Identity crisis – start-Up identity, brand, and image in a period of growth

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Identity Crisis – Start-Up Identity, Brand, and Image in a Period of Growth

Martine Baijanova 11039787 Master Thesis Corporate Communication University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. James Slevin Date: 31-01-2018

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Abstract

This paper analyses the links between organizational identity, corporate identity, corporate brand and corporate image in a tech start-up. Start-ups in a period of growth face unique issues with regards to managing identity as existing behaviors and routines face new stresses. This is further complicated by the need to brand themselves consistently and clearly in a crowded market. Through interviews and qualitative content analysis, this paper researches the state of organizational and corporate identity of the start-up DataTech, how these are communicated to the outside world, and how they are perceived by the outside world. This highlights numerous contradictions in views on the future identity of the company and how they ‘brand’ their identity, as well as a clear mismatch between their ideal corporate image and the actual corporate image. It concludes with recommendations for achieving a more unified and consistent corporate identity and brand.

Keywords: start-up, scale-up, organizational identity, corporate identity, corporate brand, corporate image

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As the global economy changes and grows, so too does the number of start-ups. The Netherlands is an excellent example of this, with Amsterdam in particular being considered one of the world’s top three cities for start-ups (Karabell, 2016). With an increasing number of start-ups however, it is necessary to stand out in the market and attract funding in order to thrive in the long term, as the majority of start-ups go bankrupt or fail (Griffith, 2017). There are multiple reasons this can happen, the top three reasons being no market need for the product, running out of cash, or having the wrong team (Griffith, 2014). However, as these companies grow, it is also important for them to consider their identities and how to brand themselves to outside parties, as this can help them to stand out with a unique profile in this crowded market (Waeraas, 2008; Rode & Vallaster, 2005). This can be especially important as they transition into a well-established company: a scale-up. However, this change does not happen overnight, and the transitioning phase can be considered a grey zone, in which the company is no longer a full start-up, nor yet a complete scale-up. The question then arises of what their identity is and how to portray themselves to outsiders. This in turn leads to

questions of how these external parties view the company, and thus whether identity and brand are aligned. This paper will study this ambiguity by researching a Dutch tech start-up transitioning into a scale-up, further referred to as DataTech.

As the following example demonstrates, brand and identity may not be entirely aligned or understood even by the employees of DataTech. In a meeting setting an employee remarked that he was having difficulty communicating who the company is and what they do in a professional manner. As this example demonstrates, when the way an employee sees their company and the way they need to represent it do not match up, this can cause tension. A clear alignment between corporate brand and organizational and corporate identity are

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necessary for successful and consistent communication, as well as creating a clear image on the part of external actors. This indicates a link between external branding and

communication of identity – and therefore greater chances of business success – and internal understandings of identity (Waeraas, 2008). By researching this problem, recommendations can be provided to the company in order to help them establish a strong internal identity and communicate this identity in an understandable way internally as well as to their customers. Therefore, the research question of this thesis will be:

In which ways does the corporate and organizational identity of a tech start-up change as it is transforming to a scale-up and how does this change correspond with their corporate brand and image?

Given that identity, brand, and image are not measurable or tangible constructs, it is necessary to take a qualitative approach to answer the research question, as a quantitative method will not provide the in-depth insights needed. The first part of the qualitative approach will consist of interviews with DataTech employees to analyze their organizational and

corporate identity, corporate brand, as well as the desired and expected corporate image. The second part consists of qualitative content analysis, which measures DataTech’s corporate brand and actual corporate image. Thus, the following sub-questions will be employed:

1. How did and do members of the company view the company at different points in its history – at the start and as it grew?

2. How did and do they describe the company to external partners? In which ways does this match the way they see/saw their own company?

3. How do external parties view this change and how does this match the company’s perspective of themselves?

By answering these questions and analyzing how the identity and brand are developing in a time of growth, DataTech can be provided with insight into contradictions between the

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way the company and the employees see itself and themselves, and the way they represent themselves to and are perceived by their clients. It will first lay down a theoretical foundation to put the aforementioned terms in context, followed by the methodology, results,

conclusions, and finally discussion.

2. Theoretical Framework

Since this study focuses on identities in and brand of start-ups in their growth-phase into scale-ups, it is useful to have a basic background understanding of these definitions. This will help in creating context for the interviews that form this research. The section will begin by introducing the concept of start-ups and scale-ups, necessary as a basic understanding for the rest of the theoretical framework. It will then proceed to a discussion of the literature on Organizational Identity (OI) and Corporate Identity (CI), enabling a definition of these terms. These will then be examined in the context of start-up identity. Finally, they will be linked to outsider perceptions and branding through the concepts of Corporate Brand (CB) and

Corporate Image (CIm).

2.1 Start-Ups and Scale-Ups

In popular use, the term start-up is often used without further explanation, and there is a general unspoken consensus on what it means. However, this is also the case in academia, which is more problematic as few actual definitions are provided. This may be attributed to the fact that the term in itself has only been used more prominently since 1997-2000 during the first dot-com boom (Egan-Wyer, Muhr, and Rehn, 2018). Drawing on, among others, Timmons’ (1999) research, Rode and Vallaster (2005) argue that start-ups “represent a raw company without any organizational structure, acting legally and economically in the market for a short time” (p. 122). If they fail to make an impact in the short-term, they cease to exist. However, the definition employed by Dee, Gill, Weinberg, and McTavish (2015) is framed in

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a less skeptical manner. According to them, a start-up is “a young, innovative, growth– oriented business (employees/revenue/customers) in search of a sustainable and scalable business mode” (p. 8).

This definitional problem is especially relevant to scale-ups, which is in general an even less well-known term. The definitions that have been developed contain slight nuances. This may be due to the fact that scale-ups are referred to in different ways. Besides scale-up, they are also referred to as gazelles and high-impact firms, amongst others. Acs, Parsons, and Tracey (2010) define a scale-up “as an enterprise whose sales have at least doubled over the most recent four-year period and which has an employment growth quantifier of two or greater over the same period” (p. 17). However, according to Petersen and Ahmad (2007), a scale-up is an enterprise “up to five years old with average annualized growth greater than 20% per annum, over a three year period” (p. 3)

As is evident, scale-up definitions are more quantifiable, whereas the start-up

definitions are more qualitative, meaning that they focus on the perceptions of the company. This may be due to the fact that ‘start-ups’ is a more well-known term with a basic

understanding among people in-and outside of the corporate world. However, since ‘scale-up’ is less widely used, it may have a need for defined parameters. Throughout the rest of the section, most emphasis will be placed on the definitions as applying to start-ups rather than scale-ups. This is because while research regarding identity, brand, and image related to start-ups is scarce, the same themes related to scale-start-ups is non-existent, possibly due to the fact that it is an extremely new concept, and is currently mainly determined by financial criteria. However, it is still necessary to understand this term as this helps to define the identity crisis in which DataTech finds itself.

