JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

Industrial companies are increasingly interested in sustainability and stakeholder pressure extends to all manufacturer and supplier chains. Also, industrial companies recognize the opportunities of sustainability as it becomes more important to their customers as well. However, how these industrial companies can become sustainable, what sustainability means for these companies and how it can be utilized in stakeholder relations and marketing communications is unclear.

The purpose of this study is to further understand how industrial companies can become truly sustainable through co-creating an environmentally sustainable brand identity as well as utilizing it in their stakeholder relations. Sustainability in an industrial context, especially in industrial or corporate branding, is scarce. Thus, focusing on the specific context of industrial B2B companies and their brands allows to further understand their conditions rather than trying to apply the more researched B2C perspective on the industrial markets.

Empirical data of this study were collected from 18 semi-structured online interviews. The interviews are from the case organization, a component producer factory, and its close stakeholder, a sales and assembly company, that together form the Finnish organization of their parent company. The parent company is a Central European industrial multinational. The interviewees varied from job title to position, and many groups of people from top management to employees were interviewed. The empirical research gave a deep understanding of the industrial context and how environmentally sustainable brand identities are and can be co-created.

The study allowed to identify the process of environmentally sustainable brand identities are co-created as well as what are the enablers, actions, mediators, inhibitors, drivers, and actions of this process. Together they form a further understanding on how environmentally sustainable brand identities are co-created in an industrial context. The literature review provided a comprehensive model of the brand identity co-creation process, and the empirical research allowed to understand the industrial context and its concrete actions to foster sustainability in the brand identity co-creation process. Thus, the study offers understanding of environmentally sustainable brand identity co-creation on both processual and concrete level. Also, marketing and communications of environmentally sustainable brand identity is discussed.