– Building a strong brand is an important way to build a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Brand-oriented companies regard their brands as strategic resources, and they create value and increase competitiveness by building a strong brand. However, studies on how companies become brand-oriented and how brand orientation influences brand performance are still rather limited. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model explaining what factors contribute to brand orientation, as well as the impact of brand orientation.
– Questionnaire surveys were distributed to branding companies in Taiwan. The sample data of 106 branding companies were collected in order to test the theoretical model using partial least squares (PLS).
– The empirical results showed that organizational resources (product differentiation capability), organizational structure (cross-function departmental integration), and organizational culture (members' organizational identification and long-term remuneration criteria) could facilitate the building of brand-oriented companies. It was also found that a higher level of brand orientation contributed to better brand performance.
– According to this research, corporate managers can understand how to build brand-oriented companies by shaping their organizational context. In other words, if companies want to become brand-oriented, they should build product differentiation capabilities, promote cross-functional integration among departments, and develop an organizational culture with high organizational members' identification and long-term remuneration criteria.
– This paper is the first study to propose some antecedents of brand-oriented companies based on the organizational context perspective. The empirical results of this study illustrate how companies can become brand-oriented by arranging their organizational context, as well as the impact of brand orientation on brand performance.
