A website brand analysis of Romanian companies from automotive industry

• Author: A. Briciu/V.-A. Briciu/A.-M. Pilipinschi
• Position: Transilvania University of Brasov/Transilvania University of Brasov/Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 133-142

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 10 (59) No. 1 - 2017

A WEBSITE BRAND ANALYSIS OF

ROMANIAN COMPANIES FROM

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

A. BRICIU1 V.-A. BRICIU2 A.-M. PILIPINSCHI3

Abstract: The present study proposes an innovative analytical approach on

branding and cultural concepts, looking at the correlation between them and

the way the culture has an important contribution to the brand strategy of an

organization. This pilot study has strictly focused on branding in the online

environment and the objective of the research consists in applying the

content analysis method on the official brand websites of different

organizations, having a corpus of 50 companies in automotive industry, with

the subsidiaries activating in Romania. The research instrument (i.e., the

analysis coding scheme) evolved having as reference the cultural dimensions

defined and presented by Geert Hofstede and adapted to the online

environment.

Key words: culture, brand, virtual environment, Web 2.0, automotive

industry.

1. Introduction

In a more and more technology focused era it is essential that the managers who

lead the company activities project their activities to some extent into the cyberspace.

Every organization, no matter the profile, domain, activity and dimension, should be

present in the online environment, offering endless possibilities of communication

and interaction with the clients and potential or existent partners.

The present scientific approach has the purpose to test the applicability and the

analysis of the brand strategies of the organizations in the virtual medium, studying

the predominant components of organizational culture reflected through the web

pages and the adaptability of the cultural dimension of Hofstede to the online

environment.

Having our reasons and arguments anchored in the existing literature, we will

present the importance of the existence or development of a brand for a company,

mostly the multinational ones, but also the benefits of their presence in the virtual

space.

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, arabela.baican@u nitbv.ro

2 Transilvania University of Braşov, victor.briciu@unitbv.ro

3 Transilvania University of Braşov, ana.pilipinschi@student.unitbv.ro