ABSTRACT

In 1944, Americans were offered a slim, illustrated volume designed to serve as a reference to the fundamentals of its capitalist system. Surprisingly, the power of the organizational persona has not been given sustained, careful, and thorough study in public relations scholarship or in the broader scholarship on organizational identity. Erving Goffman’s observations about the power of the performer’s personality to overshadow audience perceptivity of performer actions are an important consideration for examining the corporate persona. James Truslow Adams’ 1931 book claimed that the American Dream emphasized that every individual had “the hope of opening every avenue of opportunity to him”. The corporate persona construct offers an intriguing window into how stasis has come to dominate arenas of contestation in modern life. Critically examining the actual presence of the corporate persona allows for careful delineation of what appears to be the effects of such a construct.