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2.2 Organizational Identity and Corporate Identity

In the scope of this research, given the importance of identity discussed in the

introduction, it is important to understand what it is comprised of. This study will distinguish between organizational identity (OI) and corporate identity (CI), both of which are heavily relied on in the field of organizational communication. This distinction between corporate and organizational identity has often been confused by academics and practitioners, with the concepts having been used interchangeably. This is not surprising, as identity is difficult to define, and both concepts share overlapping dimensions. In general, organizational identity has an internal focus, whereas corporate identity has an external focus (Perez & Rodriguez del Bosque, 2014). This section will analyze both concepts in depth and discuss how they will be used in this research.

Albert and Whetten (1985) laid the foundation for OI, which has been reinterpreted and redefined over the years. They argue that OI is constructed by a process of comparisons. This means that organizations compare themselves to other organizations and evaluate themselves based on those comparisons, which leads to their distinctive characteristics and forms their identity. However, this broad definition led to debate among scholars on possible interpretations of OI (Dowling & Otubanjo, 2011). Accordingly, Whetten returned to the original construct, and redefined it as “the central and enduring attributes of an organization that distinguish it from other organizations (Whetten, 2006, p. 220), though this has not necessarily led to a reduction in interpretations. In this study, and in line with Dowling and Otubanjo (2011), in its most basic form OI answers the question of who the organization is. This allows for a “better [understanding of] how and why employees relate to and are affected by the organization they work for” (p. 172).Where Hatch and Schultz (2002) argue that this can be derived from organizational symbols and images, this research will use employee perceptions and concrete experiences, which can also serve as symbols of DataTech’s OI.

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As mentioned before, generally speaking, OI has an internal/employee point of departure, meaning “what members perceive, feel, and think about their organization” (Perez & Rodriguez del Bosque, 2014, p.7). Thus, not only does an employee make sense of the organizational identity individually, but through interaction with other employees as well, which makes OI a social construct. While this is a point most academics seem to agree on (Gioa, Schultz, & Corley, 2000; Hsu & Elsbach, 2013), there is friction regarding different perspectives of what OI is. Perez and Rodriguez del Bosque (2014) mention two dominant perspectives on OI: whereas the first perspective wants to answer the question of ‘who we are as an organization’ (Whetton, 2006), the second perspective focuses on the question of “who do we want others to think we are as an organization?” (Perez & Rodriguez del Bosque, 2014, p.7). Schultz and Hernes (2012), however, reject any solid answers to these questions, and argue that OI is temporal, and often derives from an organization’s past, which enables them to make claims about its present and future. Therefore, OI changes continuously through time. While this may be true for companies in a later stage, for young start-ups it is unclear how OI then comes to exist, and whether it is necessary to have a history to base OI on. On the other hand Kokshagina, Hooge, and Canet (2016) focus more on the role of people and the

environment that they come up in which creates the OI.

This second stream within OI, which aims to answer the question of “who we want others to think we are as an organization”, has also been referred to as corporate identity (CI) by some scholars (Abratt & Kleyn, 2012). Within this debate as well, there are two

perspectives. The first is that CI is the way companies present themselves through solely visual manifestations to their stakeholders (Riel & Balmer, 1997). The second broader perspective sees CI as the way that companies present themselves through communications and behaviors to their stakeholders (Perez & Rodriguez del Bosque, 2014). I argue that a reading of the literature shows that CI has five different elements employed by academics,

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either used as stand-alone definitions or several elements mixed together to create a

definition. The first element is that CI is the distinctive characteristics of an organization and therefore answers the question of who the company really is (Balmer & Gray, 2003). This element is surprisingly similar to the OI definition, which again shows the lack of consensus in this field. The second element focuses on the question of who the company wants to be and therefore the way they want to be perceived (Abratt & Kleyn, 2012). The third element is in line with what Perez and Rodriguez have mentioned, namely the way a company presents itself to stakeholders. This can be done with either visuals, symbols, communication, or behavior, or a mixture of them. (Riel & Balmer, 1997). The fourth element includes the actions of the organization’s management as they set out the course of the organization and what its identity ought to be, as it is generally believed that the CI of an organization is to a large degree driven by management (Abimbola & Vallaster, 2007). These can include the goals, vision, and mission of the company (He, 2012). Lastly, CI comprises the manifestation of the preferred organizational identity (Dowling & Otubanjo, 2011). These definitions do not need to be mutually exclusive, and they will be used to comprise the below internal-focused definition of CI. As a more tangible expression of organizational identity, and the basis for corporate brand, understanding CI is a crucial step in understand the links between internal and external.

As is evident, academia has not yet come to a consensus about the clear definitions of both corporate identity and organizational identity, and how they are distinct. Varying definitions can overlap completely or not at all, and are in a state of a continual reevaluation. Therefore, as mentioned above, in this research my own synthesis of various definitions will be used for organizational identity, which allows for structured questions and categorizations of DataTech employees’ implicit perceptions. For the corporate identity definition, an

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changed to focus on CI’s internal nature. Furthermore, their original definition focuses on one desired organizational identity, whereas I have highlighted the company’s choosing of

multiple desired elements of multiple organizational identities.

• Organizational identity: the way internal actors of the organization perceive and ascribe meaning to their organization.

• Corporate identity: the internal symbolic and behavioral manifestations of desired elements of a company’s organizational identity.

