AcknowledgementsThe authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and acknowledge the insightful observations made by past and current faculty members of the Center for Research in Marketing at Brunel Business School (Brunel University London, UK) which helped in shaping earlier drafts of the paper. In particular, we are indebted to Philippa Mulberry for proofreading the final draft. In, addition we wish to thank the editors of the journal and the guest editors for their encouragement and support. Thanks are also due to the management and staff of Shepherd Neame for their time and insights and Brunel Business School for funding the doctoral studies of one of the authors. Summary statement of contributionThis study advances the nascent area of corporate heritage identity management by providing empirical and theoretical insight into the salience and strategic relevance of corporate heritage identity as a resource for corporate marketing. The article provides a normative framework of 3 actionable categories of activities related to the management and implementation of substantive corporate heritage identity dimensions.

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Purpose: Focusing on the nascent corporate heritage identity domain, this empirical study introduces the theory of corporate heritage stewardship. In particular, the research explores managers' collective understanding of their organisation's corporate heritage and how the latter is marshalled, and strategically represented, by them. The case study was undertaken in Great Britain's oldest extant brewery. Established in 1698 Shepherd Neame is one of UK's oldest companies.Design/methodology/approach: Empirical research informed by a theory-building, case-study using qualitative data. This study draws on multiple sources of data generated through semi-structured interviews, the analysis of documents and non-participant observations. The analysis of data was facilitated by a multi-stage coding process and a prolonged hermeneutic interaction between data, emerging concepts, and extant literature. Findings:Corporate heritage identity stewardship theory argues that the strategic enactment of a corporate heritage identity is predicated on a particular management mindset, which is meaningfully informed by three awareness dimensions expressed by managers (i.e. awareness of positionality, heritage, and custodianship). These awareness dimensions are underpinned by six managerial stewardship dispositions characterised by a sense of: (1) continuance; (2) belongingness; (3) self; (4) heritage; (5) responsibility; and (6) potency. The findings are synthesised into a theoretical framework of managerial corporate heritage identity stewardship. Research limitations/implications:The insights from this empirical case study meaningfully advance our theoretical understanding of the corporate heritage identity domain. Whilst the empirical contribution of this study is qualitatively different from statistical/substantive generalisations, which seek to establish universal laws, the research insights are valuable in terms of theory-building in their own terms and are analytically generalisable. The insights from this study have the potential to inform further studies on corporate heritage identities, including research underpinned by a positivistic, and quantitative, methodology. Practical implications:The findings have utility for corporate marketing management in that they illustrate how a collective corporate heritage mindset can both inform, as well as guide, managers in terms of their stewardship of their firm's corporate heritage identity. The theoretical framework is of utility in practical terms in that it reveals the multiple dimensions that are significant for management stewardship of a corporate heritage identity. Originality/value:The research confirms and expands the notion of management stewardship in corporate identity in corporate marketing contexts by identifying how a multi-dimensional managerial mindset has constitutive and instrumental relevance. Moreover, this study identifies the distinct characteristics of this corporate identity type -corporate heritage identity -which are revealed to have a saliency for m...

is Lecturer in Marketing at Essex Business School, University of Essex in Colchester, UK. He has extensive industry experience having worked for Allianz of Germany (Insurance), among others, in different managerial and non-managerial roles before his move into academia. He holds a PhD (Brunel) and his general research interests are within the nascent fields of corporate marketing and corporate heritage scholarship (and related areas ABSTRACT The notion of heritage branding orientation is introduced and explicated. Heritage branding orientation is designated as embracing both product and corporate brands and differs from corporate heritage brand orientation which has an explicit corporate focus. Empirical insights are drawn from an in-depth and longitudinal case study of Ach. Brito, a celebrated Portuguese manufacturer of soaps and toiletries. This study shows how, by the pursuance of a strategy derived from a heritage branding orientation, Ach. Brito -after a prolonged period of decline -achieved a dramatic strategic turnaround. The findings reveal how institutional heritage can be a strategic resource via its adoption and activation at both the product and corporate levels. www.palgrave-journals.com/bm/ Moreover, the study explains how the bi-lateral interplay between product and corporate brand levels can be mutually reinforcing. In instrumental terms, the study demonstrates how heritage can be activated and articulated in different ways. For instance, it can reposition both product and/or corporate brands; it can be meaningfully informed by product brand heritage and shape corporate heritage and can be of strategic importance to both medium-sized and small enterprises.

We argue for a more expansive conceptualization of the past's relevance in, and for, marketing. Such a differentiated approach to the past is pregnant with possibilities in terms of advancing scholarship apropos temporal agency in marketing along with consumption practices. Symptomatic of this perspective is the increased mindfulness of the rich palate of past-related concepts. Significantly, the corporate heritage notion-because of its omnitemporal nature-represents a distinct and meaningful vector on the past by coalescing the past, present and future into a new type of temporality. As such, the authors reason this expansive conceptualization of 'the pastin-marketing' is both timely and efficacious. While sensitive of the importance of the historical method in marketing and the history of marketing scholarship and practice per se, this broader marketing approach to and of the past highlights the ideational and material manifestations of the past-in-the-present and an envisaged past-in-the-future.