Once Upon A Time in organisations
The Effects of Corporate Storytelling Themes on Corporate Image
Aikaterini Kroustalli University of Amsterdam
Student ID: 11368101 Graduate School of Communication Master’s Programme Communication Science
Master’s Thesis
Supervisor: dr. S.H.J. (Sandra) Jacobs Date of submission: 28-03-2019 Word Count: 7.401
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate the different effects of Strategy and Emotion storytelling themes, used by an organisation in order to announce a leadership change to the general audience, on corporate image and the role of communication channel and value congruity. Following an experimental design, the results of the study do not confirm the expected effects of the storytelling theme while they also indicate that the use of the social media platform was less effective in improving corporate image than the organization’s website. The study adds to the corporate storytelling literature by recommending combined use of the storytelling themes and user-generated content.
Keywords: corporate storytelling, corporate image, online experiment, communication channels
Introduction
“The story – from Rapunzel to War and Peace – is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”
Author Ursula K. Le Guin, 1979 Storytelling is one of the oldest methods of sensemaking; from epics to corporate stories, individuals and organisations have been using stories in order to convey meanings that support moral opinions, recommended attitudes and behaviors (Tobin & Snyman, 2004; Dailey &
Browning, 2014) or portray a desired identity. While corporate storytelling for branding purposes has been highly acknowledged (van Riel & Fombrun, 2007), its implementation on announcing organisational changes is restricted to the field of internal communications. For example, previous studies have investigated how an organisational change can be communicated to the employees using storytelling techniques in order to diminish uncertainty, achieve a smooth transition to the new conditions and reduce forces of resistance (Weick & Quinn, 1999; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; Nelissen & van Selm, 2008).
Regardless of whether it is internally or externally addressed, storytelling is considered a PR technique, which places it immediately in the heart of Impression Management and corporate branding (Spear & Roper, 2013). For the past decade, Public Relations is a field that goes through an evolution of the way it operates; digital environments progressively replace
traditional media, rendering their effective employment under focus both for the academic and the professional community (Verčič et al., 2014). Consequently, there is a gap in literature regarding the content and the appeal that a strategic internal changes should follow and the potentials effects on the corporate image, within a digital environment.
While Spear & Roper (2013) dealt with corporate stories and created a typology of themes, including Emotion, Strategy, Activities and Benefits, it is of great interest to focus on whether the corporate messages are sensationalised or not, as both Activities and Benefits could be expressed in a way that serves both the first two themes.
Seele & Lock (2015) were among the ones that dealt with the appropriateness of different types of media for the communication of corporate activities but they place their study in the area of CSR that has mainly branding and not informational purpose.
In an interconnected world, organisations are evaluated not only by the information they provide themselves but also by the information that becomes available by relevant institutions, customers and the general public. Corporate communications are expected to have a two-way scheme, as the public opinion and impressions over an organisation’s legitimacy levels are not formulated solely by corporate communication efforts but also by consumer-generated content, be it an individual opinion or a collective position. Taking into account the internal focus of the topic of the announcement, it is interesting to see whether a Social Media platform will prove to be more beneficial in improving corporate image, even when the topic of communication is not among the audience’s criteria regarding the evaluation of this image (Helm, 2007).
Given the general reach that emotional appeals have on audiences, it is interesting to investigate the individual values held by the consumers, the degree to which they are congruent with the ones supported by the organisation and their effects on perceiving an organisation’s image. This study will attempt to shed light on the differentiating effects of two opposing themes of storytelling, namely Emotional and Strategy on corporate image, taking into consideration the channel of communication and the congruity of values between the organisation and the audience.
RQ: Does the storytelling theme used in a company’s announcement of a leadership change
affect the corporate image, and do communication channel and value congruity influence this effect?
In order to answer this question, I will conduct an online experiment, manipulating the theme of storytelling (strategy vs emotion) and the communication channel (website vs LinkedIn), to check for causal effects on corporate image and the moderating role of value congruity. After the experiment, an online questionnaire will be conducted.
Theoretical Framework Corporate Image
Hatch and Schultz (2002) state that organisational image (how others perceive the organisation) mirrored on the organisational culture (the organisation’s inherent characteristics) creates the organisational identity, demonstrating its social formation. Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) make another essential distinction between corporate reputation and corporate image. The authors support that corporate image represents the impression that a stakeholder has after observing certain features of an organisation at a point in time, whereas corporate reputation is the overall result of assessing several images of the organisation (social, financial, product and recruitment image) by more than one stakeholder, over time.
Based on past consumer research studies, Ahluwalia (2018) investigated psychological and cognitive mechanisms by which individuals attempt to resist persuasion. Her findings confirmed the active role of the spillover effect under certain circumstances; the idea behind it is that when a negative message about a specific characteristic is distributed, the receivers are likely to draw unintentional inferences about other characteristics when individuals had low engagement with the bearer of the characteristic. This indicates that despite the many aspects that corporate image
entails, the general audience treats it as a unit. As a working definition of corporate image for this study, the definition provided by Abratt & Kleyn (2012) will be used, considering corporate image as the impression that the general audience has about an organisation in a single point in time. Deviating from the majority of the literature discussed, corporate image will be treated not a fragmentary but as a holistic construct, responding to the restricted amount of informational cues that will be provided that does not allow more elaborate evaluation of the organisation.
Corporate Storytelling
Storytelling, broadly defined (Norlyk et al., 2014), belongs to the general field of narratology and refers to the human ability to produce and comprehend an event chain. Originating from the latin word narrere, meaning to pass on knowledge, narratives have the potentials to be a valuable knowledge management tool (Vale et al., 2003) within formal and informal environments. 1 Tobin and Snyman (2004), in their literature review, identify an abundance of story
classifications, concluding that the main factors are the level in which stories are disseminated (“individual, team, organisation”) and the purpose they are intended to serve, such as
sense-making, generating commitment and preserving control. Placing storytelling in an organisational context as a part of corporate communication, allows the organisations to disseminate stories that convey meanings towards their employees and other stakeholders but also to the general public, as a means of differentiation of their image or identity.
