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THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF CORPORATE IMAGE IN AN ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Every aspect of business and industry is undergoing rapid change in terms of philosophy and technology and there is more rapidly changing function of corporate image of image is often considered to be an important of long-term sales and profits. Corporate image of an organization according to Keith Davis (2005) conveys its mission, professionalism, competence of employees and its roles in the political landscape of marketing environment. It reflects the organizational commitment to its employees, customers; competitors etc. in the whole role of image promotion programme according to Mark (2009) stated that really makes a company profitable are its fundamental attributes, caliber of management, resources products and marked organizational structure and if these are sound then, the use of appropriate technique  will reinforce their efforts, on the other hand if there major attributes are sound then there is an amount of thinking of the techniques that will make a company highly profitable and improve organizational performance.

Mass merchandizing, new method of advertising increased competition and government regulation into public view and cause executive to seek more favorable reactions. The concept of corporate image is often considered to be an important determinant of organizational performance. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider the use of image as an objective, not only for advertising programmes and an organization as a whole.

Ejiofor (2004) said that corporate image the function of organizational signal which determines the perception of various stakeholders, regarding the act of the organization because of its relationship to the action of the organization. He said that image has been studied as an indicator of social performance of the organization. Recent research determined that social performance has direct effect on the behavior and attributes of the organization employee.

A sound corporate image is no substitute for dealing and quality products. However, first impressions have a lasting effect. A company’s ability to communicate a favorable and progressive image to its many publics places it ahead of its competition and subsequently has a profound effect on the bottom line. Advertising and publicity are only two aspects in the establishing a firms image. Everything a company says and does is a component of its corporate image. According to Bernstein (2004), image is the global evaluation comprises of a set of beliefs and felling a person has about an organization. To identify the strength and weakness of your organizations corporate image based on four basic dimensions, namely quality, performance, responsibility and attractiveness on the mind of each stakeholders including  the public, management and journals.

Some of the warning signs that a business might have an image problem according to Oliens (2010) are, high employee turnover, the disappearance of major customer, a drop in total value, and poor relationships with vendor or government officials advertising and publicity. The critical importance of corporate image becomes apparent when consumers protest provokes from large organizations series or explanation and apologies for the faults they are accused of companies must therefore give to finance, marketing and research in the table of rapid, social and technological change. Otherwise it cannot expect its command public respect and support in the market place.

To live and grow to command respect and regard, the corporate image must be more than a product of public relation. Therefore corporate image promotion should not be left in the hands of the public relation men, but should be the responsibility of top management and indeed every member of staff. This implies that the image programme should be part of the over all planning for the company’s future. No matter how impressive a firm’s achievement are, they must be properly presented in the public for them to be acknowledged. Thus corporate planning is an integral part of policy decision. For some companies, image programmes is part of board planning for greater sales and profit. This is one of the fundamental objectives of management and all its activities will be programmed to that end.

Oxford Advanced learners dictionary new 7th edition page (743) defined image as the impression that a person, an organization or product, etc gives to the member of the public vocabulary defined image as a picture or other representation of a person or thing, it can be someone public perception. Image has its roots in Latin word “Imitari” meaning to copy or imitate.

Finally in order to gain the support of its publics the corporate image must show that management is progressing, mobile, open to innovation, fair to all and free of dogns and consections.