2.2.1 Start-up Identity

While research on organizational and corporate identity is in abundance, it is scarce in relation to start-up identities, especially about changing identities over time. This may be because it is believed that organizations can have multiple identities (Kokshagina et al., 2016). Therefore, if a company has multiple identities, it is not surprising that identities can also change over time, making this a less fruitful area of research. Baron and Hannan (2002), however, have carried out research into organizational identities of start-up high tech firms between 1994 and 1998, which can assist in ascertaining DataTech’s identity. They identified three dimensions about “how work and employment should be organized” (p. 10), each having three or four subdimensions.

o Attachment: clarifies three different reasons an employee joins a start-up. Love means that they joined the company because of a “sense of personal belonging and identification with the company” (p.10). Work means that the attraction for the company was based on the interesting and challenging work. Lastly, some simply viewed work as an exchange for money.

o Selection: is concerned with the way the employees are selected. This can be based on their abilities to adapt to tasks as quickly and cheaply as possible, or skills. A

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second method is based on their potential, meaning their productivity over time. Lastly, for some employers the criteria is based more on whether the employee fits in the organization culturally rather than their skillset or potential skillset at the time of hire.

o Basis of coordination and control: refers to the company’s management style, which can rely on: professional control, formal procedures and systems, direct oversight, or informal control through peers and organizational culture.

While there are 36 different combinations that can be made with this model, Baron and Hannan discovered five basic model types, which can be found in figure 1.

Employment

Model

Dimensions

Attachment Selection Coordination/control

Star Work Potential Professional

Engineering Work Skills Peer/Cultural

Commitment Love Fit Peer/Cultural

Bureaucracy Work Skills Formal

Autocracy or Direct Control

Money Skills Direct

Figure 1: Tech start-up employment models

Baron and Hannan argue that the initial path founders laid down for their start-up is not subject to change as this is embedded in their genetic material. According to them “a company’s early organization-building activities might preordain its destiny” (p. 18). This means that efforts to put these changes through will undermine the potential of the company, and even the way outside parties view them. They cite Collins and Porras (1994) as saying that companies relying on the same values over the long term are more sustainable. However,

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Baron and Hannan do acknowledge that being in a high tech environment requires these start-ups be open to change with the newest technologies. From this point of view, being up to date with the newest technologies and markets “might outweigh organizational capabilities in generating success” (p. 19). Thus, tech companies should be able to deal with change the most. With this caveat, they still appear to be affected according to the study.

Coming back to figure 1, Baron and Hannan (2002) found in their longitudinal study that the Commitment model is the most enduring one for high tech start-ups. They were the fastest ones to go public, as well as having the lowest failure rate. The highest failure rate was ascribed to the Autocratic model. However, disadvantages of the Commitment model were that they were more difficult to scale up because of their reliance on one demographic (gender, background) among employees. Furthermore, they were more likely to undergo drastic changes if changes were made, meaning the destabilization of their company. The Engineering or Bureaucracy models, on the other hand, are easier to scale up because they are better at adapting to sudden external changes.

While Baron and Hannan attribute this model to OI, it can be argued that it falls under the CI umbrella as well. This is because when looking at the different subdimensions of attachment, selection and coordination/control, these can be considered as internal

expressions of the norms and values of the company. These norms and values are expressed in tangible and symbolic ways through CI. While attachment is an intrinsic motivation on the side of the future employee, they have to base this motivation on something that was

expressed by the company earlier, which is CI. This employment model, while outdated, can provide useful insight into the OI and CI of start-ups.

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2.3 Corporate Brand and Corporate Image

Corporate brand (CB) is important in the context of organizational and corporate identity because one does not exist without the other. While in the past corporate identity and corporate brand were used interchangeably (Balmer, 1998), in a similar vein to OI and CI the literature now contains overlapping and distinct definitions. Overall CB still remains heavily dependent on the identity of a company (Witt & Rode, 2005). However, in essence, CB is the “face of the organization” (Balmer & Gray, 2003, p. 991). Corporate Image – the perception by other parties of this face – enables us to examine whether what DataTech aims to

communicate to outside parties is in alignment with what is perceived with these parties. Waeraas (2008) cites multiple academics who argue that it is necessary for companies to communicate one single identity with “consistency and clarity” (p. 205). This consistent communication is especially needed in this day and age as people consume media through numerous different platforms, meaning that they can get different perceptions of the company in the absence of consistent communication. Other benefits of consistency include

“identification and differentiation, increased credibility, and employee commitment, and ultimately […] a strong reputation” (p. 208). It is evident that CI and CB are linked. To be able to present and communicate a clear and consistent identity, the company needs to have such an identity and its own clear understanding of it. While Kokshagina et al. (2016) argued that companies can have multiple identities, it would then be necessary to focus the

communication on the most desired identity.

Corporate brand is in turn linked to Corporate image, as it is through branding that outsiders can create meaning surrounding their perceptions of the company (Waeraas, 2008). However, in a similar vein to both OI and CI, and CI and CB, CB and CIm are used

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comes to corporate image (Rode & Vallaster, 2005), rather than seeing it as something that also arises from consumers’ own perceptions and processing of corporate brand (Westberg, 1994). CIm therefore can be defined as meanings constructed by consumers through a

combination of their own views, personality and perceptions of the company together with the messages that the company communicates (Westberg, 1994). As definitions by Abratt and Kleyn (2012), Balmer (2012), and Berthon, Ewing, and Napoli (2008) among others demonstrate, corporate image is not something that the company itself creates, but rather a construct on the part of consumers and individuals.

Similarly to start-up identity, literature about corporate branding in start-ups is scarce. Rode and Vallaster (2005) note that the corporate brand conveys the “essence, culture, character, and purpose of a company” (p. 121) and is an outward expression of who the company truly is. They argue that it is important for start-ups to establish a corporate brand fairly quickly to stay relevant in the market. For the establishment of this, it is necessary to have a strong corporate identity which consists of the internal part of the corporate brand. With their study, they conclude that it is necessary for the founder of the start-up to lead the way when it comes to branding. In a similar vein to Kokshagina et al. (2016), Rode and Vallaster argue that the corporate brand develops around the founder.

As with the definitions of organizational and corporate identity, given the number of definitions in the field, I have synthesized these into definitions that suit the aims of the thesis. The definition of corporate brand highlights its outward facing nature, whereas the definition of corporate image focuses on meanings created by the consumer based on the corporate brand and their own personalities and ideas.

• Corporate brand: the tangible and intangible expressions of corporate identity and values towards the outside world.

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• Corporate image: meanings constructed by consumers through a combination of their own views, personality and perceptions of the company together with the messages that the company communicates (Westberg, 1994).