The majority of the relevant literature treats corporate storytelling within the field of internal communications. Dailey & Browning (2014) highlight the social function of storytelling as a tool of social sense-making empowered by repetition. Other studies have examined the role of storytelling as a means of communicating the culture and overall identity of an organisation
(Martin, 2016). Perret et al. (2004) took a more practical step by developing a groupware, a software application that enables the co-creation of corporate stories with the collaboration of many authors in order to increase collective memory within an organisation.
The effect of storytelling on the external audiences has been mostly evaluated in an indirect way. Mittins et al. (2011) consider the whole organisation as a storytelling system, as it consists of the people that tell stories on formal or informal level, realizing the desired corporate reputation by aligning what is experienced within the organisation with what is communicated by the organisation. More explicitly focused on the use of storytelling for external branding
purposes, (Du et al., 2010) illustrate that storytelling can be used in order to improve employee engagement with regards to the organisation’s CSR activities so as to turn them into unforced brand ambassadors. Although these studies explore successfully the engaging and even unifying role of storytelling within an organisation, they only address its branding purposes indirectly, with employees being the mediators between the organisation and the general public.
Although different forms of storytelling, such as visual and digital storytelling, have been investigated (Crican and Bortun, 2017), the effects of the prevalent themes have not received equal attention. Furthermore, Gill (2014), in his integrated literature review over the use of storytelling within an organisational context, notices that the cases of organisations admitting the use of storytelling as a formal strategy of public relations are scarce. Pulizzi (2012) presents corporate storytelling addressed to the general audience as the general modus vivendi of contemporary branding, that is now known as Content Marketing. From this perspective, storytelling is embedded in all promotional content that is disseminated by the organisation and includes a broad spectrum of forms that it could take, ranging from articles and YouTube videos
to virtual conferences. The apparent author of the story is now the brand itself and its 2
distribution is technologically enhanced. Nonetheless, as the author underlines, keywords and search optimization techniques cannot be proven beneficial without an engaging story. Content marketing seeks to provide personality cues about the organisation but most centrally to increase sales either directly, in the case of a media organisation where the product is the communication material itself, or indirectly by creating loyalty to the brand. Despite the potentials of Content Marketing, it is still unclear which specific elements are used when the content is of primarily informational nature, such as a corporate announcement.
Storytelling Themes
But what in what way is a story received?
Hong et al. (1987) in their study of advertising in Japanese and American magazines conducted a content analysis on ads in order to examine whether the differences between the two cultures would be reflected on the advertising appeals, emotional and informational respectively. Although their results did not confirm their hypothesis, the consideration of the two types of appeals initiates an interesting discussion regarding the themes employed in corporate storytelling. Van Riel and Fombrun (2007), examining the specific content of corporate messages, state that these messages are constructed based on distinctive motifs; the authors define them as “reputation platforms”, that function as different orientations of content, to be chosen according to the reputation building objectives. They identify three core “reputation platforms”, namely Activity, Benefits and Emotion.
Spear & Roper (2013) conducted a content analysis of corporate stories traced in corporate websites and recognized four major storytelling themes including distinct elements; the
“Activities” theme (including the elements of corporate activities the organisations undertake or their accomplishments), the “Benefits” theme (divided in internal and external beneficiary outcomes that the corporate activities result in), the “Emotional” theme (including attempts to establish emotional bond with the stakeholders or presenting a conflict, underlining the struggles that the company has overcome) and the “Strategy” theme (including the elements of vision, mission, or values). In the present study, the “Emotional” and “Strategy” theme will be
employed, as they are highly likely to be used within the context of an announcement regarding a leadership change in an organisation.
Strategy theme. As a portrayal of strategy, organisations are recommended to present
their mission vision and values in order to create an explicit view of the general value system in which they operate (Roper and Fill, 2012). Despite the agreement on the importance of the presentation of the corporate strategy, Spear and Roper (2013) found that its actual use is considerably low. They found that for-profit organisations emphasized on the strategy elements differently than not-for-profit organisations; the first ones employed vision by 8.5%, mission by 4.3% and values by 21.3% whereas the latter ones employed vision by 1.9%, mission by 11.5% and values by 5.8%. These differences can be accounted for by the very raison-d’etre of the organisations and the results that their stories seek to achieve. Their study provides essential insight on the practical use of storytelling themes but its exploratory nature does not offer the possibility of drawing causal relationships between the themes and their specific effects.
Emotion theme. This is one of the three “reputation platforms” identified by van Riel
and Fombrun (2007). According to the authors, when Emotion theme is employed as a starting point of crafting a corporate story, the purpose of providing facts and information is not to be evaluated by the consumers on a rational assessment basis but to incite emotional connection
with them. This theme is in line with more recent literature, that indicates that trust and support to the organization is cultivated by creating emotional bonds. Woodside (2010) quotes Bagozzi and Nataraajan (2000), indicating that the purpose of marketing is to recommend possible
sources of happiness to consumers, to also point out that branding through corporate storytelling aims to create emotional connection between brands and the audience. Spear and Roper (2013) point out that the common element of creating a corporate story that humanizes a brand and inspires feelings of affection, is conflict. In this context, conflict is seen as an obstacle in the organisation’s efforts and illustrates the “struggle” that takes place between a problem and its resolution. Demonstrating the difficulties that were successfully encountered engenders empathy for the protagonists (Tobin & Snyman, 2004), making the central characters more relatable to the audience.
Fiedler and Kirchgeorg (2007), in their study over the role concept of stakeholders, found that although the four types (customers, employees, shareholders and journalists) differed in their attributed significance and evaluations of cognitive characteristics of a brand, they did not differ over the affective characteristics. The researchers suggest that when an organisation wants to communicate generic information to the full spectrum of stakeholders, it is preferable to promote affective attributes of the brand. Therefore, an announcement communicated on channels that address the general audience is expected to be more effective when using techniques that instigate feelings rather than arguments. Thus, we hypothesize the following:
H1: A leadership announcement employing the Emotion storytelling theme will lead to more positive corporate image compared to one employing the Strategy storytelling theme.
