Management of the Organizational Image: A Method for Organizational Image Configuration
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Volume 7 Number 1
Management of the Organizational Image: A Method for Organizational Image Configuration Maria Schuler Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
ABSTRACT One of the most important concerns for organizational communication managers is the management of the organizational image created by its diverse publics. Based on this image consumers make their choices, when they have needs to fulfill and the public develops goodwill or reluctance toward the organization, considered as a social entity. It is even based on this image that the public will establish contact or pursue transactions with the organization, or not. How can one know, in the most approximate way, how its diverse publics see the organization? How can the most convenient image be built to reflect the real organizational mission and its best efforts to accomplish these goals? This paper reports the development of a research method to evaluate the image an organization forms in the eyes of a given public. The intention was to develop an easily applicable method which could be used as a permanent tool to evaluate organizational communication actions towards the generation of the best possible image. The method was developed in several research works, where each step was tested to improve the composing techniques. The overall aim was to generate a graphic map exposing the average image seen by a certain public, thus helping the communication manager’s future decision making. INTRODUCTION One of the organizational communication manager’s biggest concerns is the image that the several different publics of that
organization have about it. It is based on that image that those individuals will choose or not that specific organization in order to meet any of their needs. It is based on that image that those individuals will have good or bad will towards the organization, as a social entity. It is also based on that image that those individuals will intend to establish contacts or business transactions with the organization or not. How can one know how the organization is perceived by the various publics? How can one positively interfere to create the most adequate image that best reflects the organization’s real mission and its best efforts at reaching this goal? The image of an organization corresponds to the mental model that the individuals who compose its several different publics create to represent it, whenever they think of it. It is like a concept or a description, containing cognitive, affective and sensorial information. The image is formed through the information that individuals receive about the organization, which they first receive and then organize in their ‘data bank’, in a very personal way. First, the individual realizes and identifies information about the organization and then stores that information in a certain position, where some pieces of information are more relevant than others. Some pieces are close to each other; others are more distant. What is important to know is that the concept that the public
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