior and communication, has become a key element of differentiation strategies, affecting not only image and reputation but also financial
performance" (Tourky et al., 2019, p. 595). This statement expresses the relevance of a CI for competitive advantages. Other scholars (Balmer, 2017; Gambetti et al., 2017) consider a CI strategy as a promising instrument for competitive advantage similarly. Besides, the research from Fombrun, Gardberg, & Sever, (2000) illustrate an organization's dependence on a positive shareholder perception for a company's profitability, risk, and dividend when addressing the company's profit concerning its corporate reputation.
Another perspective of CI is that CI congruence and incongruencies exists, which can be beneficial for a company. In 2018, Flint et al. (2018) introduce a five-dimension concept based on an inductive grounded theory study to explain CI congruence. Thereby congruence understands as "how well anchoring identity concepts work together to create a unified whole" (Flint et al., 2018, p. 68). Thereby, the paper seeks to explore CI congruence definitions by reviewing the congruence of CI meanings because Flint et al.
(2018) claim that companies send mixed signals. Mixed signals are incongruent CI related signals, which can create positive stakeholder responses. In other words, Flint et al. (2018) argue that an overall CI can contain multiple meanings, and therefore, a CI must be analyzed holistically.
Concludingly, there are many CI understandings and definitions in the literature. Neither of the definitions is universally accepted (Melewar, 2003). The debate about the meaning is continuously
developing, and definitions evolve from interdisciplinary theoretical and practical approaches (Tourky et al., 2020). Some of the definitions focus on a narrowed field, while others provide a multidimensional
description (Melewar, 2003). All though, CI primarily researches in the field of marketing and organizational behavior.
Melewar (2003) suggests that those different approaches might be because of the multiple disciplines underlying a CI, including behavior, culture, and communication. Moreover, those multidimensional concepts involve philosophy, management, and design.
However, this paper follows Balmer's (2017) definition of CI as a wheel of change. His research includes the latest and reviewed CI literature. Moreover, Balmer's (2017) research approaches CI with a less linear perspective within the marketing field, which means that his continuum includes environmental inputs and stakeholder prioritization, and the proposed CI taxonomy. This approach is relevant to address the environmental challenges that the Covid-19 crisis includes and the development of the non-linear approach to CI literature.
CI and Stakeholder Relationships
The discussion of stakeholder relationships shows the managerial aspects of organizations concerning stakeholder prioritization in relation to their CI and how/when the prioritizations change. The first topic discussed in this section is the stakeholder definition and stakeholder salience model. Secondly addresses the CI relationship to stakeholders, and at last, it introduces managerial stakeholder
relationships in an online environment.
Stakeholder Definition and Stakeholder Salience Model
Relating to the stakeholder, Balmer (2017) discusses stakeholder prioritization in a CI context.
Thereby, he argues that stakeholder theory, e.g., Freeman (1984), defines stakeholders as any group or individual who can or is influenced by a corporate purpose. However, some stakeholders, e.g., public relations or the government, can be an institutional actor. Therefore, stakeholder prioritization recognizes as part of institutional continuity and an organization's progress. In his paper Balmer (2017) refers to Mitchell's (1997) stakeholder salience model, where stakeholders categorize after their power, legitimacy, and urgency to the firm. In the context of CI, Balmer (2017) suggests considering the utility of legality, efficacy, ethicality, and temporality of the fluid stakeholder prioritization besides, see Figure 6.
Stakeholders' salience, e.g., their power or utility, can change over time or under specific circumstances, which is why Balmer (2017) argues that the salience model should be of constant management attention.
This paper inspects the stakeholder salience model in the context of CI in a digital
environment and suggests using Balmer's findings to develop an understanding of CI and digital platforms combined with a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach.
CI in Relationships to Stakeholders
Tourky et al. (2019) suggested framework was established by an empirical study to expose CI as a unifying platform to integrate CSR initiatives and investigate the relationship between CSR and CI. They introduce a framework that includes CI key elements and practices that directs management attention. On the one hand, the study exclusively described the scale from a managerial perspective. On the other hand, resulting hereof the scale revealed limitations, and Tourky et al. (2019) argue that social, economic, and
cultural conditions shape companies additionally to its management. This finding underscores the importance of recognizing other impacts on CI than managerial solutions:
Linking to future investigations, Tourky et al. (2019) suggest that "[...] further research could investigate CI from different stakeholders' perspectives; comparing the views of audiences, for example, and of managers; noting discrepancies/overlaps between CI and perceived image"
(Tourky et al., 2019, p. 605).
All in all, Tourky et al. (2019) emphasize that the components of social, economic, and cultural conditions influence an organization's CI. Therefore, CI future investigations could compare stakeholders' perceived image and managers' intended CI of the company, which this study seeks to address by identifying both parties' discourses.