The proliferation of communication channels, along with the dominance and expansion of social media platforms has increased dramatically the potential sources of information that the public can reach (Du et al., 2010). This affluence of information and the consequent visibility of organisational actions has increased the public’s skepticism concerning information that is distributed via formal corporate communication outlets. The authors have pointed out a trade-off between controllability and credibility of an organisation’s messages with regards to CSR, suggesting the use of informal channels in order to enhance the positive intake of information by the public.
Kissel and Büttgen (2015) consider social media to be resembling personal contact to a greater extent compared to an organisation-controlled medium due to the potentials of
interactivity that they offer. Additionally, Kissel and Büttgen’s treatment of the social media platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn, as equal sources of organizational information is doubtful, taking into account the users’ motivations of visiting each platform. LinkedIn, fulfilling a strictly professional purpose, constitutes a more valid comparison term against the corporate website, when seen through the contrast of company-controlled versus company-independent platforms. Taking these insights into account, the following is hypothesized:
H2: Exposure to a leadership change announcement employing the Emotion storytelling theme will lead to more positive corporate image than to one employing the Strategy storytelling theme and this effect will be stronger when published on the LinkedIn profile page of an
organisation than when published on an organisation’s website.
Value Congruity
Tobin and Snyman (2004) quote the three-part model of corporate stories, as suggested by Sole (2003), in which the effectiveness of a corporate story is threefold; it is not only the
crafting of the story and the role of the teller but also the role of the listener that affects the reception of the meaning. McLeod and Chaffee (1973) suggest the co-orientation model as a 3 conceptual tool of defining communication objectives and enabling the alignment of perceptions between a company and its audience and subsequently achieving a change in its knowledge, attitude and ultimately, behavior; they observe that when the alignment is not fulfilled, the first problem is the lack of congruence, defined as the level of accordance between the beliefs of two parties about an object.
From a social psychological perspective, Markus and Wurf (1987) present the dynamic functions of Self-Concept; in their study, they point out that self-concept is a bundle of
self-knowledge pieces that do not lie in the subconscious but are accessible to individuals and are susceptible to change through time and therefore, operating with the personal traits and values that are held in the present moment. The authors trace a series of consequences of self-concept on the ways individuals process information; first, quoting Bargh (1982), they state that
individuals process information more favorably when they are presented with self-relevant data. Further, they mention that the element of self-reference in information allows for faster and more thorough comprehension and increases the levels of recall. Last, they mention the phenomenon of resistance to information in cases where there is incompatibility between the presented values and those that are held by the individuals. Charbonnier-Voirin et al. (2016) showed that
congruence with the values incorporated in employer brand not only enhances organisational identification but also creates the potential of positive word-of-mouth.
Since individuals stand more favorably towards information that includes values that are congruent to themselves, it is likely that a story representing such values will be more easily received, enhancing the overall corporate image. Thus, the following is hypothesized:
H3: Exposure to a leadership change announcement employing the Emotion storytelling theme will lead to more positive corporate image than to one employing the Strategy storytelling theme and this effect will be stronger when the value congruity between the consumers and the organisation is higher than when the value congruity is lower.
H4: Exposure to a leadership change announcement employing the Emotion storytelling theme will lead to more positive corporate image than to one employing the Strategy storytelling theme and this effect will be stronger when published on the LinkedIn profile page of an
organisation than when published on an organisation’s website and when the value congruity between the consumers and the organisation is higher than when the value congruity is lower.
Leadership Change
Organisations change in many ways; whether this is instigated by external factors, such as a change in the social and political environment or by internal ones such as the need for a merge, organisational transitions have received a lot of attention from the academic community
throughout the past years. The early work of Lewin (1951) , suggesting the three phases of 4 organizational change (unfreeze, change and refreeze) has been followed by a great amount of academic investigation on the ways that these phases should be communicated to the employees. Weick and Quinn (1999) distinguish between episodic and continuous organizational changes, while resistance to organisational change and the ways by which it can be tackled and treated in a constructive way, has also been studied (Ford and D’Amelio, 2008).
Notwithstanding the academic and practical contribution of these and other studies, it is noticeable that they all focus on the area of internal communications. On the area of external communications, the literature is scarce. The common element of these sources is the emphasis on the timeliness of the message, as the provision of limited information about the change and its implications could cultivate impressions of instability within the organisation. Helm (2007), in her study reputation types among different stakeholder groups, indicate that the consumers did not seem to take into account the person of CEO as an indicator of corporate reputation. Being a low-engagement topic with regards to the consumers, it will be interesting to investigate the effects of different storytelling types, employed for a leadership change announcement, on corporate image.
The hypothesized relationships are illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1: Conceptual model
Method Design
This study was conducted in order to examine the causal effects of two corporate storytelling themes, used to announce a leadership change, on corporate image and the way communication channel and value congruity affect this relationship. For this purpose, an
experimental design was employed. Specifically, a 2 (storytelling theme: emotion vs. strategy) x 2 (communication channel: website vs. LinkedIn) between-subjects factorial design was used. Participants were presented with a survey-embedded online experiment, created with the online survey software Qualtrics (see Appendix A). The experiment followed a between-subjects design, consisting of four conditions; two using a strategy and two using an emotional
storytelling theme with two of each theme being presented either on the organisation’s website and two on LinkedIn. This design was chosen in order to respond to the difficulty of assembling a larger sample.
Sample and procedure
A pilot study was conducted in order to assess the success of the manipulations. For the main study, a convenience sample was used: social acquaintances of the researcher were contacted with a personal message via Facebook and LinkedIn, resulting to a sample of 153 participants. Out of the total number of participants, 26 were removed because they did not complete the experiment, resulting in a final sample of 127. None of the participants (n=66) who failed the two manipulation checks combined was removed, as this would result to a sample that does not render the analysis possible. All participants consented to participate in the experiment. The age of the sample ranged from 18-64 with 64.6% belonging to the age group of 25-34 (n=82). 65 of the participants identified mostly with the female gender (51.2%) and 62 with the male gender (48.8%). The participants resided in 12 different countries, with 48.8% living in the Netherlands (n=62). The majority (56.7%) of the participants were full-time employed (n=72). Participants were not incentivised.
