Human Roles and Communication Strategies of Corporate Identity Performance: Enhancing Global Image, Leadership, And Legacy of a High-Tech Leader‪.‬

INTRODUCTION Corporate identity is an important component of corporate-level marketing, which is itself an under-investigated concept within marketing (Mukherjee and He, 2008). New requirements of business growth and product development have created the need for rethinking known approaches to corporate identity, product design, research, distribution, partnership, and even business models. Earlier, many scholars (e.g. Karaosmanoglu and Melewar, 2006) noted that different ways of creating competitive advantage are needed. In addition to opportunities created by newly-opened markets, mergers and acquisitions, more sophisticated consumers, the increase in competition, and crises such as the unraveling of US giants such as Enron, Arthur Anderson, and Tyson Foods also forced companies and governments in the US and around the world to seek a greater understanding of their business and what corporate and social responsibility (CSR) means. Furthermore, for high-technology leaders, their fortunes depend to a large extent on investments in intangible capital--intellectual and marketing assets--different from other industries. Rao (2005) argued that especially for high-tech firms, marketing capital is complementary to intellectual capital (research and development, human resources, and organizational practices); because it is only by creating and sustaining a distinctive corporate identity through difficult-to-imitate marketing strategies that the successful innovators can protect themselves against imitators and the appropriability problem. The objective of this paper is to explore the pursuit and presentation management of a particular corporate identity and its desired effect on the market and strategic behavior of a high-tech leader.