Narrative Constitution of Corporate Identities in Corporate Profiles of Multinational Corporations of China — A Case Study

Authors: Wang Li (Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia; School of Foreign Languages, Fuyang Normal University, China)
Ang Lay Hoon (Corresponding Author), Sabariah Md Rashid, Hazlina Abdul Halim (Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia)
Speaker: Wang Li
Topic: Narrative and Metanarrative
The (SCOPUS / ISI) SOAS GLOCAL CALA 2020 General Session

Abstract

Under the context of the “Trade War”, Chinese multinational corporations are facing a tough situation in overseas markets due to the slowdown of globalization and ideological differences. Therefore, they are more aware of presenting themselves to a target foreign market by “telling good stories”. Narratives in these contexts are reframed from source to translated corporate profiles of these multinational corporations, so to frame corporate identities as more acceptable to target foreign stakeholders. During the reframing process, questions arise like “what corporate identities are constituted by narratives in the Chinese and English corporate profiles of multinational corporations of China?” and “ how are corporate identities for domestic market shifted to adapt to foreign market in the narratives of translated corporate profiles?

In responding to these questions, this paper creates a case study of the Chinese and English corporate profiles of CRRC (China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation), the world’s largest supplier of rail transit equipment. As narrative identities are constituted by the three narrativity features of time, space and analytical relationality, content analysis is employed for examining the three features of CRRC’s corporate profiles for qualitative data and thematic analysis is employed for identifying the corporate identities constructed through these data.

An empirical case study of the corporate identities of multinational corporations of China in this way will guide further research on improvement of corporate identities through narratives.

Keywords: Narrative, corporate identities, corporate profiles, multinational corporations.