This study proposes and tests the effectiveness of an integrated approach to community-based internal branding (CBIB) in a business-to-business setting. It integrates classical and contemporary views ...on internal branding, integrating community-building activities into the proposed internal branding framework ensuring a holistic model of co-creation of a corporate brand identity. It also examines the moderation effect of employee's personal, job, and community-related characteristics on the relationships in the proposed model.
This paper presents a detailed narrative review to propose a conceptual model and uses a quantitative research design to test a set of hypotheses using structural equation modeling on 400 responses collected through a survey.
This study finds that integrated CBIB is a viable approach for implementing internal branding. The effectiveness of building employee brand commitment is demonstrated through the testing of the model. We also find that employee's age, gender, organizational tenure, membership duration (in the brand community), education level, customer interaction, leadership status, and participation in brand fests moderate the proposed relationships in the CBIB model.
One key limitation of this paper is that it lacks the multi-cultural and multi-industry perspective, which, given promising results in the current context, may be investigated in future studies.
The paper proposes a community mode of implementing internal branding in a B2B setting and suggests a way to create brand champions across the organization.
As per the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first quantitative investigation of integrated community-based internal branding.
•This study proposes and tests of an employee brand ambassador community-based internal branding (CBIB) approach to implementing internal branding in a business-to-business (B2B) setting.•This study reconciles both the classical and the contemporary views on internal branding by integrating community-building activities into the proposed internal branding framework ensuring a holistic model of co-creation of a corporate brand.•This study finds that CBIB is a viable approach for implementing internal branding and extends the concept of brand communities to include employees as brand ambassadors.•We also find that several moderators moderate the proposed relationships in the CBIB model.•Managers may implement a community mode of internal branding in a B2B setting and to create brand champions across the organization.
Over the last twenty-five years, employer branding has been a subject of increasing attention among HRM scholars and practitioners. However, very limited research has explored the link between ...employer branding and HRM performance. To address the gap, in this study we explored how employer branding orientation impacted recruitment outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition we combined both the brand orientation and internal branding concepts to better empirically explain their impact on building employer brand orientation. Based on cross-sectional data collected from 233 companies operating on Russian labor market, we found the positive relationships between brand orientation and employer branding orientation, between employer branding orientation and the employer branding programs, which are positively related to recruitment outcomes. However, the moderating effect of internal branding was negative. We also found moderating effects of COVID-19 in the relationship between employer branding orientation, employer branding programs, and recruitment outcomes.
Because human resources have a great impact on forming a positive image of the organization in the minds of customers, so today in the internal branding process, personnel have an important role in ...conveying brand promises to customers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze and identify the factors affecting internal branding from the perspective of executives. The method of this research is qualitative and the data obtained from interviews with 19 executives of hotels in Yazd who have been selected by snowball sampling method and have been analyzed using thematic analysis method and Nvivo software. The data after coding includes 642 initial codes, 32 themes and 9 comprehensive categories. The results showed that the effective factors in internal branding from the perspective of hotel executives includes training, monitoring, effective communication, effective meetings, customer orientation, leadership, selection and employment, service compensation and quality of working life.
This article explains what internal branding is and how to implement it based on inter-functional efforts between marketing and human resources departments. This article reviews academic literature ...and business articles to consolidate definitions, processes, and practices of internal branding. Internal branding implies an articulation between marketing and human resources departments to design, implement, and evaluate processes focused on promoting the brand among employees and increasing brand equity internally and externally. The human resources area has a superior domain in brand-centered human resource management. The marketing area leads the internal brand communications. Both areas participate proportionally in managing brand leadership. The three main processes of internal branding show an upward and downward relationship. This review summarizes the definition of internal branding based on advances in the literature and practice. This conceptualization helps professionals and researchers to understand what internal branding is. In addition, this article provides a detailed guide about how to implement internal branding explaining the roles that marketing and human resources departments play in the implementation process.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to better understand the voice of the internal stakeholder in a way that emphasizes the internal stakeholder as an active force and decision maker in brand ...co-creation, as part of the new emerging paradigm of internal branding. The main aim is to understand the active role of volunteers in internal branding that is in the co-creation of value. A subsidiary aim is to understand why some volunteers engage deeply and seriously in a nonprofit organization while other volunteers seem less connected?
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework incorporates several motivators to volunteer-led co-creation. A quantitative, co-variance-based structural equation modelling approach is used on survey data of a sample of 357 volunteers from 14 organizations in the Australian nonprofit sector.
Findings
The research findings contribute to the newly emerging internal branding literature focusing on the active co-creation role of internal stakeholders. The main drivers of volunteer co-creation are volunteer engagement, commitment, altruism, values-congruency and brand reputation. Different explanatory mechanisms/motivators apply to each type of volunteer-led co-creation. In a major initiative, the paper demonstrates linkages across the different types of co-creation, with a foundation/pivotal role for one particular type of co-creation, namely, enhanced client-based solutions.
Research limitations/implications
The research is restricted to the public sector and further research is needed to test applicability to the private sector. Future studies could continue the initiative in the current study to explore the linkages across co-creation types.
Practical implications
Implications depend on which type of co-creation is targeted. Enhancing client-based solutions co-creation requires a very strong role for engaged volunteers. Innovation co-creation requires both engaged volunteers and a propensity to co-create by enhancing client-based solutions. Brand advocacy co-creation is driven by volunteer commitment, altruism and a propensity to co-create innovation.
Social implications
A non-profit context ensures major social implications.
