The term perceptual alignment is used in various research fields to describe the extent to which individuals share the same perceptions about an object or idea. Perceptual alignment is important from a corporate branding perspective because strong corporate brands express associations and sources of ideals that are attractive and appealing to the stakeholders related to the organisation. This expression, when aligned with the stakeholders, is assumed to create a sense of belonging to the organisation and the brand, which affects the attitudes, decisions and behaviours of the stakeholders. This thesis examines perceptual alignment based on retail brand image from the employee’s perspective, and whether employees share the same retail brand perceptions as their perceived stakeholders involving the perceived customers, top management, colleagues, and closest manager. A strong alignment suggests a coherent brand, and the corporate branding literature assumes that strong alignment is a pre-requisite for successful corporate brand performance. However, this conceptual assumption has not been extensively examined and tested. The few existing quantitative studies that have investigated the relationship between perceptual alignment and performance outcomes have provided mixed results. This has created the need for more empirical research regarding the effects of perceptual alignment, especially related to brand performance. This study is one of the first to examine the relationship between perceptual alignment of retail brand image from the employee perspective in relation to other perceived stakeholders and the effects on internal, external and economic performance outcomes related to brand equity. This thesis labels this form of perceptual alignment as employee perceived stakeholder alignment. The thesis highlights the development of corporate branding in the retail sector and draws primarily from two central themes: (1) the importance of alignment between stakeholders’ brand perceptions, and (2) the role of employees in the corporate brand-building process. Based on three main quantitative studies in the retail sector, the results show that employee perceived stakeholder alignment plays an important role in strengthening the brand. The results also contribute to the general corporate branding literature, as the findings demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between two types of perceptual alignment. One type is based on current perceptions (beliefs about what the retail brand stands for today) and another based on ideal perceptions (meaningful and relevant beliefs about what the retail brand should stand for) between stakeholders. The findings show that the two types of perceptual alignment, as well as employee perceived alignment with different involved stakeholders, have varying effects on internal, external and economic performance outcomes. On a conceptual level, this thesis shows how perceptual alignment can tie corporate branding and brand equity together into a single integrated conceptual framework of…

Previous experiments have attempted to measure smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) to acoustic targets with limited success. Some studies found no evidence for SPEM (Gauthier and Hofferer, 1967; Schaefer et al., 1981; Boucher et al., 2004; Berryhill et al., 2006) and other studies found only a sub-set of subjects could produce SPEM, which was poor in quality (Krukowski et al., 2001; Hashiba et al., 1996; Cloninger et al., 2013, 2014). These findings are despite evidence of auditory motion perception and an auditory motion aftereffect in the psychoacoustic literature (Carlile and Best, 2002; Dong et al., 2000). This thesis explored a multi-modal question, whether sounds can facilitate or interfere with pursuit of a visual target by moving congruent with or incongruent with linear visual motion, and did so using high-fidelity eye tracking that allowed for examination of the main pursuit characteristics: latency, open-loop acceleration, open-loop peak acceleration, steady-state gain (i.e., eye velocity/ target velocity), and number of “catch-up” saccades. Results showed evidence of facilitation in some characteristics (open-loop peak acceleration) but no evidence of interference, possibly due to the strength of the visual stimulus. Advisors/Committee Members: Watamaniuk, Scott (Advisor).