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Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral
The culture within an organisation affects organisational performance in a myriad of ways, but the existing research was found by this paper to only examine organisational culture’s effect on profitability. This narrow view creates a gap between culture as a starting point for performance, and profi...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Centre for Film and Media Studies
2020
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| _version_ | 1867613572817747968 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Farmer-Brent, Garret |
| author2 | Irwin, Ronald |
| author_browse | Farmer-Brent, Garret Irwin, Ronald |
| author_facet | Irwin, Ronald Farmer-Brent, Garret |
| author_sort | Farmer-Brent, Garret |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The culture within an organisation affects organisational performance in a myriad of ways, but the existing research was found by this paper to only examine organisational culture’s effect on profitability. This narrow view creates a gap between culture as a starting point for performance, and profitability as an ultimate endpoint. What about everything in between that culture has an effect on? Rather than examining organisational culture in terms of how it influences profitability, this study looks at how organisational culture influences an aspect organisational performance, specifically: its effect on brand image or on word-of-mouth referral. To do so, this paper unpacks a causal chain of influences in four chapters. The research here shows how that employees situated within the culture influences customers to promise to refer the organisation to their social connections. The literature shows that organisational culture is a context that influences most facets of business, and this context is used as a filter by employees to understand how they should behave and what they should value. This paper proposes that employees receive internal brand communications within the context of the culture. Then, they conduct their service actions according to what is expected of them within this context. Customers who interact with these employees are then coming into contact with the organisational by the proxy of customer-facing employees. These interactions between customers and employees are what causes the customer to enjoy the service experience or not. The theory shows that when a service experience is enjoyed, there is likelihood of positive word-of-mouth referral. This paper correlates that and proposes that when there is a strong degree of alignment in organisational culture, employees receive internal brand communications and conduct their service actions in strong alignment of what is expected of them. This leads to customers perceiving the organisation in a way that is favourable and causes a significant number of customers to promise to recommend the organisation. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31506 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:38:17.368Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publishDateRange | 2020 |
| publishDateSort | 2020 |
| publisher | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| publisherStr | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31506 Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral Farmer-Brent, Garret Irwin, Ronald Organisational culture internal branding brand image brand advocacy organisational performance The culture within an organisation affects organisational performance in a myriad of ways, but the existing research was found by this paper to only examine organisational culture’s effect on profitability. This narrow view creates a gap between culture as a starting point for performance, and profitability as an ultimate endpoint. What about everything in between that culture has an effect on? Rather than examining organisational culture in terms of how it influences profitability, this study looks at how organisational culture influences an aspect organisational performance, specifically: its effect on brand image or on word-of-mouth referral. To do so, this paper unpacks a causal chain of influences in four chapters. The research here shows how that employees situated within the culture influences customers to promise to refer the organisation to their social connections. The literature shows that organisational culture is a context that influences most facets of business, and this context is used as a filter by employees to understand how they should behave and what they should value. This paper proposes that employees receive internal brand communications within the context of the culture. Then, they conduct their service actions according to what is expected of them within this context. Customers who interact with these employees are then coming into contact with the organisational by the proxy of customer-facing employees. These interactions between customers and employees are what causes the customer to enjoy the service experience or not. The theory shows that when a service experience is enjoyed, there is likelihood of positive word-of-mouth referral. This paper correlates that and proposes that when there is a strong degree of alignment in organisational culture, employees receive internal brand communications and conduct their service actions in strong alignment of what is expected of them. This leads to customers perceiving the organisation in a way that is favourable and causes a significant number of customers to promise to recommend the organisation. 2020-03-06T11:39:40Z 2020-03-06T11:39:40Z 2019 2020-03-06T11:34:34Z Master Thesis Masters Master of Arts http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31506 eng application/pdf Centre for Film and Media Studies Faculty of Humanities |
| spellingShingle | Organisational culture internal branding brand image brand advocacy organisational performance Farmer-Brent, Garret Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral |
| title_full | Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral |
| title_fullStr | Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral |
| title_short | Exploring the relationship between organisational culture, brand, and word-of-mouth referral |
| title_sort | exploring the relationship between organisational culture brand and word of mouth referral |
| topic | Organisational culture internal branding brand image brand advocacy organisational performance |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31506 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT farmerbrentgarret exploringtherelationshipbetweenorganisationalculturebrandandwordofmouthreferral |