Explicating corporate heritage identity stewardship theory from a corporate marketing perspective: a qualitative case study of Great Britain's oldest brewer

Abstract

Positioned within the corporate marketing domain, and adopting an explicit managerial perspective, this doctoral thesis advances knowledge in the form of a substantive and analytically generalisable theory of corporate heritage identity stewardship, which is derived from an empirical, theory-building, qualitative case study of Great Britain’s oldest brewer. In broad terms, corporate heritage identity stewardship theory articulates the particular management requirements of a corporate heritage identity in terms of two mutually constitutive dimensions namely (a) stewardship mindset and (b) enactment. Stewardship mindset refers to a shared awareness amongst management (i.e. positionality, heritage, and custodianship awareness) underpinned by specific managerial dispositions to feel, think, and act (i.e. sense of continuance, belongingness, self, heritage, responsibility, and potency). Enactment refers to the multi-modal implementation (i.e. narrating, visualising, performing, and embodying) of a corporate heritage identity and its relational positioning visà-vis stakeholders (i.e. temporal, spatial, and socio-cultural anchoring), which at once is predicated on and reinforces the stewardship mindset. The theoretical contribution of this study is significant in that it empirically confirms the existing, largely conceptual, literature in terms of the applicability and efficacy of the nascent corporate heritage identity construct per se. More importantly, it expands the extant body of literature by introducing a detailed theoretical explication of corporate heritage identity stewardship, which has important implications for future scholarly work. The study is, additionally, of instrumental relevance for corporate marketing management practice. First, it identifies different ways of implementing and anchoring a corporate heritage identity within societal environments vis-à-vis stakeholders, which can be utilised by organisations. Second, it articulates different enabling management dispositions, which help management to better understand the specific requirements of corporate heritage identity stewardship. The doctoral thesis articulates several avenues for future research (qualitative and quantitative) and provides – with the analytically generalisable corporate heritage identity stewardship theory – a new conceptual lense for future empirical and conceptual work within this nascent area of corporate marketing.