Cornelissen et al. (2012) support the notion that stakeholders should be involved in the stakeholder strategy process. They argue that stakeholders' evaluation matters because CI first forms through the interactional process:
One key change from the conduit model is that it considers organizations and their identities not as a given […] but as emerging in, and indeed constituted by, communication between organizations (or rather corporate spokespeople) and stakeholders. It suggests instead a (per)formative account of corporate or organizational identities which are essentially constantly (re)produced, and thus subjected to change and renewal. It also implies that individual voices, including those of stakeholders, matter in the constitution of identities and as such it unsettles the privileged perspective of an organization or its managers and the assumption that the organization, in terms of its identity, exists ex ante. (Cornelissen et al., 2012, p. 1099)
To this, Glanfield et al. (2017) address the issue of influencing stakeholders' corporate brand negotiations at a stakeholder group level with a social identity theory application in a CI context. They argue that
organizations need to implement diverse internal and external stakeholder groups to effectively implement
a corporate strategy (Gray & Smeltzer 1985). They consider "internal and external communication of an organization's corporate brand to front-line employees, internally through the operationalization of an organization's corporate brand, and externally by front-line employees construing the external
performance of the corporate brand during service encounters with customers" (Glanfield et al., 2017, p.
151). In other words, they claim that a corporate brand negotiates between front-line employees and customers.
As recognized in the last lines, their paper provides the opportunity for scholars to research CI from a stakeholder perspective and thereby inspire them to rethink the theoretical and practical value with a discourse approach between two parties, "[…] the intention of the article is to provide an example of the potential opportunity for scholars to examine corporate identity at the stakeholder group level and, in doing so, to begin a discourse on its theoretical and practical value" (Glanfield et al., 2017, p. 154).
However, Glanfield et al. (2017), Tourky et al. (2019), and Cornelissen et al. (2012) study the stakeholders' communication with a focus on non-virtual aspects, which becomes a weakness when discussing online shopping scenarios. Customers' interactions with front-line employees are not possible.
Instead, the corporate brand negotiation process leads by the host's website or online chats, especially during the Covid-19 lockdown, growing e-Commerce, and digitalization. Discussing the digital aspects of stakeholder communication in the context of CI might benefit marketing practitioners and scholars in the future. Therefore, this paper extends the idea of a CDA between two parties online to understand the discourse between stakeholders and intended CI.
Managing Stakeholder Relationships Online
This section discusses the journals, which address CI stakeholder relationships and groups in an online environment. Those journals are the studies from Rasche et al. (2017), Tourky et al. (2019), Iglesias et al. (2019), and Kuznetsov and Nikishova (2020).
Rasche et al. (2017) agree upon the stakeholder comment of Dunham, Freeman & Liedtka (2006) that companies need stakeholder groups to exist; otherwise, a company would fail. Rasche et al. (2017) address stakeholder theory concerning the technology age categorized into seven topics to explain the relationship between organization and stakeholder online.
The first one is that digital communication has developed with email and webpages as
communication tools. This advanced technology should be addressed as a stakeholder approach and, with it, public and social media communication. Additionally, to this development, the comparison of
stakeholders' perspectives is relevant, especially on social media platforms. Tourky et al. (2019) suggest determining electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) to manage a CI concerning the relevance of stakeholders' perspective image. He says, "this [comparing the views of audiences] is of course currently relevant via organizational interactions in social media. Future studies could facilitate further understanding of the role of word-of-mouth and eWOM relative to CI management" (Tourky et al., 2019, p. 605).
The second topic addresses organized groups and strong voices. This topic is especially relevant to define organized stakeholder groups online that might affect an organization's CI. Rasche et al. (2017) argue that technology makes stakeholder groups more organized in the sense that individuals can be unsatisfied stakeholders, which act as a group and thereby contribute to a firm's success or failure because platforms such as social media and chat rooms connect individuals with common interests. Thereby, organized groups occur. Through those organized groups, stakeholder voices become stronger. The strong voices force company executives to recognize their stakeholders and discuss particular utterances and work
with their stakeholders because customer feedback and other information-sharing such as ethical
irresponsibility or expertise advise spreads among the stakeholder online and becomes a substantial asset for the company. Third, Rasche et al. (2017) claim that a company should consider stakeholders as
individuals with a name and a face on a digital environment to manage their stakeholders efficiently because even remote stakeholders can become salient during the managerial decision-making process.