All data was collected from the 28th of December 2018 until the 16th of January 2019. Participants were contacted by a personal message on social media platforms, Facebook and
LinkedIn and accessed the experiment via a provided link. Participants were initially introduced to the aim of the study and were provided with contact details in case of questions, concerns or complaints. Then, they were informed about the anonymity of their responses, the voluntary nature of their participation and their right to stop the experiment and retract their answers. After providing their informed consent, participants were randomly presented with one of the four experimental conditions, using the randomization option provided by Qualtrics. 38 participants were assigned to the first condition (Strategy theme, company’s website), 28 were assigned to the second condition (emotional theme, company’s website), 23 were assigned to the third condition (Strategy theme, company’s LinkedIn page) and 38 were assigned to the fourth condition (emotional theme, company’s LinkedIn page). After reading the texts, the participants were asked to respond to questions measuring corporate image and demographics, regarding their gender, age group, country of residence and status of employment. Further, participants were asked to place themselves in a range of five qualities that the organisation’s stories were assigning the fictitious company, in order to measure value congruity between the organisation and them. After that, two questions measuring the effectiveness of the manipulations were asked, one regarding the storytelling theme and one regarding the communication channel. At the end, a question regarding the participants’ comprehension and the stories’ readability was asked.
Manipulations.
Storytelling theme. The two corporate stories constituting the stimuli material of this study were designed by the researcher. A fictitious automobile organisation was designed (“Auto Europe”) taking the story and graphic layout of General Motors as a template. The choice of this industry was based on the fact that it is a for-profit organisation that has already received
assure internal validity, the stories had the same introduction to the organisation, starting with a short introduction about the founder of the organisation and how he envisioned it in the
automobile industry. The same announcement of the leadership change was also kept identical in the two conditions, stating that the position of CEO would be replaced by a group of leaders, the Chief Executive league, mentioning the approach and the core values that the team will be supporting. The difference between the stories was created by presenting the values that led to the leadership change based on the directions drawn from the study of Spear and Roper (2013). Therefore, the independent variable Storytelling theme, consisted of two conditions: Strategy storytelling theme (1) and Emotion storytelling Theme (2) and was measured on nominal level (See Appendix A). In the Strategy condition, the mission, vision and values of the company were described (such as “accountability” and “respect”) whereas in the Emotion condition, the values of the organisation were presented by describing the a problematic situation that it overcame, illustrating the general vulnerability of the organisation. An example of these descriptions is the sentence “It was then when a group of managers suggested that we slow down our restoration production and contribute to the situation of the affected community and our workers’ income that were left temporarily unemployed”.
Communication Channel. The communication channel conditions (Website vs. LinkedIn) were manipulated as follows; for the Website condition, General Motors’ “Our company” page on its corporate website was taken as a template, replacing the name of the company and the text with the ones designed for the experiment. For the LinkedIn condition, General Motors’ “About” page on its LinkedIn profile was taken as a template, replacing the name of the company and the text with the ones designed for the experiment.
Leadership change. This element was kept as a constant throughout all four conditions,
as it consists the context of the study and its effect was not meant to be included as a factor. A paragraph announcing the replacement of the CEO position with the Chief Executive league, identical to all four conditions was placed in the middle of the story in the stimuli texts.
Value Congruity. For the moderating variable Value Congruity, the scale Congruence of Personality traits was adjusted, initially drawn from Kissel and Büttgen (2015). As the stories in the manipulations were designed by the researcher in order to illustrate specific values that the organisation holds, from the initial 10-item semantic differential scale, 3 items were chosen, based on whether their qualities were illustrated by the stories in the manipulations. For example, the “reliable - unreliable” was extracted by the phrase “120 years later, Auto Europe is one of the leaders in the automobile manufacturing field”, indicating that the organisation is reliable.
Following the same method, two items were added: “caring - unsympathetic”, as responding to “One team, where all ideas are considered and heard, where everyone can contribute to their fullest potential...” (indicating that the organisation is caring) and “Hard-working - laid-back” as responding to “...after hard work and perseverance”, (indicating that the organisation supports hard work), resulting in a total of 5 items. For each item, the extreme positive pole was
considered as the value that the organisation supports so that the highest the participants’ score on the item the higher the congruity with the organisation’s value. The variable was measured on interval level with a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (extreme positive pole, such as “reliable”) to 7 (extreme negative pole, such as “unreliable”). A principal factor analysis (PCA) was showed that the five items formed a single uni-dimensional scale: only one component was extracted, having an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue 2.64), having also a clear point of inflexion in the scree plot (See Appendix B, Table 2). All items correlate positively to the first component
(“Care/Sympathy”), with “Reliability” having the strongest association (factor loading .83). The scale appears to measure “Care”; looking at the initial values of the items, though, the scale measured the lack of care. Therefore, all five items were reversely recoded in order to facilitate interpretation. All five items were constructed based on the qualities that the organisation’s story indicated, therefore congruity with the items represented congruity with the total value set of the organisation. A new scale was computed, “Value Congruity” by averaging all five items. The scale has a moderate reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .72) (M=5.36, SD=.95).
Corporate Image. For the dependent variable Corporate image, a scale used by Kissel
and Büttgen (2015) was adjusted, consisting of 14 items, such as “I have a good feeling about this company” and “Has a clear vision for its future”. The scale measures the image of the organisation that an individual holds, on several areas of the organisation’s performance, such as treating people respectfully or regarding its environmental responsibility. From the initial scale, three statements were removed, such as “Is financially stable” as two of the conditions included a stock price that could affect the participants’ opinion. One item (“Offers products and services that are good value for money”) was removed because no financial information was provided. Participants indicated their level of agreement to fourteen statements, responding to a 7-point scale, ranging from Strongly agree (1) to Strongly disagree (7). A principal factor analysis (PCA) was performed in order to ensure the reliability of the scale after the adjustments. PCA showed that the 14 items formed a three-dimensional scale: three components were extracted, with three items having an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue 7.42, eigenvalue 1.34, eigenvalue 1.06) while the point of inflexion in the scree plot indicated clearly one component (See Appendix B, Table 1). Looking at the initial values of the items, low scores indicated high agreement. Therefore, all fourteen items were reversely recoded in order to facilitate interpretation. Following the
literature review where the focus is on the overall corporate image, a scale was created by averaging all fourteen items, resulting in a Cronbach’s alpha of .93 (M = 3.47, SD = .68).