Taking all these concepts together, a theoretical model has been developed as depicted in figure 2. As can be seen, three concepts overlap with each other, organizational identity and corporate identity, and corporate identity and corporate brand. While they have distinct

meanings in this study, they draw from each other’s functions. Corporate image stands separately, as it is affected by the corporate brand, but is not dependent on it.

Figure 2: Theoretical Model

3. Methodology

The start-up to scale-up company, DataTech, researched in this paper was established in 2012 and specializes in news analysis, mostly aimed at financial companies and

institutions. It currently employs 23 employees, including eight part-timers. It is a business to business company that had to attract its initial customers by exaggerating their capabilities and resources in its start-up phase, in a process described by the co-founder as “fake it till you make it”. At this time they were in the process of developing an identity – consciously or not – as well as facing the necessity of having a clear corporate brand. However, now that they

Organizational Identity

The way internal actors of the organization perceive

and ascribe meaning to their organization

Corporate Identity

the internal symbolic and behavioral manifestations of desired elements of a company’s organizational identity. Corporate Brand

The (tangible and intangible) expressions of corporate identity and values towards

the outside world. CI makes OI visible

internally

Corporate Image

meanings constructed by consumers through a combination of their own

views, personality and perceptions of the company together with

the messages that the company communicates. CB communicates

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are becoming a scale-up and have established more relationships, their founder states that they can be more open about their identity and the limitations this may bring. We have little insight however, into how this process from start-up to scale-up developed and the linkages between the company’s own identity, and their communication towards their customers and the customers’ perception of them – corporate brand. This company was chosen because they currently are at the crossroads between being a start-up and being a scale-up. As a high-tech start-up, they are part of a wide field of recent potentially similar cases (Egan-Wyer et al., 2018). They have also themselves indicated that they struggle to define and communicate their own identity, and are therefore clearly engaged with the issues highlighted in the research question.

The data collection in this study employs two different qualitative methods. This is because not only is the start-up side analyzed, but also the way external parties view them. Seeing as identity is a complex issue and, as mentioned before, not easily measurable, it is important to look at it from multiple angles to better understand it. Furthermore, multiple variables are used in this research, which means that a one size fits all method is

inappropriate. For this, oral and textual artifacts will be used. Oral artifacts include interviews with some of the employees of DataTech, while textual artifacts include articles written about DataTech or where DataTech is mentioned. These articles are online articles as well as offline newspaper articles. Oral artifacts encompass the four definitions employed in this research, the emphasis is mostly on organizational and corporate identity, while textual artifacts focus on corporate brand and corporate image. Three different perceptions of CIm will be analyzed, namely their ideal CIm: how they want to be perceived, their expected CIm: how they think they are perceived, and the actual CIm, how outsiders actually view them.

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3.1 Data Collection

3.1.1 Oral Artifacts

The oral data collection includes semi-structured interviews with both new employees and the company’s key players, all of whom have been given pseudonyms. These interviews were recorded with the interviewees’ permission and then transcribed. There was a total of five interviewees, including:

• One co-founder of the company (André);

• Two part-timers, one of whom started three years ago (Lena) and one who started working at DataTech in August 2017 (Tom), and;

• Two full-timers, one of whom has been with the company from the beginning (Neil) and one who started working there in August 2017 (Steven).

These people were selected because they represent the company in its earlier and more recent times, which means that it is possible to compare the corporate and organizational identity over time, as well as their current corporate brand. The interviews were conducted between December 23rd 2017 and January 8th 2018. The interviews lasted between 50 minutes with the most recent part-timer, to 1 hour and 20 minutes with the founder and employees that have worked there for an extended period of time. The interview with the most recent full-timer lasted an hour. All the interviews were conducted and transcribed in Dutch. However, quotes in this paper were translated by the author. The interview can be divided into two sections, including ‘who the company is’ (OI and CI), and ‘who we want others to think we are as an organization’ (Ideal CIm). The questions mainly related to their culture, how they perceive themselves, how they present themselves to external parties, how they want to be perceived, and how they think they are perceived. The full Dutch interview guide can be found in appendix A, and the Dutch transcriptions of these interviews in appendix B.

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3.1.2 Textual Artifacts

The textual artifacts consist of articles written about the company, which were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. The articles were found through Lexis Nexis, DataTech’s own software, DataTech’s press page, Google, and articles referencing other articles. The articles excluded from coding were websites that were no longer functional, websites that required a subscription to read the article, and when another website had an excerpt of the article and referred to another website for the whole version. Furthermore, when the same article was in the newspaper as well as on the newspaper’s website, the article was coded once. However, when it was (almost) the same article, but a different source, both articles were coded. The oldest article is from 18-06-2012 and the most recent article is from 03-05-2017. Both Dutch and English articles were included in this research. A total of 46 articles were coded. The article sources can be found in appendix C.

3.2 Data Analysis

3.2.1 Oral Artifacts

The transcribed interviews were coded using Atlas.ti. The interviews were divided into multiple sections and were then open coded. After coding all five transcribed interviews, there was a total of 1291 codes. After merging some similar codes together, 1026 codes were left. The second step was making code families to group the codes that belonged together. There was a total of 28 groups, including ‘culture’, ‘presenting DataTech’, and ‘ways DataTech wants to be seen’. After that, each group was placed in one of the five overarching groups, which were ‘Organizational Identity’, ‘Corporate Identity’, ‘Corporate Brand’, ‘Corporate Image’, and ‘Start-up/Scale-up’. As these terms are overlapping, so too were the codes placed in those groups. This means that a code could be placed in multiple groups. An example is the code ‘culture: core values: team: open’, which was placed in the organizational identity

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family as well as the corporate identity family. Furthermore, while a code might not initially look like it belongs to a certain family, it was placed there to provide some context. An example of this is the code ‘important that people see possibilities in DataTech’, which was included not only in the corporate image family, but also in organizational identity.

Organizational Identity was the largest family with 635 codes. Corporate Identity had 580 codes, Corporate Brand 239, Corporate Image 69, and the Start-up/Scale-up family had 66 codes.