High transparency is the fourth recognition because access to technology forces companies in the spotlight. Thereby, they are always in the public eye because technology increases organizational
transparency. Transparency means that companies cannot hide, e.g., corporate misconduct. Stakeholders can excess company reports, such as financial statements and managerial performances, which pressures the company to be responsible for their actions, otherwise, irresponsibility can become a threat because of the high transparency in a digital environment. In this situation, blurred boundaries within stakeholder groups might occur. Blurred boundaries show when one stakeholder takes action across other groups and influences them positively or negatively, which might become a firm's weakness. Only responsible behavior in the form of stakeholder group attention is the key to avoid trade-offs for a company (Rasche et al., 2017).
Furthermore, when looking at stakeholders on digital platforms, a new stakeholder class emerges, the virtual stakeholder. The virtual stakeholder differentiates from other groups because they actively choose to follow companies' activities online (Rasche et al., 2017). They comment on activities and create opinions and discussions of those activities. Thereby, virtual stakeholders are affected by the company and affect the organization's reputations by creating a 'hype'. Additionally, virtual stakeholder might influence other stakeholders. An example is an activist influencer, where a person engages in a political movement.
Their followers believe in the influencer's opinion about a particular organization. Thereby, the influencer creates a virtual stakeholder group to discuss an organization's actions and behavior. The importance of
virtual stakeholders has increased with the expanding digital social networks. Managers should be concerned about the importance of this stakeholder group and their impact on a company's real-life' positive and negative perceptions (Rasche et al., 2017). Rasche et al. (2017) emphasize the importance of stakeholder approaches in businesses to overcome contemporary challenges.
Virtual stakeholders in the CI context should be recognized because they contribute to form an organization's CI online. Rasche et al. (2017) point out that executives' responsibility is to produce the best possible value for their stakeholders. Even when conflicts occur, managers should rethink the problems and improve trade-offs. The scholars emphasize the importance of stakeholder and shareholder prioritization besides the economic success of a company. Furthermore, they recognized the development of
engagement dynamics and an increasing trend, where businesses apply stakeholder approaches to respect them and create value. Rasche et al. (2017) claim that the trend pressures from technological
improvements. Therefore, it becomes relevant to recognize stakeholders and shareholders in a business mission and values and manage stakeholder relationships in the context of technology, which this assignment involves.
The critical challenge of the social media process is the rapid development and increasing transparency of a firm. The transparency can be a limitation of CI management. However, by adopting current CI theory and frameworks to an online mode it might become possible to engage in the continually changing CI development. Additionally, it might be relevant to expand CI literature one step further with the help of advanced technological logarithms such as artificial intelligence (AI) or artificial neurological networks (ANN), as discussed in the limitation section.
Besides Rasche et al. (2017), Iglesias et al. (2019) share the understanding of a fluent and stakeholder-driven corporate brand identity creation. They believe that stakeholders share their
interpretation of managers' intended CI brand identity. Thereby, managers can only influence the essence of their corporate brand but not how it is perceived or interpreted. Iglesias et al. (2019) found this result by
collecting qualitative data by interpreting semi-structured interviews with business to business (B2B) stakeholders. The study's result identified a co-creation of corporate brand identity within B2B stakeholders with four performance characterizations: Communicating, internalizing, contesting, and elucidating. Those characterizations aim is to develop the conceptualization of the corporate brand identity idea.
The study of Iglesias et al. (2019) challenges the traditional one-way communication perspective of CI brand management and recognizes the growth of social media and its increasing stakeholder interaction,
"[the growth of social media and online brand communities] has fostered a new perspective that considers corporate brand identity to be a set of fluid, dynamic, and polysemous meanings co-created by multiple internal and external stakeholders" (Iglesias et al., 2019, p. 33).
By emphasizing the dynamic stakeholder relationships in an online environment, Iglesias et al.
(2019) extend CI literature in the context of a digital CI brand. However, the limitation of the study is the perspective of B2B stakeholders only.
As mentioned, networks on digital platforms provide business to customers (B2C), and virtual stakeholder groups as well as B2B connections, which equally should be recognized and prioritized of the organization. Future studies could investigate a multi-stakeholders perspective of corporate brand identity, not only in a co-creation and B2B context but within a digital CI perspective, including any external and internal stakeholders to shape an attractive CI.
Another study by Kuznetsov and Nikishova (2020) discusses reputation management and CI as transitioning to digital platforms. This study argues that digital reputation management "merges with credit and compliance risk assessment both in regulation and in corporate practices" (Kuznetsov & Nikishova, 2020, p. 35). Thereby, the reputation management occurs on digital platforms, including data from AI, such as ANN, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and more. Limitations of this study are the premise that the firm's executives should be familiar with AI processes and the overall data management. It
might be unusual to assume that companies are familiar with all data monitoring and understanding, if considering the constant development of technology, and the hereof adopting ethical and legal regulations.
