THE CORPORATE IMAGE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRY CORPORATIONS

Unlike the industrial economy, with physical and financial capital as cardinal characteristics, the capital of the contemporary economy is intangible and is comprised of corporate image, brands, connections with associates, customer service, and the knowledge and abilities of employees. The creation and strengthening of the public image is becoming one of the founding strategies of service industry corporations since for the user, especially of services, a corporation with a better positioned image in the market has a greater value. By accepting the image as a powerful means of communication with people towards accomplishing their purposeful behaviour, image management has become an important area of marketing strategies performance. Due to the fact that the corporate image is founded on the identity of the corporation, respectively that it represents an impression of the corporation in the whole and the entire organization, its business and services are often identified and assessed on the basis of that image. Corporate image has been identified as one of the most significant elements of the overall service evaluation and the evaluation of the entire company in the service marketing. Whenever it is difficult to evaluate the characteristics of the service itself, corporate image is one of the most important elements which influences people's perception of quality, the user's evaluation of service satisfaction and their loyalty. The usage of services has become more the result of image than a part of material and tangible elements offered to them, and the utilization of certain services has become a way in which the user defines his personal image as well as the image of other people. Since the recent business conditions have been characterised by near market saturation in all service segments, numerous competitive services differ in essence only by certain marginal or purely symbolic features. The most important choice and usage criteria for a certain service are the anticipated experiences with respect to the expected results linked to different alternatives. Therefore, the results, images, symbols, and not the inherent service characteristics, are the elements the user focuses on during the selection process.