3.2.2 Textual Artifacts

The articles were coded using Qualtrics. Initially the Lexis Nexis articles were coded with 19 questions. After this a pattern became clear, and more questions were add to make the coding more structured. The 19 Lexis Nexis articles were then coded again along with the other remaining articles. As stated before, 46 articles were coded in total, however, 11 of them are not highly relevant. This is for example because DataTech was mentioned shortly in the scope of a broader context, such as this being an answer to a quiz question. However, 10 of these articles are still included in the data analysis, because it can provide a sense of how DataTech is addressed, including as a start-up, a young company, an innovative company, or a game changer. Of the 46 coded articles, 19 were an interview with at least one employee of the company. These interviews show us how the company presents themselves to the media.

4. Results

4.1 Oral Artifacts

As mentioned before, OI is linked with CI, as CI is the tangible internal expressions of desired OI elements, and CI is linked with CB, since CB is the external representation of DataTech’s CI. Therefore, this section will firstly analyze OI and CI, followed by CI and CB,

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and lastly corporate image. Corporate image is analyzed separately as it contains outsider views instead of something that is inherent to the company.

4.1.1 Organizational Identity and Corporate Identity

To identify the organizational identity of DataTech, questions were asked regarding their culture, characteristics, core values, and issues they would usually not discuss with external parties. Furthermore, throughout the interview questions were asked which allowed the interviewees to implicitly reflect on these issues. Furthermore, questions were asked about how they a certain type of characteristic was then expressed, or they came up with examples themselves, which provided analysis for CI.

OI and CI in the past and present

When it comes to DataTech’s organizational identity in the past, it could best be summarized as hectic, chaotic, and at times overconfident, centered on a close group of friends. The word ‘friends’ is chosen intentionally here, as it was mentioned several times how close the group of employees was, and still are. For example, Neil described doing everything together in-and outside the start-up, while Lena remembers everyone helping out on the day they moved office to another city. Not only that, but the initial founders of DataTech were friends, and everyone they hired were either friends or acquaintances.

Therefore, it can be said that while being a close group of friends is OI, the CI is the way they expressed this closeness, by for example everyone helping to move office:

“When we moved to [city] from [city], everyone helped to load and unload the moving van on Saturday, and we also carried all those tables upstairs.

And that also really helped to let us all feel a part of that.” (Lena)

When it comes to the hectic and chaotic OI side, it was mentioned either implicitly or explicitly several times that it was less streamlined than it is now. The employees worked

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without structure or clearly defined roles or tasks, while still working long hours on ad hoc tasks. In essence, everyone worked on projects they liked best. The overconfident side of their OI is relevant here, as they felt confident in their ability to deliver projects quickly and also expected to gain ground in the national and international market very easily. This lack of structure was viewed in different ways however: Neil saw it as freeing them to work on preferred projects, whereas André saw it as restricting because of the necessity of working on everything at once. Furthermore, it was mentioned by Lena that there were conflicts between team members because the company did not yet have a clear direction or a well-defined product. Therefore, in essence, the chaotic, hectic, and overconfident OI was expressed – CI – through the lack of communication of a direction, which hindered them from working more structurally, and at the same time led them to make optimistic promises to clients.

“We worked longer when we for example when we just started with [DataTech]. But then you’re eating in between and not doing anything useful at night, so that didn’t really work. […] Also because you think: you have you to build up a company, so everything has to be done quick quick.”

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When it comes to DataTech’s organizational identity at present time, the interviews lead to the conclusion that this has grown up a bit. While they maintained similar traits as in their early days, the OI at present day can best be described as ‘work hard play hard.’ ‘Work hard’ encompasses their ambition. The interviewees see this ambition as arising from

employees’ investment in the product and resulting willingness to work hard. At the same time, they are still growing and developing, which means that they have to keep up by working hard as well. However, their employment growth as of now has not kept up with their workload, meaning all employees are all-rounders. Furthermore, several interviewees

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mentioned DataTech not having a nine-to-five mentality, and it is not out of the ordinary for employees to work all night to finish something. This flexibility of working hours can be considered the CI side of the ‘work hard’ OI. There is a contradiction as well where Neil and Lena hope to keep the flexible hours, while Tom thinks that this can cause management problems later on.

“It is nice to work at night, but if you have a meeting the next morning maybe it’ll be best to work in the evening and sleep at night once in a while.

[…] At a certain point there has to be some sort of structure. As in: it’s getting bigger, so some issues have to really be dealt with at a certain

point.” (Tom)

The ‘play hard’ part encompasses their open or informal OI. This term describes a number of attributes that are associated with DataTech, including the convivial – or ‘gezellig’ – atmosphere, intimate group, a sense of rebelliousness, and a nonhierarchical structure. Because of this openness and close group of people, several interviewees enjoyed being in the office. This openness also makes it easier for new team members to become part of the team and join in its routines and rhythms. When giving examples of how the open and informal culture can be noticed – CI – several were named, the most prevalent being lunch, which every employee is expected to join. Not only is this lunch meant for relaxing, but also used as an opportunity to talk about issues that arise within the company. However, while ‘openness’ was mentioned by everyone as the main attribute of DataTech, this is in stark contrast to the internal communication problems that André and Lena mentioned regarding problems that go unspoken. André described communication issues regarding the responsibilities everyone has, while Lena mentioned the lack of communication regarding the mission and vision of the company. Despite these negative aspects, this openness, or informality, was often implicitly

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attributed to having a start-up culture. Lena and Tom even expressed that they hoped they can maintain the start-up culture while growing. Finally, there was no unity on the nonhierarchical structure aspects. While Neil thinks more hierarchy is a prerequisite to remain manageable, Tom hoped that they can keep this nonhierarchical structure.

“I hope that everything can still remain a bit manageable, since we are quite flat now, so we have to be a bit more hierarchic. […] With a structure

that is a bit more hierarchic, but with as much as possible remaining core values of that flat structure.” (Neil)

“It mustn’t become a hierarchy[…] Because it’s working well for the clients and because it’s a fun way of working.” (Tom)

There were three different views as to who determines or sets the tone for the culture of the company. While Neil believes that this is done by the original founders, or the original set of people, Lena and Tom strongly believe that every employee is involved in that process. While Lena could understand the opposing view, she argues that while André could open the door for possibilities, it was still up to other workers to go through it. André and Steven were in between sides on this issue. Steven believes that the culture is comprised of every

employee and has formed over the years, but at the same time he can imagine that the initial culture was set by the original group of people. In a similar vein, André argued that nowadays the culture is determined by every employee, but that it can be set in the right direction by the management. He is for example in charge of hiring people as the CEO, and therefore chooses the applicants he thinks will fit into their culture. However, this new person also affects the culture. Therefore, it can be argued that while OI can be formed over the years as Schultz and Hernes (2013) mentioned, it is up to the management to enable this process – in line with what Kokshagina et al. (2016) argued. Here this is carried out through the hiring process

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suggested by the Commitment model, where the CEO searches for employees who fit the company culturally (Baron and Hannan, 2002). The following models illustrate this discussion of DataTech’s OI and CI in the past and present.

