Factors that determine the corporate image of South African fast food restaurants

Abstract

Current operating practices of small businesses indicate that more time is devoted to the cosmetic side of corporate identity than managing service delivery. The main argument pursued in this paper is based on the view that both visual and behavioural corporate identity cues create impressions in the minds of corporate publics to form an overall corporate image. A set of bipolar adjectives was therefore used to test various visual, behavioural and core product elements of restaurant corporate image. A key finding was made that the joint customer service and employee dimension, was rated as the most important factor in the choice of fast food restaurants, which confirms that corporate image is created by visual and behavioural identity.