Inquiry into corporate brand alignment

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to provide a comprehensive and integrated understanding of the nature and measurement of corporate brand and identity alignment research issues. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review was used to identify relevant journal publications from the years 1977-2013. Thus, descriptive and thematic analyses were performed to provide an overview of publication activity, scholar contributions, and research methods, and to identify main alignment perspectives, effects and challenges, respectively. Findings – From the final sample of 112 articles, key issues included the exploration of: (I) the current stage of the research path (II) main perspectives of alignment research; (III) main positive effects of alignment. Research limitations/implications – This research considers only peer reviewed journal articles and is also limited by the search terms and the single database. However, the snowball technique helped in overcoming these limitations, avoiding the rigidity of the mechanistic search. Originality/value – This work represents the first systematic review on corporate brand and identity alignment. Not only the current literature has been identified and analyzed but also the need for continuing research into additional conceptualization and validation of theories has been highlighted.