Figure 3: OI and CI of DataTech in the past

Figure 4: OI and CI of DataTech in the present

Goals, Mission and Vision

As mentioned in the theoretical framework, the goals of the company, as well as its mission and vision can represents their corporate identity. Lena was the only one who remarked that DataTech does not have any clear vision or mission, which she ascribed to a lack of belief in their value in the beginning stages of DataTech, and lack of time for thinking about them nowadays. However, this lack of communication was not evident during the interviews, as most employees had somewhat similar views on these issues, discussing goals

Organizational Identity 1. Friendship 2. Hectic, chaotic 3. (over)confident Corporate Identity 1. Doing everything together 2. Doing everything quickly at once 3. Making optimistic promises Corporate Identity 1. Flexible working hours 2. Lunch Organizational Identity 1. Work hard 2. Play hard

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such as international expansion, and the mission to make it easier for their clients to understand and interpret data.

4.1.2 Corporate Identity and Corporate Brand

To analyze Corporate Brand, the interviewees were asked questions about how they present themselves and through what channels they present themselves. While it is evident that DataTech’s employees have a relatively unified view of their company’s attributes, there are striking contradictions in how they refer to it. When talking about DataTech during the interview, the interviewees referred to the company as a start-up. However, when explicitly asked whether they think DataTech is a start-up or scale-up, they answered scale-up. Finally, when asked how they would reply if an outsider asked them whether the company was a start-up or scale-start-up, all of them said a scale-start-up, except Neil, who believed that ‘start-start-up’ was simply an easier term for people to understand. This ties in with the way DataTech presents themselves to outsiders, namely as more innovative and/or grown than they really are. It also indicates the potential difficulty employees may have in ‘branding’ DataTech, as mentioned in the introduction.

Certain interviewees, and in particular André, demonstrate further confusion in this area on whether it is necessary to keep up appearances or not. At times he states that

DataTech should be who it is, and that it is not good at keeping up appearances, but at others he discusses how they pretend to be something bigger. This keeping up appearances can be in the form of presenting themselves as a game changer, more grown or innovative than they really are, or more authoritative than they really are.

“The first two meetings I try to pitch a story about how I want to be seen. But we fairly quickly also pitch how cool we really are, because we’re not good at keeping up appearances around here. And I don’t like to do that

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(keeping up appearances) either, I think it’s kind of unnecessary. […] We are who we are, and if we’re not okay we’ll have to work on that.” (André)

“So what I often do is keeping up appearances. [I say] that there’s a bigger team working on their whole dashboard or surroundings than it

actually is the case.” (André)

Furthermore, when it comes to presenting themselves, some interviewees had a different story depending on the person they are talking to. Usually, there would be more personal anecdotes towards family and friends. However, André and Lena would eventually tell personal anecdotes to clients as well to let them realize “how cool we really are.” To go even further, clients would be invited to the office so they could get a feel of this “hip-cool factor” as Lena mentioned. Steven made a similar point:

“Well I tell [the clients] what I really like and what they like to hear. That’s why we like to invite them here so they can see what kind of company this is and what kind of character it has. That also contributes to our image as a

serious but also innovative [company].” (Steven)

Finally, even the channels for CB are contradictory. For a high-tech company, it is surprising that they use mainly offline communication channels. These channels include personal encounters, having a stand at an event or meet-up, or doing presentations. Some mentioned the use of the website as well. However, all but Tom mentioned explicitly that they do not use social media for their communications. The most prevalent reason for this was that social media is not used for the type of clientele they have, and that they do not prioritize it enough since no one has time to be responsible for this.

All in all, when it comes to the parts of CI that DataTech communicates, it can either be said that they exaggerate it, or highlight its favorable aspects. The identity crisis is

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especially visible when they communicate to outsiders that they are a scale-up, but at the same time solely talk about DataTech as a start-up. This is just one of numerous

contradictions in the connection between CI and CB. 4.1.4 Corporate Image

To analyze this, interviewees were asked how they think they are perceived by outsiders – expected corporate image – but also how they want to be perceived – ideal corporate image.

Ideal Corporate Image

There are several ways DataTech wants to be perceived, the main one being as adding value to a company. Furthermore, they want to be perceived as trustworthy, knowledgeable, a partner, a serious company, as ambitious and productive, and as fast. There are several ways in which Steven tries to have DataTech be perceived as a serious company, including the way they communicate to their clients, and the way their product works. When it comes to

communication, he makes sure that it is comparable in quality with bigger companies, as well as using the right language aimed at their clientele. When it comes to their product he makes sure that they do not miss essential risk triggers, as well as having no typing errors.

Expected corporate image

The most prevalent answer here was that most interviewees thought they are perceived as innovative players in its field, and that they add value to their clients. Another prevalent answer to this question was that they thought outsiders view them as knowledgeable. It is striking that all the interviewees mostly named positive perceptions. Negative attributes, while mentioned by Lena, André, and Neil, were not strongly emphasized. Lena was concerned for example that their clients view them as messy, while André assumes that outsiders think they

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are further than they really are. He based this off on the types of job requests coming from employees working at significant companies:

“Tthe applicants] think that we have several teams. That they can modulate and that other engineers can program that. [They think] that we have a whole pipeline. That’s the expectation. That we are more technologically

advanced. But that’s not the case at all.”

It is surprising that he does not take for granted that outsiders have this expectation, given that he himself discusses his strategy of presenting themselves being further than they in reality are. André’s assumption is in contrast with what Steven thinks, namely that clients and outsiders in general do not view them as a serious party. He mostly bases this on a gut feeling, but also on the observation that he sometimes hears potential clients say they want to wait and see how DataTech progresses before becoming involved. The following model summarizes how these three concepts are seen by DataTech and connected to each other. They are placed in order of how often they were mentioned. The next section, focusing on Corporate image, will demonstrate significant differences when compared to reality.