Manipulation check
In order to check if the manipulations were successful between the four conditions, two chi-square crosstab analyses were conducted. First, the participants were asked to identify the storytelling theme in the story they were presented. A new variable (“storytelling”) was
computed by assigning the cases the value of 0 for strategy theme and 1 for emotional theme and was measured at nominal level. The variable “storytelling” was treated as the independent variable and the variable “Manipulation Check_Theme” as the dependent variable. A chi-square crosstab test was performed to examine the relation between storytelling theme and recognition of the theme (Manipulation check_theme). The relation between these variables was significant, χ² (1, N = 127) = 13.56, p <.01. There was a significant but weak association between
storytelling theme and Manipulation Check_Theme. The results showed that the manipulation for the Strategy storytelling theme was successful; 83.6% of the the participants assigned to the Strategy storytelling theme (N=86) identified correctly the manipulation as intended. The Emotion storytelling theme manipulation was proven not successful; only 47% of the
participants assigned to this condition (N=41) identified the intended theme while the majority (53%) perceived it as a Strategy storytelling theme. This result could be attributed to the
unsuccessful randomization and it has severe consequences on the study. According to research principles, the participants that failed to identify the manipulations should be removed from the sample. This would resulting in subgroups with a sample size smaller than 30, violating the principal assumption of conducting the analysis. In view of the educational purposes of this study, the participants that failed to identify the manipulations were not removed from the
sample, taking into account the limitations imposed by this choice. Further, the participants were asked to identify the communication channel in the story they were presented. A new variable (“channel”) was computed by assigning the cases the value of 0 for the website and 1 for LinkedIn and was measured at nominal level. The variable “channel” was treated as the
independent variable and the variable “Manipulation Check_channel” as the dependent variable. A chi-square crosstab test was performed to examine the relation between communication channel and recognition of the channel (Manipulation check_channel). The relation between these variables was significant, χ² (1, N = 127) = 58.2, p <.01. There was a significant and strong association between communication channel and Manipulation Check_channel. The results showed that the manipulation for the communication channel was successful; 83.6% of the the participants assigned to the Strategy storytelling theme (N=86) identified correctly the
manipulation as intended.
Results
Effect of Storytelling theme on Corporate Image. Hypothesis 1 stated that a corporate
story employing the Emotion storytelling theme would lead to a higher score of corporate image than a corporate story employing the Strategy storytelling theme. In order to test hypotheses H1, an independent-samples t-test was conducted, with “Storytelling” as the independent variable, measured on nominal level and “Corporate Image” as the dependent variable, measured on interval level. The group that was exposed to the Emotion storytelling theme (n=66) had a numerically higher score on corporate image (M=3.48, SD=.68) than the group (n=61) that was exposed to the Strategy storytelling theme (M=3.47, SD=.69). The distributions between the Emotion storytelling theme group and the Strategy storytelling theme group were sufficiently normal for the purposes of conducting a t-test. Additionally, the assumption of homogeneity of
variances was tested and satisfied via Levene’s F test, F(125) = .25, p=.62. There was a statistically non-significant difference between the group that was exposed to the Emotion storytelling theme and the one exposed to the Strategy storytelling theme, t(125) = -.12, p = .90. Thus, H1 is rejected; the storytelling theme had no statistically significant effect on corporate image.
Interaction effect between Storytelling theme and Communication Channel on Corporate Image. Hypothesis 2 stated that the Communication Channel would moderate the
relationship between storytelling theme and corporate image in such a way that exposure to a leadership change announcement, employing the Emotion storytelling theme, published on the organisation’s LinkedIn profile page will lead to more positive corporate image than exposure to one published on the organisation’s website. In order to test for H2, a two-way ANOVA was conducted, with “Storytelling” as the independent variable, and “Channel” as a moderator, both measured on nominal level and “Corporate Image” as the dependent variable, measured on interval level. The sizes of the groups were not equal and they do not fall within the acceptance criterion of 10%; the assumption of normality has been violated. Levene’s test concerning the equality of variances was non-significant F(3, 123)=1.72, p=.16. Therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis that the variances were equal.
The results showed no significant effect of storytelling theme, F(1, 1) = .26, p = .61, Eta-squared = .00. Participants who had been exposed to the Emotion storytelling theme
(M=3.51, SD=.08) appear to hold the same corporate image with those who were exposed to the Strategy storytelling (M=3.44, SD=.09) There was a significant, small effect among the
participants who were exposed to the organisation’s website F(1, 1)=4.89, p < .05, Eta-squared = .04. Participants who had been exposed to the organisation’s website hold the most positive
corporate image (M=3.61, SD=.08) while participants who had been exposed to the LinkedIn page hold the most negative corporate image (M=3.34, SD=.09).
Furthermore, there was no significant interaction effect between Storytelling Theme and Communication Channel, F(1, 1)=1.03, p=.31, Eta-squared = .01. Thus, H2 is rejected;
participants who were exposed to the Emotion storytelling theme and the LinkedIn page did not hold a more positive corporate image than participants who were exposed to the Strategy storytelling theme and the organisation’s website.
Interaction effect between Storytelling theme and Value Congruity on Corporate Image. Hypothesis 3 stated that Value Congruity would moderate the relationship between
storytelling theme and corporate image in such a way that exposure to a leadership change announcement, employing the Emotion storytelling theme, when Value Congruity between the consumers and the organisation is higher will lead to more positive corporate image than when Value Congruity is lower.
