Purpose
The study aims to explore strategic employer brand management by combining experiences of multiple organizations. In particular, the purpose is to identify what strategic management processes ...managers consider relevant to employer brand management for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Design/methodology/approach
This study took an inductive approach, observing a practitioner project in Sweden. The data were gathered during four full-day workshops, where 14 SMEs from different industries were chosen to participate and to actively work their employer brand(ing) activities.
Findings
The results show that organizations have difficulty understanding and comparing employer branding practices, and thus, evaluating their own brand. The major themes show that organizations have two focus points for their employer branding work: building strategic structures (processes) on one hand, and a collective identity that aligns with the brand values, on the other. However, organizations differ in these dimensions, affecting what needs to be done to become successful.
Originality/value
This contributes to the limited knowledge about employer branding, human resources development (HRD) and SMEs. In addition, most of the previous studies have neglected to take into account the differences between organizations, approaching employer branding as a universal process. This paper summarizes different positions for employer brands that affect strategy: the unmanaged, the non-strategic, the impersonal and finally, the co-created. Co-creation can be facilitated with the help of constructive and collaborative HRD. Then, it can be turned into a dynamic capability that builds competitive advantage.
Attracting and retaining high-quality employees is becoming an unrelenting challenge for many employers. Therefore, employer branding is a key developmental area for companies, as it aims to attract ...potential employees and to engage the current staff. This paper investigates how current employees in tourism and hospitality perceive their employers regarding the level of creativity and innovation in the workplace. The study adopts the Employer Attractiveness scale, with a specific focus on the component capturing aspects of creativity and innovation. An online survey and in-depth interviews were conducted with employees working in different areas of the tourism and hospitality sector in Sweden. The results suggest that many employees perceive their jobs as creative, and further indicate that the possibility of being creative and innovative at work is an important driver for employees to stay with their current employer. This factor also influences their intention to recommend employment at the company to others. Moreover, the results of this study suggest that the economic value in terms of total compensation is important for employees in the tourism and hospitality sector, as it affects intention to stay as well as likelihood to recommend.
Kindness can strengthen your employer brand. The business environment is changing, and the value of kindness in the corporate world is garnering increased attention. Paying it forward is a way to ...pass acts of kindness on to others. This allows employees and business partners to go above and beyond formal expectations that not only benefit the individuals involved but also the businesses they represent. Paying it forward can potentially create competitive advantage for firms from an employer branding perspective (to attract and retain talent) and in the broader market sense. This behavior can strengthen the employer brand in numerous and effective ways, and managers must understand, engage in, and encourage such conduct. In this article, we discuss different examples, benefits, and risks of paying kindness forward on a micro-, meso-, and macro-level. After providing this foundation, we introduce practical guidelines for managers on how to foster a paying-it-forward mindset among employees and the broader organization. The guidelines were created using insights from interviews we conducted with stakeholders in a business ecosystem in northern Sweden.
This research investigates how employer branding can be strengthened by taking a business ecosystem approach that encourages and leverages indirect social exchanges, such as the behaviour of paying ...it forward. This work is founded on extant literature and exploratory interviews with individuals from firms seeking to strengthen their employer brand by interdependently operating in a business ecosystem. A model is developed that proposes how indirect social exchanges can occur in an ecosystem, and what types of outcomes it can lead to for the individuals, firms and the ecosystem as a whole. As far as can be ascertained, this is the first study that combines these perspectives. The work suggests that there is value for firms in taking an ecosystem-focused approach to employer branding. The findings highlight that indirect or generalized social exchanges can provide value for individual firms when they form a group of interdependent collaborators rather than simply being competitors. Further, this work adds to the literature related to employee and partner extra-role behaviour by proposing the perspective of an Ecosystem Citizenship Behaviour. Ecosystem Citizenship Behaviour is an extra-role behaviour that occurs in the business ecosystem and as such can be beneficial for joint employer branding initiatives of participating firms.
