INNOVATION AND NETWORK ASPECTS AFFECTING BRAND IMAGE: THE CASE OF HARKEY-DAVIDOSN AND BUELL

Abstract

Among the many trends impacting the business world nowadays two have become most prominent: the high tax of innovation and the fact that society is more and more organizing itself as networks. In addition, some authors pose that in such a society aspects relating to brand management tend to be more relevant for competitive differentiation than those relating to the quality of products. In this context, this paper aims at analyzing how aspects of innovation and networks affect the image of two global brands from the same company in Brazil. This is one of the first empirical investigations on the contributions of a theoretical essay and because of that the work is characterized as an exploratory and descriptive research that employed the case study research strategy. The brands chosen for analysis were Harley-Davidson and Buell, from the motorcycles produced by the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, because they conform to the requirements implicit in the objective. The analysis performed revealed great convergence and adherence between concepts and secondary and primary data collection, reinforcing the conclusions and allowing the formulation of suggestions for future research.