However, besides Kuznetsov and Nikishova (2020), this paper does not focus on reputational management itself, where it might be necessary to introduce AI and its benefits in depth. Instead, it focuses on
expanding CI theory by suggesting reading CI phenomena on digital platforms with a CDA approach, including stakeholders' perspectives.
The Discourse Analytical Approach and CI
The CI phenomenon examines under different circumstances and research methods. One method that rarely uses is the discourse and CDA approach. However, this literature review outlines three journals to illustrate the applied methods and argue for a CDA analysis approach niche.
In 2002, senior lecture of marketing Judy Motion and corporate communication professor Shirley Leitch published a journal introducing a framework that enables scholars to examine the relationships among four different technologies of CI, to develop an extensive understanding of the phenomenon through a semiotic and discourse analysis approach. The aim is to describe limitations towards the main CI theoretical and practical perspectives. Thereby, the developed discourse approach opens new ways of thinking about identity communication (Motion & Leitch, 2002). The work of Motion and Leitch (2002) looks at social practices and examines the systems of power and the impact on 'what is on stake' for discourse participants, such as stakeholders.
Among others, the finding is that organizational identity develops through every interaction and dialog that an organization has with its stakeholder. Thereby, multiple meanings occur regularly "[...] from a
discourse perspective, we would argue that different interactions with a message [from the orgnization]
will produce different meanings at different times and for different people" (Motion & Leitch, 2002, p. 51).
Thereby, Fairclough's (1992) and Foucault's (1988) discourse theory inspired Motion and Leitch (2002) research. The inspiration features CI in the context of a CDA approach from Fairclough (1992). "
Viewed through the lens of critical-discourse analysis, corporate-identity work may be seen as a form of social practice that aims to construct commonsense understandings of organizations" (Motion & Leitch, 2002, p. 50). This comment inspires this examination of a digital CI with a CDA approach because drawing upon the CDA approach from Fairclough (1992) in the context of CI introduces the idea that organizations might understand their perceived identity within virtual and other stakeholder groups on digital platforms.
Thereby, executives might learn from their stakeholders and implement strategic change to benefit both the organization and interest groups.
Relating to the assumption of Motion and Leitch (2002), a CDA approach, and the primary consensus-driven CI literature, it might be relevant to expand a CDA approach in CI literature to environmental and stakeholder awareness to improve a digital CI.
Elaborationally, Vallaster and Wallpach (2011) study mentions in this as followed to enlargen investigations of discourses in the context of CI. The topic of Vallaster and Wallpach (2011) journal is the brand meaning co-creation in stakeholder groups in an online environment. The research describes that brands' meaning occurs in social processes online when stakeholders exchange opinions about brands and encourage co-creation processes. The multi-stakeholder co-creation perspective of brands examines online because the platforms give access to virtual stakeholders, which otherwise might have been isolated offline to the united brand-related discourse. In other words, the empirical study examines linguistical interaction in the form of texts. Thereby, the approach highlights the discursive strategies and dynamics, which stakeholders use to co-create a brand's meaning. Moreover, the highlights the social process of online
multi-stakeholder brand meaning co-creation by characterizing social dynamics within multi-stakeholder behavior online. The findings are the dynamic nature of stakeholder networks. Among them, three discursive strategies and resources that stakeholders use to co-create a brand: Brand promoters, brand offenders distance themself from the originally intended brand meaning, and "Brand neutrals actively engage in brand-related discourse but lack evaluation or emotional commitment to the brand" (Vallaster &
Wallpach, 2011, p. 1513). Additionally, Vallaster and Wallpach (2011) argue that managers should actively engage in those networks that include interdepended stakeholder interactions to manage a brand
successful because the dynamics and discourses can change stakeholder salience. "Salience changes depending on whether stakeholders have relevant resources at their disposition and whether they successfully apply these resources in response to other stakeholders' discursive activities" (Vallaster &
Wallpach, 2011, p. 1513).
The study's limitation is that Vallaster and Wallpach (2011) empirical study examines a company in a brand crisis and thereby only stakeholder interactions concerning such a situation. Vallaster and Wallpach (2011) recognize that future research could emphasize how multiple stakeholder texts change the intended meaning of a brand. This study agrees upon Vallaster and Wallpach (2011) statement because it directly connects to the meaning of CI in a particular stakeholder discourse activity. Projecting their work in the light of an organization's intended CI and stakeholder behavior online, highlights stakeholders’ practices and how managers might change stakeholders’ salience because of the dynamic and discourses between stakeholder groups. The detection of particular discourse might be relevant to executives and scholars if they want to gain insight in the phenomenon of CI.
