Taking Brand Initiative: How Companies Can Align Strategy, Culture, and Identity Through Corporate Branding

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MANAGING CORPORATE BRANDS AS ORGANIZATIONS GROW

It is common to attribute business acumen to the leader in charge during the time a company achieves success, yet most leaders recognize the debt of gratitude they owe to their company's founder. Furthermore, failing companies can sometimes right themselves by renewing the vision, values, and principles their founders bequeathed to them. This is perhaps most evident when founders themselves return to restore luster to a tarnished brand, as Steve Jobs did at Apple in the late 1990s. The VCI Alignment Model offers an intriguing explanation for these and other “founder effects.”

When a company is born, it is usually because stakeholders share the entrepreneur's desire to see something accomplished. ...