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The Battle For Commercial Hearts And Minds And The Internal Brand Within A Charity Shop Network In Ireland, Edmund O'Callaghan

Articles

Charities are increasingly adopting commercial branding strategies to capture consumer hearts and minds for competitive gain, with little attention on the internal organisational battle for hearts and minds within a not-for-profit context. This paper explores the internal brand of a charity that currently operates 227 charity shops on the island of Ireland, using Hankinson’s 2004 framework that focuses on functional, symbolic, behavioural and experiential components. An exploratory case study was developed based on a survey of organisational members (n = 138), interviews with six regional shopmanagers, observation in retail stores and supplemented by organisation documentation. Findings indicate a clarity of …