The PAD Research Group (2016) expresses that little research exists, examining the process involved in online branding construction activities form a discourse analytical perspective. However, The PAD Research Group's (2016) case study introduces a discourse analytical perspective by combining corpus
analytical tools with discourse analytical techniques. They include text, multimodal futures, and strategy decisions of the case organization's website. The analysis concentrates on the intertwined identities on the website, which builds the company's brand and image (The PAD Research Group's, 2016). In this process, they were able to find processes through which identities reinforce, negotiate, and construct, e.g., the affirmation and impose of power and ideology, and perceived perceptions of identity claims. The research's approach is a mixed-method, combining qualitative and quantitative data with a discourse analysis method.
The PAD Research Group (2016) empathizes, that future studies could focus on a diachronic research approach to examine changes in online identity construction. "A particularly interesting avenue for future research could be to take a more diachronic approach and examine possible changes in online identity construction over time – especially given the rapidly changing nature of this environment" (The PAD Research Group, 2016, p. 308).
This paper addresses the digital environment, its stakeholder group's behavior, and discourses of a CI. Thereby, a suggested CDA method contributes to reading a digital CI with a diachronic approach. The diachronic approach relates to the environmental change impacted by the Covid-19 crisis and focuses on stakeholder relationships and prioritization rather than analyzing specific identity claims and their perception.
Literature Review Conclusion
This summary connects the critical points of the topics provided during the literature review. First, conceptual understandings and definitions of a CI, second, its relationship to stakeholders in a digital context, and third, CI research about discourse and CDA. The summary highlights discussed theory limitations and argue for a CI literature expansion towards a digital CI with a CDA approach.
The review found that scholars tend to see the CI concept from a managerial perspective that often demonstrates a one-way communication process even though scholars like Balmer (2001) and Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) perceive less linear approaches. Balmer (2017) describes CI as a wheel of change, which supports the idea of a 'less liner' CI approach because the wheel of change includes discussing stakeholder importance and environmental impacts on a CI. Melewar's (2003) research supports Balmer's (2017) notion by introducing a CI taxonomy. The multi-faceted taxonomy of CI traits illustrates subconstructs: Corporate communication, visual identity, culture, corporate behavior, structure, strategy. Additionally, Tourky et al.
(2019) emphasize the competitive advantage and financial performance that a CI can have because it encompasses multiple dimensions, as Melewar (2003) structures them.
Corporate constructs result in variety, and Flint et al. (2018) recognize CI congruences through mixed signals and multiple-meaning creation. It can be understood that those mixed-signals are challenging to manage. According to Tourky et al. (2019) and Glanfield et al. (2017), CI literature weaknesses occur in management awareness towards stakeholders' perceived CI. Their idea is reasonable when considering the consensus-driven literature and the variety of the CI concept. CI's diversity, scholars’ assertions, and the current global digital development are fundaments to assume that the phenomenon has not been researched exhaustively, especially in the online environment where organizations are transparent to stakeholders.
The stakeholder relationship section emphasizes the negotiation processes between CI and stakeholders and stakeholder groups' relationships. The online management perspective highlights the differences between stakeholder groups online and offline. Those differences are that stakeholders'
salience can change depending on the circumstance and because of higher transparency on the internet. To add on, other stakeholder groups appear online, such as the virtual stakeholders and organized groups.
They require management attention to avoid reputational failure and create CI alignment.
Stakeholders expect businesses to match global corporate frames, such as information
clarifications, ethical behavior, and other CSR standards. Cornelissen et al. (2012) argue that any collective sense-making of an organization's identity emerges from individual interactions. The established meaning is situational, which means that identity perceptions are situational rather than fixed, which argues for a changing salience of stakeholders. The change in salience stakeholder groups appears evident in the rapid development and information sharing of digital platforms. However, previous CI studies focused on non- virtual stakeholder groups and internal management, rather than digital transformations.
Iglesias et al. (2019) stresses upon fluent and stakeholder-driven corporate brand identity creation to illustrate that managers cannot influence how the essence of a CI perceives. This limitation in CI
management highlights the necessity to understand CI discourses and highlight language and social practice interaction concerning an intended CI.
To continue, Tourky et al. (2019) argue that developed frameworks presented a lack of academic strength. The lack becomes apparent in the article by Cornelissen et al. (2012) because they discuss about theory development around the clarity and specification of CI and corporate brand key constructs. The findings provide the idea that there is a need to change the sender-dominated conduit models of
communication and move towards the social process in the ascriptions of identity, where language plays an essential role in framing organizational branding and identity processes. It concludes that scholars tend to emphasize the internal and managerial perspective to manage the phenomenon, e.g., Tagiuri (1982), and Balmer (2017), who offer frameworks to manage a CI, or Motion and Leitch (2002), who offer a semiotic model for CI management. Thereby, Motion and Leitch (2002) include Van Riel (1995), who similarly focuses on organizational members and CI's management from an internal perspective. Even though the mentioned articles recognize that CI is a dynamic stakeholder interaction process, they describe CI from a management perspective. Even though Balmer's (2017) framework is less linear, he argues that the
continuum, including CI, cannot be entirely managed. However, managers should be aware of the aspects due to the success of their businesses.