In order to test for H3, a simple moderation analysis was conducted to estimate the paths of causal influence of Storytelling Theme on Corporate Image through the proposed moderator Value Congruity, using Model 1 in the PROCESS macro V.3 of Hayes (2017). The results are presented in table 3 (See Appendix B). The results of table 3 indicate that storytelling theme has no significant effect on corporate image (b = 1.14, t(123) = 1.61, p = .11) and that value
congruity had no significant effect on corporate image either (b = .13, t(123) = 1.60, p = .12). The interaction effect of storytelling theme and value congruity has also no significant effect on corporate image (b = -.21, t(123) = -1.62, p = .11). Thus, H3 is rejected; participants who were exposed to the Emotion storytelling theme and and had higher value congruity with the
organisation did not hold a more positive corporate image than participants who were exposed to the Emotion storytelling theme and had lower value congruity.
Interaction effect between Storytelling theme, Communication Channel and Value Congruity on Corporate Image. Hypothesis 4 stated that Communication Channel and Value
Congruity would moderate the relationship between storytelling theme and corporate image in such a way that exposure to a leadership change announcement, employing the Emotion storytelling theme, published on the LinkedIn profile page of an organisation when Value Congruity between the consumers and the organisation is higher will lead to more positive corporate image than one published on an organisation’s website and when Value Congruity is lower.
In order to test for H4, a simple moderation analysis was conducted to estimate the paths of causal influence of Storytelling Theme on Corporate Image through the proposed moderators Communication Channel and Value Congruity, using Model 2 in the PROCESS macro V.3 of Hayes (2017). The results are presented in table 4 (See Appendix B). The results of table 4 indicate that storytelling theme has no significant effect on corporate image (b = .06, t(121) = .050, p = .30) and that value congruity had no significant effect on corporate image either (b = .02, t(121) = .29, p = .15). The interaction effect of storytelling theme and value congruity has also no significant effect on corporate image (b = -.20, t(121) = -1.54, p = .06). Thus, H4 is rejected; participants who were exposed to a leadership change announcement, employing the Emotion storytelling theme, published on the LinkedIn profile page of an organisation when Value Congruity between the consumers and the organisation is higher did not hold a more positive corporate image than participants who were exposed to a leadership change
announcement, employing the Strategy storytelling theme, published on the website of an organisation when Value Congruity between the consumers and the organisation was lower.
Conclusion & Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two different storytelling themes on corporate image. The first storytelling theme that was employed was Strategy, highlighting the mission, vision and values of the organisation while the second one was Emotion,
highlighting a problem that the organisation had to overcome, in order to create emotional bonds with the audience (Spear & Roper, 2013). The research question focused on the effects of
storytelling themes on corporate image; additionally, the influence of the communication channel and value congruity were also investigated. Although it was expected that the Emotion
storytelling theme would bring about more positive corporate image, the results did not provide evidence of a storytelling theme effects. This finding is contrasting the previous literature; Fiedler and Kirchgeorg (2007), for example, found that generic statements were more effective when employing affective appeals to the audience. This disparity could be attributed to the fact that the authors examined the different groups of stakeholders whereas this study focused on consumers; it is possible that segmentation within the consumer group results in different reception of emotional appeals. From a methodological point of you, the failure of the Emotion storytelling theme manipulation is another possible explanation. This failure, in turn, could be explained by the fact that, whereas previous studies (van Riel & Fombrun, 2007; Spear & Roper, 2013) identified distinctive storytelling themes, in practice these themes could be overlapping.
Furthermore, it was expected that the communication channel would influence the relationship between storytelling themes and corporate image in a way that the social and more informal platform (LinkedIn) would lead to more positive corporate image. The results yielded
the opposite, a finding that could be a consequence of the source of the message; while Seele & Lock (2015) indeed recommend the use of less company-controlled media, it is likely that this benefit could be achieved in the case that the informal medium was combined with
user-generated content instead of a corporate announcement.
With regards to the effect of value congruity between the consumers and the organisation, the results contradict the previous literature in that no significant effect of value congruity on the relationship of storytelling theme on corporate image was found. For example, Hogg and Hardie (1991) demonstrated that individuals holding in-group values were identified as members of this group, due to the evaluation of those values as group relevant. It is possible that the contrasting results have their source in the misalignment between the proclaimed and perceived corporate values; in previous studies those values are not self-proclaimed by the organisation but
experienced and evaluated as authentic by the the audience to which they are addressed. In Lievens et al. (2007) the values are experienced by the employees and accepted as authentic after personal evaluation whereas in the present study the values were acclaimed by the organisation alone.
Limitations and future research
This study has several shortcomings. Primarily, although the manipulations of the
storytelling themes were designed according to the examples provided by the literature (Spear & Roper, 2013), the participants failed to recognize the Emotion theme as intended. This fact is a limitation regarding the validity of measurements; future researchers could address this issue by considering the use of corporate stories that have been identified as employing a specific
storytelling theme after content analysis. The failed manipulation could be also attributed to the low score of comprehension of the survey and experimental conditions (M = 2.07, SD = 1.14);
future studies could tackle this issue by using a mobile-friendly mode for the experiment or the use of simpler language. Essentially, the randomization of the experiment was not successful: the sizes of the condition groups were not equal, compromising the internal validity of the study. Moreover, by avoiding to remove the participants that failed the manipulation checks, the validity of the results is also compromised. Further studies might consider using a larger sample that would allow the appropriate removal of such cases.
The scale of Value Congruity did not exhaustively include all the aspects of the organisation’s personality and might have failed to capture decisive elements of the participants’ value system. Future studies could include values that portray the participants’ environmental consciousness in order to track whether it is the industry within which an organisation places its activities that influence the corporate image. Other factors could be influencing the score on corporate image, such as a bias of pre-existing attitudes towards the specific industry; it is suggested that studies seeking to explore the effects of storytelling themes should measure such control variables. Under the same light, this study has made use of a fictitious organisation that is operating within an essentially for-profit frame. Researchers could provide valuable insight on the different effects that storytelling themes might bring about when employed by organisations that have a more prosocial character (non-profit).
The experimental nature of the design constitutes another limitation affecting both the external validity (generability) of the results and the ecological validity. Future researchers could conduct field studies with real-life corporate stories to generate broad conclusions.
