Corporate citizenship and monopolistic practices in the information industry: a study of IBM

Image is important in business. Corporate advertising is a means of raising salience, heightening consumer awareness, establishing market presence and credibility, creating an organisational culture and, more recently, influencing shareholders and averting hostile takeover bids. To quote Management Today: ‘Familiarity breeds favour, not contempt. Nine times out of ten in every country, there is a high correlation between how well people know a company and how well they regard it’. It is hardly surprising that corporate expenditures on media advertising can be reckoned in billions of dollars. Transnational corporations (TNCs) and political parties alike have discovered that image is not a matter of peripheral concern, but a fundamental lever in manipulating public opinion. Opinion polls over the last decade have demonstrated that seven out of 10 people believe that a company with a good reputation will not sell poor quality goods. That perception may be spurious, but its effect on profitability is very real. However,‘… if a company can't deliver its corporate promise at point of sale, lavish ad campaigns are nothing less than a waste of money’.