Family business branding in Romania: A matter of identity, image, and reputation

Abstract: Background: Family businesses are shaping the world’s economy through contributions to establishing jobs, creating wealth, and competitiveness, correspondingly being influenced by the quality of the business environment. Family business branding is useful to understand how to leverage their unique resources and create a competitive advantage, these being shaped by the context. The historical events and economic factors of Romania are influencing the decision of family firms to portray their family in their branding endeavours in order to become more competitive. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to understand the reasoning behind the Romanian family companies’ decision to promote their family aspect in their brand and how do family business identity, image, and reputation relate to the brand in the context of Romania. For guidance, two research questions were developed in order to gain valuable and significant insights for this thesis. Method: Ontology – Relativism; Epistemology – Social constructionism; Approach – Inductive; Design – Exploratory; Methodological choice – Qualitative; Time Horizon – Cross-sectional; Strategy – Case-study; Data collection – In-depth Interviews; Sampling – Non-probability Purposive Samples based on criteria (eleven respondents); Data Analysis – Content Analysis. Conclusion: From findings, it can be concluded that the context of Romania has a direct impact on family businesses and on how they are conducting their family brand promotion. Even though it is considered to have a positive impact, few Romanian family businesses actively market themselves as a family business. The predominant factors affecting the decisional processes, which are shaped by the contextual effects according to the three brand dimensions, have been comprised in a model of influential factors.