Theoretical Foundations of Corporate Branding: Brand Equity, Reputational Spillovers, and Shared-Brand Risks

This article examines the distribution of corporate brand equity, reputational spillovers, and their relationship with revenue using 4,816 quarterly observations from 40 corporate groups and 301 service units. Variance decomposition attributes 42.0% of brand-equity variation to corporate-level differences, 34.8% to unit-level differences, and 23.3% to changes over time. Fixed-effects estimates show that adverse incidents reduce brand equity by 5.83 points in affected units and 1.00 point in sister units, while awards increase equity by 2.39 and 0.43 points, respectively. Negative spillovers are strongest in branded houses (−1.77 points) and weakest in houses of brands (−0.13 points). A one-point increase in a unit’s own brand equity is associated with a 0.565-point increase in its revenue index, whereas sister-unit equity has no statistically significant additional association. The findings emphasize balancing shared-brand advantages against reputational risks and monitoring brand equity at the unit level.