From Purpose to Brand: How Purpose-Driven Organisations Translate Internal Purpose into Customer Experience

Abstract

Purpose-driven organisations increasingly place organisational purpose at the centre of how they define their identity and shape customer experience. However, there is still limited understanding of how this purpose moves from internal intent to something that can be observed and experienced externally, particularly in early-stage organisations. This study explores how organisational purpose is articulated, enacted, and experienced across communication, product design, and user experience, focusing on The NoMBA as an exploratory case. The research adopts a qualitative and exploratory approach. Data were gathered through documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with the organisation’s co-founder and a programme participant. An inductive analysis inspired by the Gioia methodology was used to develop first-order concepts, second-order themes, and aggregate dimensions grounded in the data. This approach allows for a context-sensitive understanding of how organisational purpose is both constructed and interpreted. The findings show that organisational purpose acts as a guiding framework that shapes both communication and product design, contributing to a largely coherent user experience. At the same time, this coherence is not entirely straightforward. Subtle tensions emerge between the organisation’s intended purpose and how it is interpreted by users, suggesting that purpose is not simply communicated, but co-constructed through interaction and experience. This study contributes to the literature on purpose-driven organisations by offering an in-depth view of how purpose is translated into practice within an early-stage context. It highlights the need to examine purpose across multiple organisational dimensions and positions coherence as an emergent and interpretative outcome rather than a fixed condition. While the findings are not statistically generalisable, they provide useful insights for organisations seeking to align purpose with branding and user experience.