ENGINEERING COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS FOR CORPORATE REBRANDING – A CASE STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE “METLIFE WAY†IN JAPAN

Fumiaki Tajiri (), Ana Damaschin (), Cristian Vlad (), Tudor Tomos () and Anne Stenros Stenros ()
Additional contact information
Fumiaki Tajiri: PhD Student, Babes†Bolyai University, Romania and CEO, Likeart Resources
Ana Damaschin: PhD Student, Babes†Bolyai University, Romania and Lecturer at Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan
Cristian Vlad: PhD Student, Babes†Bolyai University, Romania and Associate Partner, Talent & Engagement
Tudor Tomos: PhD Student, Babes†Bolyai University, Romania and Lecturer at Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan
Anne Stenros Stenros: Lecturer at Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan and Founder & CEO Creative Catalyst

JOURNAL STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABES-BOLYAI NEGOTIA, 2019

Abstract: Following a recent acquisition and integration of Alico, one of the strongest non-Japanese insurers operating in the Japanese market, MetLife announced in 2014 that it would change its corporate name from MetLife Alico to MetLife Japan. The rebranding exercise would mean much more than a simple change of names – it led to infer an implicit change of culture, work style and user interactions. While this change did not seem to mean much to policy holders in Japan, whose premiums were well secured by legal bindings, it meant a lot to employees – especially ex-Alico employees, who were starting to feel somewhat left out by the rebranding initiative. This paper monitors the cultural transformation process which occurred at MetLife Japan between 2014 and 2015 and focuses on the internal communications process, in order to illustrate the various phases of change and the impact of corporate actions on employee engagement. Furthermore, the authors observed and monitored the various stages of the “MetLife Way†development in Japan and have collected insights on corporate transformation phenomena at the time of business rebranding.

Keywords: talent; communications; rebranding; culture; innovation; engagement; Japan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M14 M39 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://tbs.ubbcluj.ro/RePEc/bbn/journl/Negotia_4_2019.pdf Revised version, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bbn:journl:2019_4_2_tajiri

Access Statistics for this article

JOURNAL STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABES-BOLYAI NEGOTIA is currently edited by Cornelia Pop

More articles in JOURNAL STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABES-BOLYAI NEGOTIA from Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Cornelia Pop ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).