Self regulation and corporate branding; A study of selected firms in food and beverage industry in South East Nigeria:- Ebere, Chidinma P

Abstract

Governmental regulations often have ill effects on corporate image in addition to associated explicit financial cost implications. These effects affect corporate customer loyalty, patronage, and profitability given product and corporate poor brand personality and loss in corporate core values consequent on poor product brand positioning activities. Based on the above forgone, this study on self regulation and corporate branding with basis for food and beverage industry has its main objectives as examining the effect self regulation and corporate branding among selected firm in food and beverage industry in Nigeria. The specific objectives were to ascertain  the effect of  quality assurance systems of firms on corporate brand personality; determine the relationship between codes of ethics of firms and corporate core values; establish the effect of  internal and external markets dispute resolution scheme of firms  on  brand positioning ; examine the degree of relationship that exist between accreditation standards of corporate operation  and internal brand identity and examine the combined effect of self regulation on corporate branding. The research design was survey research design. The study area was in South East of Nigeria. The population of the study was all the registered food and beverage firms in Nigeria with operational base as South Eastern Nigeria. Available records from Nigeria Directory of statistics show that there are ninety five (95) registered food and beverage firms in South Eastern Nigeria. The study adopted the total population of the study as the sample size because it was relatively small. Judgmental sampling technique which is a non- probability sampling technique was used in the study because of the nature of the respondents. The source of data for this work was primary. Data was collected through self administered copies of structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, simple regression analysis, multiple regression analysis and Pearson correlation co-efficient. The findings showed that quality assurance systems have significant effect on corporate brand personality, codes of ethics have significant direct relationship with corporate core value system, internal and external markets dispute resolution schemes have significant effect on corporate brand positioning, accreditation standards have significant relationship with internal brand identity and lastly self regulation systems have significant combined effect on corporate branding. Based on the findings, it was concluded that the food and beverage industry in South East Nigeria is experiencing acceptable growth and development in the adoption of the principles and systems of self regulation in the building and sustenance of corporate brand and branding. Based on this we recommended that Key industrial  players in the food and beverage industry South East Nigeria should be encouraged to participate in directing the course of the industry through constructive opinion sharing for clear definition of the role of public interest and industrial watching groups, consumers, government, inter-related industries and scientific communities. This is considered capable of re-positioning the food and beverage industry in Nigeria with bias for South East for enhanced players’ corporate branding based on achieved target market and stakeholders satisfaction.