De varumärkeskluvna : Varumärkesarbete och värdegrundsretorik i i ideell och offentlig verksamhet

Abstract

This thesis explores branding within the Swedish nonprofit and public sectors. Using an hermeneutical approach and drawing on theories of branding, stakeholder theory and new institutional theory, its focus is strategic brand management in the context of how an ethical rhetoric (värdegrundsretorik) is used in branding. The thesis is conducted within the field of marketing and focuses on the meso organizational level. It is theoretically limited to the nonprofit and public sector, two sectors where branding has not been developed to the same degree as in the business sector. The empirical setting consists of one municipal administration – including five schools in the public sector – four nonprofit organizations, and a pilot study of a publicly listed corporation. The thesis shows that brand talk – and answering too affirmatively to the logics of branding – might appear provocative to key stakeholders of organizations in the nonprofit and public sector. Senior employees therefore appear ambivalent when referring to an explicit brand strategy, even when using the word brand (varumärke). Too much brand talk is believed to present a commercial image, hence something expected to be provocative for those stakeholders who associate branding activities with the for profit corporate world. Thus, the more the nonprofit and the public sector organizations are discussed as a brand, the level of internal identity conflicts seems to intensify regarding what the organizations are and claim to be. Emphasizing ethics and sustainability (värdegrundsretorik) in the context of branding might on the other hand reduce such criticism among key stakeholders, i.e. fears that the organizations are becoming too commercialized. The ambivalence towards branding might also be viewed in the light of the expanded professionalism in the nonprofit and public sectors. The final chapter discusses this trend with regard to the nonprofit sector in particular, and argues that the more professionalized nonprofit organizations become, the more likely civic participation is to decline – which in turn raises questions not only about what the nonprofit sector is and claims to be, but even about the status of our democracy. In that context, something greater than their image seems to be at stake when nonprofits are trying to legitimize a more professional approach to branding.