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The dark side of conscientious branding: exploring the interplay between moral failures and organizational resilience
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå School of Business and Economics (USBE), Business Administration.
2025 (English)In: Journal of Brand Management, ISSN 1350-231X, E-ISSN 1479-1803, Vol. 32, p. 528-544Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Many marketing managers face challenges in building a strong brand capable of making a positive transformative impact on the society and environment. The emerging research stream on conscientious branding addresses these challenges by providing core insights on the nature of a brand with a conscience and conscientious brand management. However, the dark side of conscientious branding, where organizations commit to conscientious branding, but still conduct moral failures, is under-investigated in prior research. The main purpose of this study is to explore the interplay between conscientious branding, moral failures, and organizational resilience by examining violations in commercial advertising. The study focuses on violations related to environmental claims in marketing communications. By using content analysis, the study examines the decisions about cases, which received an upheld outcome by the Swedish Advertising Ombudsman (Reklamombudsmannen), signifying a violation in marketing ethics and indicating a moral failure. The study proposes the general categorization of organizations based on conscientious branding practices and organizational responses to a moral failure. The findings demonstrate that conscientious brand management can not only facilitate organizational moral development in the short term, but also reinforce persistent resilience in the long term.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature, 2025. Vol. 32, p. 528-544
Keywords [en]
Branding, Conscience, Conscientious branding, Moral development, Moral failure, Organizational resilience
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-242165DOI: 10.1057/s41262-025-00404-0ISI: 001518064900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105009003352OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-242165DiVA, id: diva2:1983894
Available from: 2025-07-14 Created: 2025-07-14 Last updated: 2025-12-12Bibliographically approved

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Biedenbach, Galina

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf