What these corporate marketing-related perspectives share as a basic assumption is
the notion that the various constituencies or stakeholders of a company essentially orient
their behaviours towards the company according to what they perceive about the
company’s identity and how they evaluate it – that is, according to perceived corporate
(brand) identity/image (see, for example, Balmer, 2009; Brown et al., 2006). Notably,
consistent with the inter-disciplinary work in the area, the role of the perceived corporate
identity as a driver of stakeholders’ behaviours is seen to be the case not only with the
company’s customers but also with other classes of stakeholders, such as prospective
and current employees, suppliers, business partners, etc.