BUILDING A UNIQUE CORPORATE IDENTITY: A STUDY ON THE MISSION & VISION STATEMENTS ON CORPORATE WEBSITES OF MALAYSIAN AND SINGAPOREAN CORPORATIONS

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of mission and vision statements on corporate websites of Malaysian and Singaporean corporations based on Aaker’s brand personality attributes and analyze how the attributes are effectively used to build up a unique corporate identity.

Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis is employed to examine similarities and differences for 300 Malaysian and Singaporean consumer corporations based on Aaker’s five brand personality scales.

Findings – It is believed that generally most companies tend to publish and communicate their mission and vision statements visibly to general stakeholders. However, specifically there is discrepancy of brand personality attributes between Malaysian and Singaporean consumer corporations. We also found that some Malaysian organizations have a lack of international focus which affects their organizational esteem in building unique corporate identity and gaining competitive advantages within a context of global business environment.

Practical implications - The study acknowledges the increase in communicating mission and vision statements on the corporate websites of Malaysian and Singaporean corporations. However, there is a dire need for corporations in Malaysia and Singapore to orchestrate their core competence in order to develop a unique corporate identity in a global business environment.

Originality/value - The study contributes to the corporate identity literature in the sense of communicating their desired brand personality for the critical inquiry of the dominant coalition.

Keywords: Corporate identity, brand personality, top management, Asian country.