Managerial implications
Despite its shortcomings, the results of this study offer some insight that could prove practically valuable. First, when crafting a corporate story, Communication professionals should
consider authenticity; this can be achieved by aligning the presented values with the existing corporate culture, in order to minimize scepticism. As an extension of this observation, oftentimes consumers assess the implementation of an organisation’s values based on its activities, which means that storytelling themes are not mutually exclusive but potentially supplementary.
Further, when managers are expected to make decisions on the selection of media platforms for publishing corporate news, they should consider using social media platforms for user-generated content and company-controlled media for more administrative and managerial announcements.
References
Abratt, Russell & Kleyn, Nicola. (2012). Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate reputations: Reconciliation and integration. European Journal of Marketing. 46. 1048-1063. 10.1108/03090561211230197.
Ahluwalia, R. (2018). Examination of Psychological Processes Underlying Resistance to Persuasion. Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 27, Issue 2, 1 September 2000, Pages 217–232, https://doi.org/10.1086/314321
Charbonnier-Voirin, Audrey & F. Poujol, Juliet & Vignolles, Alexandra. (2016). From value congruence to employer brand: Impact on organizational identification and word of mouth †: From value congruence to employer brand. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration. 10.1002/cjas.1379. Crisan, Camelia & Bortun, Dumitru. (2017). Digital Storytelling and Employer Branding. An
Exploratory Connection. Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy. 5. 273-287. 10.25019/MDKE/5.2.06.
Dailey, S. L. & Browning, L. (2014). Retelling stories in organisations: Understanding the functions of narrative repetition. Academy of Management Review, 39(1), 22–43.
Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2010, Maximizing Business Returns to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): The Role of CSR Communication
Ford, Jeffrey & Ford, Laurie & D'Amelio, Angelo. (2008). Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story. Academy of Management Review. 33. 362-377.
10.5465/AMR.2008.31193235.
Gill, R. (2014). Why the PR strategy of storytelling improves employee engagement and adds value to CSR: An integrated literature review. Public Relations Review, in press. Goodman, Joanna & Truss, Catherine, 2004, The medium and the message: communicating
effectively during a major change initiative, Journal of Change Management, 4:3, 217-228, DOI: 10.1080/1469701042000255392
Hatch, Mary & Schultz, Majken. (2002). The Dynamics of organisational Identity. Human Relations - HUM RELAT. 55. 989-1018. 10.1177/0018726702055008181.
Helm, Sabrina. (2007). "One reputation or many?: Comparing stakeholders' perceptions of corporate reputation", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 12 Issue: 3, pp.238-254, https://doi.org/10.1108/13563280710776842
Highhouse, Scott & Brooks, Margaret & Gregarus, Gary. (2009). An Organizational Impression Management Perspective on the Formation of Corporate Reputations. Journal of
Management - J MANAGE. 35. 1481-1493. 10.1177/0149206309348788.
Hogg, Michael & A. Hardie, Elizabeth. (1991). Social Attraction, Personal Attraction, and Self-Categorization-, A Field Study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 17. 175-180. 10.1177/014616729101700209.
Hooghiemstra, Reggy. (2000). Corporate Communication and Impression Management – New Perspectives Why Companies Engage in Corporate Social Reporting. Journal of Business Ethics. 27. 55-68. 10.1023/A:1006400707757.
Kissel, Patrick & Büttgen, Marion. (2015). Using social media to communicate employer brand identity: The impact on corporate image and employer attractiveness. Journal of Brand Management. 22. 755-777. 10.1057/bm.2015.42.
Lievens, Filip & Highhouse, Scott. (2003). The Relation of Instrumental and Symbolic Attributes to a Company's Attractiveness as an Employer. Personnel Psychology. 56. 75 - 102. 10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003.tb00144.x.
Martin, S. (2016). Stories about values and valuable stories: A field experiment of the power of narratives to shape newcomers’ actions. Academy of Management Journal, 59(5), 1707– 1724. doi:10.5465/amj.2014.0061
Merlyn Mittins, Russell Abratt, Peter Christie, (2011) "Storytelling in reputation management: the case of Nashua Mobile South Africa", Management Decision, Vol. 49 Issue: 3, pp.405-421, https:// doi.org/10.1108/00251741111120770
Spear, Sara & Roper, Stuart. (2013). Using corporate stories to build the corporate brand: An impression management perspective. Journal of Product and Brand Management. 22. 10.1108/JPBM-09-2013-0387.
Perret, Raphael & Borges, Marcos & Santoro, Flávia. (2004). Applying Group Storytelling in Knowledge Management. 3198. 34-41. 10.1007/978-3-540-30112-7_4.
Pulizzi, Joe. (2012). The Rise of Storytelling as the New Marketing. Publishing Research Quarterly. 28. 10.1007/s12109-012-9264-5.
Roper, S., & Fill, C. (2012). Corporate Reputation, Brand and Communication. Harlow, Essex: Pearson PLC.
Tobin, Peter K.J. and Snyman, Retha, Mousaion, Storytelling and knowledge management : What’s the story so far?, 22, 34-51 (2004),publicationName = "UNISA Press",issn = "0027-2639"
Valle, C., Raybourn, E.M., Prinz, W., Borges, M.R.S.: Group Storytelling to Support Tacit Knowledge Externalization. Proc. of the 10th International Conference on Human - Com- puter Interaction. Crete, Greece (2003)
Van Riel, C. B. M., & Fombrun, C. J. (2007). Essentials of Corporate Communication: Implementing Practices for Effective Reputation Management. Routledge: London. Weick, K.E. & Quinn, R.E.. (1999). Organisational change and development. Annu Rev Psychol.
50.
Dejan Verčič, Ana Tkalac Verčič, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh. (2014), Looking for digital in public relations, Public Relations Review, Volume 41, Issue 2, 2015, Pages 142-152, ISSN 0363-8111, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.12.002.