Figure 5: CB (towards clients), and ideal and expected CIm of DataTech

Corporate Brand

1. Further than they are 2. Personal anecdotes 3. Knowledgeable and

fast

Ideal Corporate Image

1. Adding value to client 2. Serious company and

player 3. Knowledgeable and trustworthy Expected Corporate Image 1. Innovative 2. Adding value to clients

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4.2 Textual Artifacts

Of the 46 analyzed articles, nine were in English. Furthermore, 17 were solely about DataTech, including 11 interviews with at least one of DataTech employees. Of these articles solely about DataTech, the earliest was from December 2012, and the latest from mid-January 2017. The earliest interview was given mid-April 2014, and the last one mid-mid-January 2017.

4.2.1 Corporate Brand

When it comes to the interviews, 27 different themes on the side of the interviewee were discovered. The most prevalent was the speed of DataTech product, mentioned in each interview. This was often in relation to two of their biggest, widely known competitors, who were mentioned seven times:

“(…) [this] can provide interesting information that you can’t yet find at [competitors]. "

The third most prevalent theme was their knowledge, either from their employees or their product. This theme was brought up four times. Lastly, of the 18 interviews, DataTech was mentioned being a start-up 12 times, including twice by DataTech employees themselves. One was in the context of a dual internship together with a well-known partner in

mid-September 2015, and the second one was by an intern of DataTech in mid-August 2016. At the end of November 2014, they mentioned that scalability is one of their focus points. However, this was an answer to a question, meaning that they did not describe DataTech as a scale-up in any of their interviews, nor was it mentioned in the rest of the articles.

4.2.2 Corporate Image

An analysis of corporate image demonstrates clear differences between how DataTech wishes to be/thinks it is viewed, and the way it is viewed. Firstly, while the interviewees of

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DataTech did not put much emphasis on their well-known clientele, bringing it up twice, this was the most significant theme among the authors, mentioning these themes and DataTech’s most prevalent partner a total of 14 times. After their prestigious clientele, the authors put the most emphasis on the start-up program that launched DataTech. This often went hand in hand with mentioning the prestige of the program. Finally, while the speed of DataTech’s product was one of the top three themes the authors mentioned, and this was heavily emphasized by the company, it does seems of somewhat less importance to the authors. Furthermore,

contrary to the interviewees, the authors put less importance on their biggest competitors, not to mention that the knowledge of their employees or product was not mentioned at all by the authors. They did however, mention the added value of the product, while the interviewees only mentioned this indirectly. The authors therefore seem to be focused on demonstrating the significance of DataTech’s associates. It could be argued that the authors did this to legitimize DataTech’s worth as a company through their connections to others.

It is important to note another difference in this area related to DataTech’s

‘legitimacy’. The interviewees mentioned getting an investment once, in their latest interview in 2017. In this, they did not mention their investor by name. However, their investment and/or investor was mentioned seven times by the authors of the interviews. This was either in the context of DataTech having gotten an investment, or buying themselves out since the investor went bankrupt. It can be argued that the fact that the investor went bankrupt, and the impact it had on DataTech’s finances, is the reason it was not mentioned often, if at all by DataTech, and that this is a part of their history and identity they do not wish to focus on. The following figure illustrates the differences between interviewee and author. This again is in order of how often it was mentioned:

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Figure 6: CB and actual CIm of DataTech in interviews

When it comes to the 46 articles as a whole, DataTech is addressed as a start-up 30 times, the earliest being in mid-June 2012, and the latest April 2017. The latter date is surprising seeing as in February 2016 the CEO of DataTech mentioned in an interview that they were past the start-up phase. To give an impression, six articles were released between those two dates mentioning DataTech as a start-up. The other five articles released in that period mentioned DataTech being a young company or they simply referred to them by their branch. After April 2017, only one other article was published mentioning DataTech. In this article, they were described as a start-up that had grown into a successful company. In the remaining ten articles they were addressed by their branch. Examples are search engine, software company, tech company, or a news provider.

The model in figure 7 summarizes the results from both the oral as well as textual artifacts, placing them in the context of the theoretical framework

Figure 7: Theoretical Model applied to DataTech

Corporate Brand 1. Speed of product 2. Comparing themselves with competitors 3. Knowledge 4. Usefulness of the product and making long

hours Actual Corporate Image 1. Well-known clientele 2. prestigious start-up program 3. Speed of product 4. Investor/ Investment Corporate Identity 1. Scale-up 2. Long and flexible

working hours Corporate Brand 1. Scale-up 2. Exaggerating capabilities versus openness Organizational Identity 1. Start-up 2. Work hard play

hard Actual Corporate Image 1. Start-up/ young company 2. Image focused on associates

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5. Conclusion

Coming back to the initial problem, namely start-ups facing an identity crisis while transforming into a scale-up and having the need for a clear direction for their future identity, it is evident that DataTech is no exception. While Laari-Salmela, Mainela, and Puhakka (2017) argue that start-ups face an identity crisis with their founding, this can also be said when they are at a crossroads. However, now having researched DataTech, I can provide more insights into this problem. Each sub-question will be answered, resulting in deliverables for the company, and answering of the overlapping research question.

5.1 DataTech’s identity at the start and as it grew

As is evident, and in line with Baron and Hannan’s (2002) research on start-up identities, DataTech has from the beginning of their existence employed the Commitment Model. This means that while, according to literature, they are less likely to fail, they will have a harder time scaling up – something that is at the top of their goals. While they argued that changing a company’s identity can disrupt its workflow, it would still be useful for DataTech to make changes. This does not mean that they have to transition into a different model, but can have a mixed model approach. Out of the three dimensions: attachment,

selection, and coordination/control, DataTech has influence on the latter two. With this, Baron and Hannan argued that the Bureaucracy model or Engineering model are the most successful for scaling-up. This means that when it comes to the selection dimension it would be useful to not only pay attention if a future employee fits into the culture, but weigh their skills heavily as well instead of trusting this will work out eventually. Changing only the selection

dimension will mean that DataTech employs parts of the Engineering model, while taking the least amount of effort to change routines. While this was not the scope of this research, it is an interesting insight for DataTech themselves.