•This study assesses Generalised Social Exchange (GSE) behaviour in B2B relationships.•The focus is on GSE behaviour for employer branding outcomes in business ecosystems.•An ecosystem-centric employer branding perspective emerged, highlighting interdependencies.•‘Ecosystem Citizen Behaviour’ (ECB) is introduced as an outcome of GSE in ecosystems.•The work is based on empirical data from a Scandinavian business ecosystem.
Marketers play an integral part in the strategic planning process of a firm, both concerning the role of marketing in the strategic discourse, as well as the marketers' interaction between various ...levels of hierarchy within an organization. The top management team (TMT) formulates strategic decision and influences the implementation of tactical approaches. Organizations often also mirror their TMT. Organizational strategy plays a critical role in the marketing capability of an organization, as activities are decided based on strategy and organizational goals. A TMT needs to be structurally composed in such a way that the firm is functionally positioned to respond and adapt to challenges in the marketplace continuously. With this in mind, the paper develops a conceptual representation of the interface between marketing organization, strategic decision-making, functional TMTs, and organizational structure. We conceptually assess the impact of functional TMT composition on marketing organization and corporate-level strategy alignment. Our research question focuses on how functional TMT composition and decision-making impacts marketing organization and overall market orientation. At the crossroads between strategic organizational decision-making and leadership, the upper echelon theory and contingency theory serves as the theoretical foundations from which conceptual propositions are developed in the context of marketing organization and market orientation.
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on conditions for workplace learning (WPL) in highly transient workplaces, exemplified by the tourism and hospitality sector in the Arctic region. The aim is to ...analyse and discuss how employees and employers view the conditions for employees’ WPL from their respective perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a qualitative approach. Ten interviews with employers and ten interviews with employees were carried out. This opens for different perspectives, including identifying “learning gaps”. The analysis was thematic, with a focus on opportunities and challenges for WPL in these transient workplace contexts.
Findings
Overall, conditions for WPL seem unsatisfactory. On the one hand, both employees and employers see WPL as essential for staff retention. Employers also see WPL as a strategy for business development and, thus, profit. On the other hand, high staff turnover makes it challenging to strategically invest in and organize for WPL, especially formal learning. Hence, a Catch-22 situation emerges.
Research limitations/implications
As this study is qualitative in its scope, generalizations are analytical rather than statistical.
Originality/value
There is a shortage of studies on conditions for WPL, focusing particularly on transient workplaces. Moreover, by including employer and employee perspectives, the authors contribute to a gap in the literature. The empirical contribution of this paper thus lies in using a theoretical WPL framework on transient workplaces, exemplified by the tourism and hospitality industries in the Arctic region.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand personalities that employees are creating of their employer brands, in particular business-to-business (B-to-B) brands, when describing ...these brands on social media. We examine how the brand personalities, based on written online reviews, differ between high- and low-ranked, and high- and low-rated brands.
Methodology/Approach: 6,300 written employee reviews from a social media platform, Glassdoor, are used for content analysis in DICTION, to determine the brand personality dimensions they communicate (J. L). An independent B-to-B brand ranking data source, Brandwatch, is used as a reference to various brands' level of ranking, while an ANOVA test is used to determine whether there is a difference in the brand personality trait means when comparing high and low-ranked, and high- and low-rated brands.
Findings: Our findings suggest that a strong social media presence does not equate to a strong employer brand personality perception among employees, since there are no significant differences between B-to-B firms based on their rankings.
Research Implications: Extant literature has mostly explored the impact of either critical reviews or favourable customer ratings and reviews on company performance, with very little research focusing on the B-to-B context. In addition, research employing DICTION for the purposes of content analysis of reviews is sparse. The methodology used in this study could thus be employed to further compare and contrast the reviews from a single company, dividing top and low starred reviews to compare discrepancies.
Practical Implications: The results of this study show how online shared employee experiences of employer brands contribute to the formation of a distinct employer brand personality. From a managerial viewpoint, engaging with current and past employees and being cognizant of the online narratives that they share on social media, may be an early indicator of where the firm is lacking (or showing strength) in its' employee engagement. This would offer a way for firms to both understand their employer brand personality as well as gauge how they compare to top employers in a specific sector or industry.