Appendices
APPENDIX A Pilot studies
Initially, a pilot survey was conducted on a sample of five participants, out of which two were Communication Science students. The results of the first pilot survey indicated the failure of the manipulations, as none of the participants identified correctly the purpose of the
manipulation. The stimuli were corrected by replacing the phrase “...was an immense drawback” with “...brought us in front of huge difficulties” and the sentence “This disaster, apart from its
financial consequences, created a big dilemma, too.” was added. The question of the manipulation check was also adjusted to a simpler expression, by replacing the phrase “A conflict that the Auto Europe encountered” with the phrase “A problem that Auto Europe had to overcome”. The second pilot survey that pre-tested the effectiveness of the revised manipulations showed all five participants identified successfully the manipulations.
Experiment Dear participant,
Thank you for your willingness to participate to my research study, conducted under the auspices of the Graduate School of Communication, a part of the University of Amsterdam.
The part of the study is for which I am requesting your participation is called “Storytelling theme experiment”. The goal of this research is to generate insight into the effects of corporate storytelling themes. In this online survey, you will be presented with a website and you will be asked to read a text and then respond to some questions and react to several statements. The survey will take about x-x minutes.
As this research is being carried out under the responsibility of the ASCoR, University of Amsterdam, we can guarantee that:
1) Your anonymity will be safeguarded and your personal information will not be passed on to third parties under any conditions, unless you first express your explicit permission for it.
2) You can refuse to participate in the research or quit it at any moment you wish, without having to provide a reason for doing so. You also have up to 24 hours after participating to withdraw your permission for allowing your answers or information to be used in the research.
3) Participating in the research will not entail your being subjected to any appreciable risk or discomfort, the researcher will not deliberately mislead you and you will not be exposed to any explicitly offensive material.
4) No later than five (5) months after the conclusion of the research, we will be able to provide you with a research report that explains the results of the research.
For more information about the research and the invitation to participate, you are welcome to contact the project leader at any time: Aikaterini Kroustalli; aikaterini.kroustalli@student.uva.nl. Should you have any complaints or comments about the course of the research and the procedures it involves as a consequence of your participation in this research, you can contact the designated member of the Ethics Committee representing ASCoR, at the following address:
ASCoR Secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020-525 3680; ascor-secr-fmg@uva.nl.
Any complaints or comments will be treated in the strictest confidence.
I hope that I have provided you with sufficient information. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you in advance for your assistance with this research, which I greatly appreciate.
* Informed consent
*
Condition 1: Website page, strategy storytelling theme
Condition 2: website page, emotional storytelling theme
Condition 4: LinkedIn page, emotional storytelling theme
Corporate image
Please indicate to what extent do you agree with the following statements: 1. I have a good feeling about this company.
2. I trust this company. 3. I admire this company. 4. I respect this company.
5. Offers high quality products and services. 6. Develops innovative products and services.
7. Has an excellent reputation due to its products and services. 8. Stands behind its products and services.
9. Has excellent leadership.
10. Has a clear vision for its future.
11. Recognizes and takes advantage of market opportunities. 12. Is an environmentally responsible company.
13. Maintains high standards in the way it treats people and nature. 14. Supports environmentally friendly projects.
* With which gender do you identify the most? O Male
What is your age group? O 18-24 O 25-34 O 35-44 O 45-54 O 55-64 O 65-74
In which country do you reside? (Drop-down menu)
Are you currently…? O Employed for wages O Self-employed
O Out of work and looking for work
O Out of work but not currently looking for work O A homemaker
O A student O Retired
O Unable to work
From the following set of traits, choose the position where you would place yourself: 1. Generous O O O O O thrifty
2. Reliable O O O O O unreliable 3. Modern O O O O O classic
4. Caring O O O O O Unsympathetic 5. Hard working O O O O O Laid-back Manipulation check
1. In the story you read, which aspects do you think that are prominent? a. A problem that Auto Europe had to overcome.
b. The mission, vision and values of Auto Europe. 2. The story you read was published:
a. On Auto Europe’s LinkedIn profile page. b. On Auto Europe’s website.
To what extent do you agree with the following statements? “I was able to read and understand the texts in this survey”
Strongly Agree (1→ 7) Strongly Disagree
Thank you for your participation!
Don’t forget to save your response by clicking the arrow below! APPENDIX B
Table 1
Results of the factor analysis for the measurement of corporate image
Dimensions and factor loadings
Dimension
1
Dimension 2 Dimension 3 Items
I have a good feeling about this company.
.852
I trust this company. .759
I admire this company. .834
I do not respect this company. .811 Has excellent leadership. .722 Maintains high standards in the
way it treats people and nature.**
.499 .497
Offers high quality products and services.*
.560 .419
Develops innovative products and services.
.640
Has an excellent reputation due to its products and services.
Is an environmentally responsible company.
.858
Supports environmentally friendly projects.
.880
Stands behind its products and services.
.597
Has a clear vision for its future. .642
Recognizes and takes advantage of market opportunities.
.654
Note. Only factor loadings higher than .40 are presented in the table.
* Since the factor loading of .560 is higher than .419, it is decided to include this item in the second dimension.
** Since the factor loading of .499 is higher than .497, it is decided to include this item in the first dimension.
Table 2
Results of the factor analysis for the measurement of value congruity
Items Factor loadings Care .865 Reliability .829 Hard work .780 Generosity .580 Modernity .510 Table 3
PROCESS Analysis: Moderator Variable Model 1
Antecedent
Corporate Image
B SE T P
Storytelling Theme 1.14 .71 1.61 .11 Value Congruity .13 .82 1.60 .12 Storytelling Theme x Value Congruity -.21 .13 -1.62 .11 F(3,123) = 1.05, p = .37, R² = .02 Note. N = 127. Regression coefficients are unstandardized. Table 4
PROCESS Analysis: Moderated Moderator Variable Model 3 Antecedent Corporate Image B SE T P Constant 3.50 .60 57.30 .00 Storytelling Theme .06 .12 .50 .62 Value Congruity .20 .07 .30 .77 Communication Channel -.26 .12 -2.10 .04 Storytelling Theme x Value Congruity -.20 .13 -1.54 .13 Storytelling Theme x Communication Channel -.30 .25 -1.16 .25 F(5,121) = 1.82, p = .11, R² = .07 Note. N = 127. Regression coefficients are unstandardized.