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When it comes to OI and CI, these have clearly grown over the years. While in the past it could be said that DataTech was less structured and in an adolescent stage, they have clearly started the process of transitioning into a more structured, ‘grown-up’ form. This is not surprising, as identities change continuously when companies grow. However, in line with Schultz & Hernes (2013), as they grow, they have more years to derive their organizational identity from. This has then assumed a more stable and structured form. This does go together with a desire to hold on to the start-up elements of the past OI – though it is not clear and there is no unified view on how this can be translated into CI going forward. Therefore, while DataTech’s employees have a clear idea of who they are as an organization in the present, there are contradictory views as to where they should go in the future. While Baron & Hannan suggest that identity change can undermine an organization, it is unclear whether this would be the case if the employees agree on which direction change should go. This suggests that it is important for DataTech to aim for clear internal communication and consensus on how to move forward. This is made more necessary by the fact that as the company grows and takes on more people, it can rely less solidly on the original feeling of who they are as an

organization, thus further highlighting the need for continual communication on the company’s future path and identity.

5.2 DataTech described to external partners and how this matches their own view

Overall, the way that DataTech talks about itself to external partners and the way they view themselves is more or less consistent. However, because they want to be seen as an innovative and serious partner as well as important player in their field, they do communicate themselves as being further than they are. While DataTech employees themselves believe that they are a scale-up and communicate this to external parties, they do in fact talk about

themselves as a start-up explicitly. This fits in their pattern of exaggerating capabilities to the outside world, while also seeing themselves as honest and open.

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Just as DataTech has a clear view of who they are as an organization, but not where they are going, they also lack a clear and consistent communication of their identity to the outside. As Waeraas (2008) argues, this can undermine their brand. It is therefore vital for DataTech to have internal consensus on how they present their identity to the outside world. While the employees may be able to give outsiders and clients an elevator pitch of DataTech’s services, they could not do this consistently for who their organization is. If it is important to them to be seen as a up, for example, they have to start talking about themselves a scale-up both internally and externally.

5.3 External parties’ view of DataTech and how this matches their own view

When looking at the way outsiders view DataTech, and the way they communicate about themselves, it is clear that this is unbalanced. When analyzing the articles, especially the ones where an employer of DataTech is interviewed, it is clear that the corporate image of DataTech consists of who they were or are associated with, rather than DataTech’s own characteristics or achievements, or what they communicate.

A part of this can be due to the fact that DataTech has little social media presence, which means that external parties have little to go off of to base their views on, unless they come in touch with one of DataTech’s associates. Therefore, it is important for them to keep in mind that while social media is not necessarily a vital channel of communication to their clients, it is a channel that can be used to communicate its identity to the outsider world and the media. By controlling their brand through social media presence, they can ensure that outsiders have a clear – and the desired – view of DataTech’s identity. This reduces the risk, present in their current focus on offline communication, that the message is distorted through the lens of other people’s second-hand perceptions. This risk is also present in the fact that they are relying on numerous people to do their offline communications for them, further reducing the chance at a unified message.

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The identity crisis that is at the heart of the research question is not necessarily a crisis in how they see themselves, but a crisis in where the organization sees itself going and how they describe themselves to the outside world. The difficulties of communicating identity in this time of change are clear. It is necessary to first achieve internal consensus on the path forward and unity on the description of the company in order to resolve this crisis of identity.

6. Discussion

6.1 Strengths and Limitations

6.1.1 Strengths

Since start-up identity, brand, and image are a scarcely researched field, especially in their transitioning face, this research provides more insight into an under researched area. This is strengthened by the length, depth, and far reaching nature of the interviews and their

comparison to the content analysis. This provided a great deal of detail on highly abstract issues and enabled them to become somewhat tangible and useful to a company.

As has been a made clear throughout, it is difficult to apply theories and definitions from the field of identity and branding in a consistent manner. For most academics it seems to be a matter of defending their definition or choice of definition. However it is necessary to reach a consensus, as this will enable the comparison of different studies in its field, in addition to enabling the field to move beyond definitional debates. However, despite the theoretical drawbacks, this study was able to not only conduct research based on theories, but draw recommendations from them as well, even taking into account that the most favorable elements were chosen to fit the scope of this research. Furthermore, the recommendations are generalizable in that a start-up was researched that is part of an ever growing field, which means that while not all the recommendations might be applicable at the same time to a company, they can choose the ones that are most applicable to them. Lastly, the

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recommendations are practical in the sense that an organization can use them to improve their communications internally as well as externally.

6.1.2 Limitations

An evident limitation of this study is the fact that only one start-up has been researched. This prohibits the results from being generalized too much, meaning that it is necessary for future research to conduct this study with another or multiple start-ups. As mentioned in the methodology, however, DataTech is one of many start-ups, and it is likely that comparisons can be drawn. Furthermore, as was made clear in the theoretical framework the themes studied in this research are still subject to much interpretation, meaning that there is no base understanding on either of the four definitions. Lastly, for corporate brand it is also useful to analyze the visuals, images, and their online presence as well as this is often related to this term. While for corporate identity it would have also been useful to analyze clients’ views of DataTech, given that in the interviews they focused on their perception of- and presentation to them, due to time and others constraints articles about DataTech were analyzed instead.

6.2 Future research

Drawing from the limitations, not only can future research make this study more generalizable by studying other and/or multiple start-ups in their growth phase, but they can also prolong this research by studying the clients’ view. Not only that, a longitudinal study can be done to get first-hand views on change instead of relying on other’s perceptions. In general, more research needs to be done into scale-ups, seeing as this is not the case at all. While this is not a term used frequently in popular language, this may be so in the future, as current start-ups can grow into scale-ups. The question can then be asked whether a

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Coming back to Baron and Hannan (2002), while DataTech does fit in one of their models perfectly, I do believe that it has to be revisited again. Baron and Hannan’s research, while valuable, has been conducted on the back of the first IT-bubble. Since then, the tech world has risen explosively, with start-ups gaining ground ever more quickly. Since this branche is extremely fast paced and adaptable to change, revisiting the model might provide us with new model types and/or eliminate the ones that are not relevant anymore. With this, it might also be interesting to look into scale-ups and dive deeper into their identities.

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Identity crisis – start-Up identity, brand, and image in a period of growth

Identity Crisis – Start-Up Identity, Brand, and Image in a Period of Growth

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