A Study on Comparison Between Café De Coral’s Corporate Identity and Its Corporate Image

A Study on comparison between Café de Coral’s corporate identity and its corporate image

The study on the comparison between the identity of Café de coral (CDC) and the image from one of the CDC’s stakeholder, the media, was carried out in our group project. In order to conduct a more comprehensive analysis on the comparison between the identity of CDC and the image from its stakeholder, in this paper, I am going to carry out an study concentrated at the CDC’s another dominant stakeholder, the employees. Interviews focused on the image of CDC were conducted in both of their managerial level^[1] and lower level employees.

In the following, the paper first overviews the identity of CDC presented in visual presentation that we have covered in our group presentation. The adopted methodology and theory will also be briefly mentioned. Then, the focus will be put on the interview result of the employees. Finally, the analysis will be conducted to compare the visual presented identity of CDC and the image from its employees.  

According to Sue Westcott Alessandri (2001), all of the observable and measurable elements of a firm's identity manifest in visual presentation, including its name, logo, tagline, color palette and architecture and public behavior, including its reception of employees, customers, shareholders and suppliers^[2]. For the sake of further studying on our group project, in this paper, I concerned the former way to review CDC’s identity.

As a dominant stakeholder^[3], employee, have a great impact to the corporate that which can not only represent the corporate but also have a fundamental influence to the customers’ view^[4] towards the corporate image.

The corporate identity of CDC can be presented by its Motto on the website, its name on the webpage, as well as the mission on the webpage. To summarized the information, the corporate identity of CDC can be introduced as two main ideas: i) to ensure the continued happiness to their a) customer and b) staff and ii) to benefit the communities.

To analysis whether the corporate identities of CDC match its corporate images from its dominant stakeholder, two interviews have been conducted concentrated on the CDC’s corporate image with the employees in the managerial level and lower level to receive the opinion from the employees in different levels. The interview covered the content included their views towards the working environment, the shifting system, the incentive system and the salary system. The results, however, are failed to meet the corporate identities that CDC is willing to present.

The lower level employee is concerned more on the working nature and treatment. The discontented long working hours and the inflexible roster are the examples. The interviewee claimed that due to the inadequate manpower, they are always assigned to work for more than ten hours a day. Also, it is not easy for them to request for the holiday even they legislatively enjoy 7-days paid holiday every year. The long working hours make them an unhealthy life style that they are always sleep late and have no time to do exercise. Besides, their social life is also affected negatively as they have little time to gather with friends and family.

The employee also said the efforts they paid does not match the wages they get since the part-time employees can only got the hourly wages that just exceed the lowest salary, and for them, the full- time worker, also get $3-4 more than the part-time employees. Moreover, though they have a paid- meal break, the meal break is only half an hour, it is not enough for them to take rest a have a relaxing meal. They also have no incentive even how good they perform. The interviewee said the working environment with low morale always make them depressed and hard to provide the customer with a “100 marks” service as the company claimed.