Contrasting cases of corporate heritage-in-use: vibrant versus latent approaches

The chapter describes corporate heritage across Canada and Australia, examining two major corporates, Canadian Tire Corporation and David Jones, and deals with consideration of a third company, Canadian Tim Hortons. It focuses on the senior management stewardship of the organisation. The chapter focuses on organisation corporate culture more generally as a critical pivot or bridge between heritage stewardship and diffusion of corporate heritage throughout all members of the organisation and indeed throughout all competencies in the organisation. It argues that corporate culture is the key to linking and thus facilitating these two groups. The chapter refers to heritage competencies as business and retail competencies that "can accord an entity with a heritage distinctiveness if it has prevailed over time". It argues that the link between heritage stewardship and the diffused use of competencies throughout the organisation is usually "mediated" through corporate culture.