Originality/Value/Contribution: The study attempts to grow the literature of employee brand engagement in a B-to-B context, by recognizing the important role that employees play in engaging with their employer brand online. Two main contributions are offered. The first contribution relates to the finding that employees perceive highly-rated B-to-B brands as being more competent, exciting, sincere and sophisticated than low-rated B-to-B brands. Second, the methodology used in this study proves to be a novel and accurate way of comparing employee reviews and perceived employer brand personality, with the employer-created intended brand image.
This study explores the role of employees as both a target group and co-creators of employer brand equity in tourism and hospitality. Extant research has largely focused on the effects of external ...employer brands; however, studies on internal employer branding have been lacking. The research problem is addressed through the conceptual lens of employer brand equity. To provide empirical insights into employee experiences, exploratory in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 employees in hotels, restaurants, and retail stores in Northern Sweden. While employees constitute a target market for internal employer branding, they also co-create the employer value proposition. Employees act as brand members, representatives, advocates and influencers, increasing knowledge about the organization internally and externally. However, in practice, companies in the service sector seem to place more focus on the customer experience than on reminding the employees of the brand promise towards them. This study identifies and describes the role of employees in the employer branding process by developing a new conceptual framework. Thereby, it adds to the understanding of co-creation in employer branding, an under-researched area which has been suggested to become a new paradigm in the employer branding literature.
Purpose : The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand personalities that employees are creating of their employer brands, in particular business-to-business (B-to-B) brands, when describing ...these brands on social media. We examine how the brand personalities, based on written online reviews, differ between high- and low-ranked, and high- and low-rated brands.
Methodology/Approach : 6,300 written employee reviews from a social media platform, Glassdoor, are used for content analysis in DICTION, to determine the brand personality dimensions they communicate (J. L). An independent B-to-B brand ranking data source, Brandwatch, is used as a reference to various brands’ level of ranking, while an ANOVA test is used to determine whether there is a difference in the brand personality trait means when comparing high and low-ranked, and high- and low-rated brands.
Findings : Our findings suggest that a strong social media presence does not equate to a strong employer brand personality perception among employees, since there are no significant differences between B-to-B firms based on their rankings.
Research Implications : Extant literature has mostly explored the impact of either critical reviews or favourable customer ratings and reviews on company performance, with very little research focusing on the B-to-B context. In addition, research employing DICTION for the purposes of content analysis of reviews is sparse. The methodology used in this study could thus be employed to further compare and contrast the reviews from a single company, dividing top and low starred reviews to compare discrepancies.
Practical Implications : The results of this study show how online shared employee experiences of employer brands contribute to the formation of a distinct employer brand personality. From a managerial viewpoint, engaging with current and past employees and being cognizant of the online narratives that they share on social media, may be an early indicator of where the firm is lacking (or showing strength) in its’ employee engagement. This would offer a way for firms to both understand their employer brand personality as well as gauge how they compare to top employers in a specific sector or industry.
Originality/Value/Contribution : The study attempts to grow the literature of employee brand engagement in a B-to-B context, by recognizing the important role that employees play in engaging with their employer brand online. Two main contributions are offered. The first contribution relates to the finding that employees perceive highly-rated B-to-B brands as being more competent, exciting, sincere and sophisticated than low-rated B-to-B brands. Second, the methodology used in this study proves to be a novel and accurate way of comparing employee reviews and perceived employer brand personality, with the employer-created intended brand image.
This study develops and investigates a framework for better understanding employer branding. More specifically, the overall purpose is to provide a deeper understanding on how employer branding is ...used to attract and retain talent. An extensive literature review leads to a proposed conceptual framework focusing on two key research questions: How can the relationship between corporate branding, internal branding and employer branding in service industries be described? And, How can the role of corporate values in delivering the brand promise be described? A qualitative, case study approach is used to collect data from a financial services company in Sweden. The data collected and analyzed reveals that the areas of employer, internal and corporate branding are not mutually exclusive, but instead an intertwined collection of branding issues that together form the corporation’s core values. All of this together is what allows the corporation to in turn deliver its brand(s) promise to several stakeholder groups.
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