Based on the represented literature limitations, it argues that stakeholder relationships should be prioritized and analyzed in a digital environment. A CI literature weakness is the rare research that has been conducted in digital environments concerning virtual and other stakeholder groups because of their frequently changing salience and urgency of prioritizations online.
In a digital environment, stakeholder prioritizations are especially relevant to adopt to the Covid-19 crisis and an increasing eCommerce forecast in the future. Furthermore, CI scholars emphasize the
relevance of online presence concerning an organizations' corporate reputation and image. However, it occurs that CI has transformed and adapted to the digital environment but has not been prioritized or accepted as more important than the offline world. Moreover, companies achieve digital competitive advantage by analyzing their environment and strengthen their CI. Combined with CI methodological approaches, this paper seeks to improve current CI literature and suggests reading a digital CI with a CDA method.
Scholarship on CI and branding has 'insulated' itself from intellectual developments around discourse processes (Cornelissen et al., 2012). Therefore, this paper seeks to enrich theoretical research and strengthen explanations of the CI concept. This paper particularly examines CI analysis tools viewed from the perspective of a CDA approach, as suggested in ‘The Three-Dimensional Model Combined with CI Frameworks’ section. To give an example of the suggested analysis framework, it studies empirically how H&M's CI manages the relationship to its stakeholders online.
Drawing on CI literature, it argues that it is essential for organizations that stakeholders confirm the CI on digital platforms to seem attractive. Due to the lockdown of physical shops and a growing
eCommerce (eMarketer., 2019), this paper debates that current theory-based management strategies
should be renegotiated or expanded, focusing on a primary development in the digital environment that addresses a CI as an attractive competitive advantage tool. Thereby, this paper seeks to move beyond a CI management perspective and highlight CI discourses from managers and recognize stakeholders' behavior, as well as external changes concerning the intended CI.
As outlined in 'The discourse analytical approach and CI' section above, there are studies that projected CI in the light of discourse analysis. Through this lens, CI considers as a form of social practice.
Qualitative researches led to conclusions that businesses could learn from stakeholders and implement strategic changes. This application would benefit the stakeholder and the organizations.
However, the investigation requires expansions of research methods, for example, by enlarging analysis in stakeholder networks online. To this limitation, scholars claim that little research exists that examines identity creations online in the continually changing environment, as argued.
This paper aims to enlarge the analysis tools for CI's online examinations and narrow the gap between linguistic analysis and social practices concerning the phenomenon CI.
A Digital CI Concept
Connecting existing CI literature with a CDA online, as a new approach, emphasizes a CI exclusively in a digital environment. This view of the CI phenomenon understands as a digital CI. This term has not been used by acknowledged scholars before; even though they describe the terms meaning (Rasche et al., 2017; Tourky et al., 2019; Iglesias et al., 2019; Kuznetsov & Nikishova,2020) similar to the content of the 'Managing stakeholder relationships online' section above. Moreover, CI literature circumscribes a digital CI as eCommerce, online branding, and reputation management (Melewar's, 2002a; Dumeresque, 2013;
Kuznetsov & Nikishova, 2020). However, it could be argued that a digital CI should be examined because, as explained in the literature review, stakeholder relations and management awareness of online stakeholder groups is a necessity for a company's success, which terms the digital CI concept. Besides, Dumeresque (2013) presents the undiscovered benefits and risks of companies' social media presence. He argues that over 70% of researched companies revealed vague objectives strategies for their social media presence (Dumeresque, 2013).
Moving on to present studies, they discuss about how beneficial reputation and stakeholder relationships establishes by online analysis using technological tools such as big data and AI, which confirms the technological development in the future. Such as Kuznetsov and Nikishova (2020) debate about the corporate governance transformation and its opportunities to create sustainable competitive advantages in the business environment, including technological advantages. In detail, chapter three, in their volume 'the Advances in Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage,' addresses reputation risk management
concerning a CI and its transition to digital platforms.
Appealing to this paper about a digital CI and a CDA approach, Kuznetsov and Nikishova (2020) focus and emphasize on the risk factors, such as employee qualification requirement, incorrect disclosure of information, and negative perception by shareholders and counterparties and related parties (Kuznetsov
& Nikishova, 2020) support the understanding that stakeholder relationships should be addressed when an organization represents online. Their study suggests that big data should be used carefully for marketing purposes to avoid the flood of fake news and 'trash logic'.
