The view that a visually appealing corporate identity is the most important contributor to a good corporate image is a myth. The process of corporate image formation is regulated by the corporate personality which consists of three groups of elements: conscious behavioural identity cues, such as customer service; need-satisfying products or services; and visual cues, such as the corporate name, logo, and slogan. Makes a major assumption that a visual design cue, such as a corporate logo, recalls impressions or perceptions in the minds of audiences. These perceptions are based on corporate behaviour which constitutes an overall corporate image. Perceptions measured through a semantic differential subsequently revealed that the following factors contribute to the corporate image of South African banking institutions: dynamism, credibility/stability, customer service, and visual identity. The research results therefore confirmed the assumption that corporate behaviour and corporate visual identity contribute to corporate image.

This study endeavours to conceptualise the corporate trust construct and its relationship with corporate reputation more holistically, to address the current perceived lack of conceptual clarity of the relationship between these two constructs. The key premise of this study is that a for-profit organisation's ability to generate sustainable wealth over time and ensure its own long-term economic sustainability is related to its relationship with its entire stakeholder network. Since an organisation is dependent on its stakeholders' approval, commitment and supportive behaviour, it is important to understand what influences and drives their perceptions and assessment of an organisation, and their decision to support it. This highlights the importance of understanding the relationship between corporate reputation and corporate trust. For this purpose this researcher has developed a conceptual model founded on basic, theoretical research, with the aim of clarifying current and existing theory and providing a new theoretical perspective. A conceptual model is a simplified and systematic representation of reality, which is made explicit in some abstract form. The descriptive and explicative properties of a model delineate the complex elements of the system more clearly, which fosters systematic thinking and enhances understanding. The model developed as the result of this study suggests an inverse direction to the generally accepted view in current literature of the relationship between corporate trust and corporate reputation. Where trust is usually regarded as an attribute or antecedent of corporate reputation, this study has conceptualised trust as an outcome of corporate reputation and as the more comprehensive construct in the relationship. Corporate reputation has been conceptualised as being merely a means to an endto earn stakeholders' trust and thus their commitment and continued supportand not as an end in itself. Trustworthiness, and not trust, has been identified as the key driver of corporate reputation. Seven key areas in which an organisation should display its trustworthiness iv have been identified. These are proposed as the new antecedents of corporate reputation in order to build a reputation that will lead to stakeholders' trust and support. Finally, recommendations have been made and the areas requiring further research have been identified. v

The processes of consumer perception and decision making remain relatively complex phenomena despite the depth of research undertaken in the area. One way in which these processes may be influenced is through the explicit mentioning of product attributes in advertising. This study investigates consumer perceptions of mentioned product attributes in magazine advertising for a specific product category. Results confirm a clear relationship between attributes specifically mentioned in advertising for the three selected brands and respondents’ rating of those attributes against evaluative criteria for the product category. Factor analyses of respondents’ ratings indicate a clear convergence of factors extracted and the mentioned attributes for each brand.

This study investigates the process of index construction as a means of measuring a hypothetical construct that can typically not be measured by a single question or item and applying it as a method of market segmentation. The availability of incidental secondary data provided a relevant quantitative basis to illustrate this process by constructing a commercial farming sophistication index for South Africa. It was evident that this approach offers an appropriate and useful means of segmenting a market. Several factors contribute to the appeal of this approach. Among others, it addresses important priorities in the area of future segmentation research. By offering classification rules based on characteristics that can easily be observed or elicited through asking a few key questions, new or potential buyers can be grouped by buying behaviour segment. Furthermore, the multi-step process that was employed provides a systematic and structured multivariate approach to segmentation. It also facilitates replication of the process when conducting future studies. Lastly, the outcome of this type of segmentation method offers researchers and marketing practitioners a procedure, in the form of an equation, to calculate index scores and provide rules to segment the market based on predefined intervals. Hence, the challenge to replicate segment formation across independent future studies is addressed.

The primary focus of this entry is on arguing the imperative of optimal alignment between strategic communication and the execution of the strategic intent of the organization. From an internal perspective, strategic communication takes the form of continuous strategic discourse between all leaders and their followers, as well as targeted contextualization to ensure that the generically formulated strategic intent gets to be translated to make sense in all of the various structural and functional work contexts throughout the organization. From an external perspective, strategic communication aimed at engaging with external stakeholders needs to be aligned with the internal strategic communication in order to avoid the emergence of a reputation gap between what an organization says about itself and what it is seen to be doing.

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Organisational culture is largely the result of the interaction between the people of an organisation over time and communication plays a major role in such intra‐organisational interaction. The prevailing organisational culture will reciprocally determine the communication of the organisation, not only internally, but also externally with all of its stakeholder groups, and particularly with its customers. This external communication is particularly relevant to an organisation's ability to render service to its customers. This article investigates differences in the way in which managers and employees perceive the role of communication in an organisation in the automotive industry. The results indicate that managers consistently evaluate prevailing service‐related communication contexts more positively than employees. It is concluded that progress in service quality can be seriously inhibited by a false sense of security about prevailing service related communication procedures and practices among the managers of an organisation.

THE article represents an overview of com-munication research undertaken in South Africa during the period 1974-1984. Be- cause of the relatively short history of the discipline in this country, a penetrating ana- lysis is hardly possible. Some interesting trends with regard to the distribution pat- terns of the research purposes (degree/ non-degree) and the emphases within specific subdisciplines, could however be Identified.