Revealing the Unique Blend of Meanings in Corporate Identity: An Application of the Semiotic Square

Managing and marketing a corporate identity (CI) can be complex because most firms anchor their identity on multiple meanings and often fail to recognize this complexity in their communication. The manuscript’s purpose is to introduce a linguistic methodological tool, the Greimasian Semiotic Square, for analyzing the corporate identity congruence (CIC) in which meanings fit together to form a holistic blend of meanings. Specifically, we demonstrate: an inductive coding process to explain CI meanings and descriptors, an analysis of virtual relations between CI meanings, a validation within eight diverse case firms, and an application to all five CIC dimensions.