Co-creating an implementation narrative on corporate branding in a stream of sense-making activities - A practice perspective

The paper works towards a practice-based narrative approach to internal implementation of corporate brand strategy and presents findings from an empirical study that illustrates the approach in the context of a large and mature transnational industrial company. Based on a fiveyear ethnographic case study of a corporate brand building process, the paper elaborates on the ways in which an implementation narrative is co-created in the corporation, through a stream of sense-making and sense-giving activities between the corporate center and the middle management. Furthermore, a number of trans-subjective, socio-historically constructed organizational practices are abstracted from the sense-making and sense-giving activities so as to study the enabling and/or constraining effects of these practices on the internal implementation of the brand and associated strategic change intervention. Overall, the paper contributes to the contemporary research on corporate branding by shedding light on the generative mechanisms and practices that influence the successful implementation of the corporate brand.