Corporate Identity

Corporate identity or short CI (of English. Corporation, company ',' company ' and English. Identity, identity ' ) refers to the identity of a company. The corporate identity is the totality of the characteristic and as an organization of other companies distinguishing characteristics.

Definitions

The sum of the characteristics of a company represents the corporate identity. The concept of CI is based on the assumption that companies are perceived as social systems, such as people and can act similarly. In this respect, the company is awarded a quasi- human personality, or it is seen as a task of corporate communications, to help the organization to such an identity. A person's identity is obtained for the observer usually from the visual appearance and the way to speak and to act. Looking at a company as a personal, psychologically mature actor, so his identity can provide a strategy consistent action, communicating and visual appearance. If these complementary parts of a unified whole, creates a stable perception of this actor with a specific character, the corporate identity.

Corporate identity marks by Helmut Schmitt seal the personality of a company with one of the inside outward- self-understanding, based on a plan of action for a visibly lived value system or building a strong corporate culture ( see also Thomas J. Peters / Robert W. Waterman ).

" Corporate identity is the process created by the cultural identity and will be further developed. " "... If the corporate culture is self-contained concrete and meaningful pronounced and with its expressions is an authentic wholeness "

Areas

Often, different areas of corporate identity can be distinguished:

In practice, these areas are not naturally separated sharply from each other. Especially is this the concept of corporate image of the case. The corporate image is not part of the corporate identity. It points to the external image of the company and the effect of its performance, whereas the corporate identity embodies the self-image.

Other important constitutive factors for the corporate identity of the company's history, the organizational structures, the vision and mission statement ( goals and self- understanding ). In the colloquial language is often wrongly spoken of CI when actually only the CD is meant - in Anglo-Saxon, however, no distinction between CI and CD is made.