This study elevates Kuznetsov and Nikishova (2020) research and proposes the necessity for businesses to control and strengthen their CI presented on digital platforms to reduce risks and strengthen their profitability with a digital CI. Rather than describing the transformation or online and offline
combination of CI, this study seeks to approach the digital CI phenomenon with a CDA approach, focusing
on the relationship of managers' intended CI, stakeholders' perceived CI, development, and understanding of the phenomenon.
Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective
The CDA section introduces a new CI approach towards the digital age and expands the CI phenomenon's understanding. The first part of this section reports the concept of CDA; the following explains Fairclough's theory and the three-dimensional model. Once the three-dimensional model was presented, the suggestion of implementing CI theory analysis methods adjusts to the CDA perspective as non-discursive features. Concludingly discusses the new analysis framework towards CI analysis online.
Critical Discourse Analysis Explanation and Introduction
The discourse analysis involves interdisciplinary approaches that use in a variety of studies to explore social constructionism. Within the approaches, there is an overall perception of what discourse is.
It is "a particular way of talking about and understanding the world (or an aspect of the world)" (Jørgensen
& Phillips, 2002, p. 1).
Thereby, some discourse theories assume that language is a part of shaping social relations and identities. According to Jørgensen and Phillips (2002), they categorize into three approaches: Discourse theory, CDA, and discursive psychology.
This study draws on Fairclough's theory of a CDA, where he combines linguistical analysis with social behavior analysis. Ulinnuha et al. (2013) explain the relationship between textual and sociocultural analysis with Fairclough's view as following:
Fairclough […] regard language use as of a form of social practice, rather than a purely individual activity or a reflection of situational variables. According to Fairclough, this has various implications, such as discourse as a mode of action, a form in which people may act upon the world and
especially upon each other, as well as a mode of representation. The research further states that it also implies a dialectical relationship between discourse and social structure, in that the social structure is both a condition for and an effect of a social practice. Discourse [...] is then a practice not just of representing the world, but of signifying the world, constituting and constructing the world in meaning. (Ulinnuha et al., 2013, p. 263)
Ulinnuha et al. (2013) introduce CDA as a dialectical relationship between discourse and social practice, making it flexible. Grahma (2011) conceive it similarly, "Discourse analysis is a flexible term. What one is doing is greatly dependent on the epistemological framework being drawn upon" (Graham, 2011, p. 2).
In general, CDA originates in structuralist and poststructuralist linguistic philosophy, which assume that reality builds through language. Therefore, language contributes to creating the social world. Within the social world, language shapes identities and relations (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
The critical analysis offers data analysis methods and theory background where the approach elucidates the position of language in social domains towards ontological and epistemological assumptions and methodological framework to approach research and analysis techniques.
The method and theory approach combined is one reason to adopt the CDA approach to this study.
Another is that the proposed methodology merges both discursive and non-discourse analytical
perspectives. Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) define this as multiperspectival work. He argues "that different perspectives provide different forms of knowledge about a phenomenon so that, together, they produce a broader understanding" (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 4). The multiperspectival work displays several unique approaches with no estimation of their relationship towards another. The different approaches then identify independent knowledge about the given topic to modify approaches towards it. The
modification means that other methods beyond the discourse analysis contribute to understanding the variety of social constructions and its logics. Thereby, the purpose is to view social developments through discursive practices (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
This paper aims to enrich CI theory by applying a CDA perspective on the phenomenon and producing an advanced understanding of it in an online environment. On the one hand, analysis applications are frameworks from Attride-Stirling (2001), Melewar (2003), and Balmer (2017); on the contrary, Fairclough's (1992) three-dimensional model about a CDA approach and the idea of a multiperspectival work.
Critical Discourse Analysis and Norman Fairclough’s Theory
Fairclough (1992) examines critical discourse as a carrier for change that inspects with an intertextual concept. Intertextuality is the language use that draws on previous discursive constructions, which builds on existent meanings in a particular context. This means that a person using language uses words that have been used in the process before. Manifest intertextuality is a form of intertextuality where texts draw on one or several other texts. Thereby, the text drawn on is a link in an intertextual chain:
[Intertextuality is] how an individual text draws on elements and discourses of other texts. It is by combining elements from different discourses that concrete language use can change the individual discourses and thereby, also, the social and cultural world. Through analysis of intertextuality, one can investigate both the reproduction of discourses whereby no new elements are introduced and discursive change through new combinations of discourse. (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 7) Intertextuality analysis could be one approach to identify CI discourses. Thereby, it examines how stakeholders or managers use particular discourses to influence stakeholder groups and their social constructs. Beyond the intertextuality examination, Fairclough's (1992) view is the most advanced theory
and method approach in communication, society, and culture research (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
However, his theory approach and the total movement of the CDA have five universal understandings.