Originality/value
The study operationalizes the Saleem and Iglesias (2016) new internal branding paradigm framework by demonstrating that brands are built organically by interacting and engaging with internal stakeholders (volunteers in this instance), which, in turn, inter alia, motivates co-creation by such internal stakeholders.
Digitalization has generated new challenges and opportunities for brand communication and relationship marketing. As more and more B2B brands are utilizing digital technology for brand communication ...with multiple stakeholders, it is worth further investigation how digitalization can empower employees to reach better branding-supportive outcomes at various stages of the internal branding process. Through a case study, we propose a process model framework in which digital technologies promote employees to become Institutional Adaptor, Brand Performer, and Brand Champions. Specifically, our case findings reveal that depending on the degree to which digitalization can be viewed as an add-on service or an ingrained element in the value chains aligned with strategic goals, digital technologies can be associated with different enablement mechanisms relating to operational optimality, better sensing and responding capability, and ultimately ambidexterity. As existing literature largely examines the technological dimension of digital enablement technologies, this study emphases the importance of technology-strategy alignment in B2B internal branding context.
•As existing literature largely examines the technological dimension of digital enablement technologies, this study emphases the importance of technology-strategy alignment in B2B internal branding context.•Through a case study, we propose a process model framework in which digital technologies promote employees to become Institutional Adaptor, Brand Performer, and Brand Champions by enhancing an organization's operational optimality, better sensing and responding capability, and ambidexterity.•Our study bridges the gap between branding and IS literature by adding critical inputs for understanding the interrelationship between technology practices and their practitioners in the internal branding context.
The internal effects of branding are a topic that is rarely investigated within a business-to-business context. This paper illustrates and validates a conceptual model that connects mechanisms of ...internal branding to job satisfaction. Additionally, it broadens the understanding of internal branding by investigating the impacts of brand individuality and personality brand fit in an intra-organizational context. By applying PLS-SEM on a survey of employees in mechanical engineering firms located in Germany, this paper shows that the employer's brand influences employees' job satisfaction. It confirms mechanisms that help to explain the building of brand knowledge by employees and links this knowledge to the affective evaluation of both the employment and the employer's brand. In particular, the role of brand individuality and personality–brand fit is examined in more detail. This paper shows that the design of the employer's brand can be an instrument that enables firms to achieve higher job satisfaction.
•Internal branding measures influence the employees' evaluation of employment.•Brand individuality plays an important role when employees build brand knowledge.•Personality brand fit also determines employees' commitment to the employer's brand.
Marshalling empirical insights from three empirical studies, this work unveils the heterogeneous nature of front-line employees’ (FLEs) corporate brand construals. Our insights contest corporate ...brand perspectives that assume employees respond to internal branding initiatives in a homogeneous manner. In Study 1, four types of FLEs’ corporate brand construals are identified (i.e. brand enthusiasts, brand conformists, brand deviants, brand skeptics). Study 2a develops and validates the measurement scales of these four types. Through a Bayesian SEM approach, Study 2b reveals the existence of multifaceted cognitive and affective FLEs’ responses to corporate branding initiatives. Our findings substantiate the significance of the social identity theory to both corporate/internal branding by revealing the link between corporate brand construal and corporate brand identification. In instrumental terms, this typology explains variations in FLEs’ corporate brand promise delivery and renders practitioners more equipped to implement corporate branding initiatives.
Recently, internal branding has gained relevance in the marketing literature because researchers recognize that corporate brand management not only implicates external actions but also an internal ...approach that involves employees. Despite the growing interest, there is no consensus among authors about antecedents, dimensions, and outcomes of internal branding. In this sense, this paper aims to explore the conceptualization of internal branding and to offer opportunities for future research. The study is a systematic literature review that uses a specific database. The contributions of each article were extracted, organized, and processed following systematic procedures. This review defines internal branding as a cross-functional process that involves both marketing and human resource departments. It focuses on managing the brand internally through brand-centered human resource management, internal brand communications, and brand leadership, with the aim of achieving brand outcomes among employees (brand understanding, brand identification, brand commitment, brand loyalty, brand citizenship behaviors) so they can build brand equity in front of external stakeholders. Although a lack of consensus had been established, the literature evidenced similarities that gave rise to the conceptualization proposed in this study. Nevertheless, the discussion about internal branding is still open because there are several issues to investigate in this field.
Internal Branding Löhndorf, Birgit; Diamantopoulos, Adamantios
Journal of service research : JSR,
08/2014, Letnik:
17, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Prior research acknowledges employees' crucial role in building strong service brands, yet empirical research on how to turn employees into brand champions remains scarce and has been largely ...approached from an internal branding perspective. Drawing on social identity and social exchange theories, this study takes a broader organizational perspective to link internal branding outcomes (employee-brand fit, brand knowledge, and belief in the brand) and employees' perceptions of organizational support to a range of employee brand-building behaviors, with organizational identification as the key mediating mechanism. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of employee data from a major retail bank reveal organizational identification as a strong motivational force for employees to become brand champions, largely mediating the effects of internal branding outcomes. When organizational identification is low, perceived organizational support (as a quality indicator of employees' exchange-based relationship with the organization) constitutes an alternative, external motivator of on-the-job brand building behaviors; when organizational identification is high, perceived organizational support boosts employees' voluntary participation in brand development and positive word-of-mouth. These findings highlight the managerial relevance of the employee-organization relationship for turning employees into brand champions and show how organizational identification can be stimulated by means of internal branding.
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