First, the structures of social and cultural processes are partly linguistic-discourse; Second, the discourse is constitutive but also constituted. The difference between poststructuralist critical discourse features and Fairclough’s understanding is that a discourse perceives as constitutive as well as constituted. Thereby, discourse is a form of social practice. Social structures, such as identities and social relations, shape social practices, and change it where a discourse constitutes and is constituted.
Third, a social context should be analyzed by empirical studies of the utilized language. Fourth the ideological functions of discourses, and fifth the critical research. The critical research underlies the
assumption that its task is to establish equal power relations within hierarchical communication processes.
While the aim of objectivist social science introduces itself as politically neutral, the CDA involves in groups, which are afflicted, which means that the CDA concerns power that exercises through language.
Norman Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model
Fairclough's framework is a three-dimensional model to analyze linguistic discourses and their relation to social practice. Thereby, he emphasizes the systematic analysis of language, both texts, and verbal communication. Fairclough's method is a text-oriented form that aims to collect three traditions.
Those traditions form the three-dimensional model. The first form is texts, the second is the discursive practice, and the third is social practice, as illustrated in Figure 1. Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) mention that language in use sees as a communicative event, which encompasses those three forms.
Figure 1
Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model
(Fairclough, 1992, p. 73).
The Dimension of Text. Text consists of linguistic features and can be written words, symbols, verbal words, or a combination of them. A researcher establishes interpretation and insight into constituted and constitutive discourses by analyzing text orders with different linguistic tools. Those linguistic features consist of several forms: Ethos, metaphors, wording, grammar, and interactional control (Jørgensen &
Phillips, 2002). Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) discuss nominalisation, transitivity, and modality concerning
the grammar feature to analyze language characteristics. Discourses depend on the type of modality. Types of modality are truth, permission intonation, and hedges.
Nominalisation reduces the form of agency and highlights the effect that agency has on the process concerning grammatical elements (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). An institution can be characterized by promoting a targeted identity through nominalisation, a noun describes a process. Transitivity illustrates the connection between communication events and processes (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
An example of a analysis method examines the study's material, as discussed on page 70.
Discursive Practice. The aim of the discursive practice is to detect text production and its perceived understanding. Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) name the perceived understanding 'the consumption' of texts.
Text consumption determines by interpreting the research findings of the text's audience. In case
researchers investigate an organization's CI, they would analyze stakeholders' consumption of an intended CI.
The production of text examines by evaluating the intertextual chain. This process enables the researcher to establish a hypothesis about the transformation and versions of the text. Furthermore, it supports the understanding of the production conditions. Understanding the production condition is beneficial when the text serves advertisement purposes, e.g., for CSR branding.
Another way to analyze a discourse is to draw on a particular text and estimate it a) interdiscursive, which means investigating which other texts they draw on, and b) investigate it intertextually, which means to inspect what other discourses the text draws on. This way focuses on linguistical aspects that might give insight into discourses and how they form social change. The interdiscursive and intertextual examination would be beneficial for a CI analysis to clarify the understanding of the CI phenomenon and stakeholders' attitudes towards it.
Social Practice. Social practice is the standard of society or the institution. Those structures analyses in terms of social norms. Language shape attitudes towards a subject and creates social relationships. The choice of words create a context on a given topic. Moreover, language is part of communicative events, and those events are part of social practices (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). It means that language impacts the perception of a subject and shape social community and cultures. To analyze social practice, the relationship between the discursive practice and analyzed order of discourse investigates first. Second, it contemplates non-discursive practices as social and cultural structures. Those structures shape an
advanced perspective on discursive practices. Fairclough (1992) terms this the social matrix of discourses.
Jørgensen and Phillips (2002) emphasize that the analysis and the theory of language alone do not satisfy the multiperspectival research framework, which means that additional transdisciplinary
integrations are necessary to understand the researched phenomenon:
The different discourse analytical and non-discourse analytical theories one uses in order to carry out a specific project need to be translated into an integrated theoretical and analytical framework, where they are adapted to one another and to the aim of the research project. (Jørgensen &
Phillips, 2002, p. 86)
After establishing an analytical framework through the multiperspectival work and the analysis of social and discursive practices, researchers can achieve closing conclusions. Thereby, the non-discursive parties are theories that serve transdisciplinary integration. Those can be institutional or economic conditions.
Institutional conditions are property rights, political stability, dependable legal systems, government, and competitive and open markets, or norms.
After analyzing the relationship between discursive practices and social practices there is one more step to examine. This step is to detect whether discursive practice reproduces the order of discourses and
