What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand For? Greyser, Stephen A; Urde, Mats
Harvard business review,
01/2019, Letnik:
January February 2019, Številka:
January February 2019
Magazine Article
Odprti dostop
Companies are extremely good at defining their product brands. Customers, employees, and other stakeholders know exactly what an iPhone is and means. But organizations are often less sure-footed when ...it comes to the corporate brand. What does the parent company’s name really stand for, and how is it perceived and leveraged in the marketplace and within the company itself?A clear, unified corporate identity can be critical to competitive strategy, as firms like Apple, Philips, and Unilever understand. It serves as a north star, providing direction and purpose. It can also enhance the image of individual products, help firms recruit and retain employees, and provide protection against reputational damage in times of trouble. Many firms, however, struggle to articulate and communicate their brand.
Internal branding in universities has been acknowledged in marketing literature as an important area of research. In the context of higher education institutions, employees play a crucial role in the ...branding process. Research within the current spectrum of internal branding indicates some ambiguities surrounding internal branding in higher education. Yet very few studies are available in the field of internal branding within universities to explore employee behaviour in brand support. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to examine, from the academic staff’s perspective, the relationships between internal branding in universities and employee brand support and also the relevant underlying mechanisms (specifically, the mediating effects of internal branding aspects, i.e., 1. brand-centred training and development activities and 2. internal brand communications) in a Thai university context. This study employed a mixed methods approach with a dominant quantitative component, involving semi-structured interviews (with 19 respondents) and a pilot survey (with 95 respondents) to collect data for the development of measurement scales. Afterwards, the main survey (with 347 respondents) was conducted in order to test the research hypotheses and the proposed conceptual model. In addition, information from the semi-structured inteviews is used to explain the relationships found in this study after hypothesis testing. Based on a review of the existing literature in a range of fields (including higher education management, brand management, organisational identity, organisational culture and behaviour, corporate communication, human resource management, marketing management, government policy and leadership), this study proposes a conceptual model of the positive relationships between internal branding activities in universities (internal brand communications and brand-centred training and development activities) and employee brand support. In addition, the transformational leadership characteristics of the immediate leader (idealised influence or charisma; inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration) are also included in the model as determinants of internal branding activities and employee brand support. Brand-centred training and development activities and internal brand communication activities are proposed as mediators of the relationships in the model. The proposed conceptual model is developed on the basis of marketing control theory (Jaworski, 1988) combined with transformational leadership theory (Burns, 1978), social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) and Lewin’s (1947) change theory. From the statistical findings, together with upport from the literature and the in-depth interviews during the exploratory stage, this study finds positive relationships between brand-centred training and development activities, internal brand communication activities, the transformational leadership characteristics of the immediate leaders and employee brand support. However, an unexpected outcome is that the relationship between internal brand communication activities and employee brand support is not significant. This outcome indicates that the brand-centred training and development construct fully mediates the relationship between internal brand communication activities and employee brand support. Therefore, in order to create employee brand support behaviours among academic staff, institutions cannot rely solely on their internal communication activities. This finding highlights a crucial role for brand-centred training and development activities in building employee brand support in the context of higher education. In addition, the study finds that, given transformational leadership characteristics, an immediate leader of academic staff not only affects their brand support behaviour, but also either initiates or influences internal branding activities in the institution, thereby creating employee brand support among academic staff. Therefore, institutions which want to build employee brand support from the academic staff should ensure that the immediate leaders of their academic staff’ should manifest transformational leadership characteristics. Finally, this investigation is expected to be of value in advancing current knowledge about internal branding in universities and also be useful to higher education management and public policy-makers who want to encourage academic staff to support their university’s brand.
Brand Knowledge Sharing Pokryshkina, Maria; Kananen, Niko; Viskari, Jutta
Developing Insights on Branding in the B2B Context,
08/2018
Book Chapter
Abstract
This chapter offers insights on how knowledge management (KM) tools and initiatives contribute to successful internal branding. Knowledge management has gained considerable recognition from ...both business practitioners and academics. However, understanding and implementation of KM practices in relation to internal branding is still a largely unexplored field. The authors, thus, present several models of knowledge sharing and outline their applicability to the field of internal branding. Through a case study of a Finnish multinational company Teleste, this chapter shows the applicability of the presented theories for brand knowledge sharing. The practical case looks at how knowledge sharing helped Teleste in the process of rebranding, particularly when promoting its new brand image within the organization.
Leadership is often regarded as the fuel to jump-start changes and improvement in organizations. At the same time, innovation is widely discussed as an important element in organizational ...development. In numerous theoretical discussions and stories of companies across the globe, successful organizational innovation depends on leadership. As the leadership pushes for innovation, the company’s internal branding is expected to improve. This is particularly true for transformation leadership, perhaps. Such an internal branding is expected to shape much stronger employee-based brand equity (EBBE). Likewise, the company’s innovation should enhance the customer intimacy by means of word of mouth. The relationships may not have been widely researched though the presence of technology has allowed increasing popularity in electronic communication and information sharing. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM), like testimonies, spreads insights and experiences for others. This affects customers’ reactions to products and services. Service-based companies may have relied on eWOM to keep the traffic-inflows while maintaining intimacy with customers. This study attempts to analyze the relationships among transformational leadership, product/service innovation, internal branding, eWOM, EBBE, and customer intimacy in Indonesian service-based companies, such as; hotels and restaurants. A structural equation modeling is incorporated to note the simultaneous relationships.
Branding subject in latest decades became one of the most important research priorities in marketing management domain. This research with aim of goal setting theory an internal branding try to ...identify effective factors on employee`s commitment and loyalty and brand performance at employee level. Statistical society contains all employees at three levels: branch chairman, master operators and cashiers of branches of Keshavarzi Bank of Tehran. According to accessibility of branches list, clustering sampling has been applied. Data collection has done through questionnaire and 207 of 240 distributed questionnaires collected that was applicable. Cronbach`s alpha for all latent variables was acceptable and reliability of content was suitable. In scope of aim this paper categorized as applied one and descriptive in scope of data collection. Model testing has been done through structural modeling using Liserel version 8.5. Results shows that brand goal clarity has positive effect on employees` commitment (?=0.37; t=2.04), but has no effect on employees` brad loyalty. Perceived hardness of goal has negative effect on brand commitment (?=-0.27; t=2.34) but has no effect on brand loyalty, internal branding positively affect brand loyalty (?=0.23; t=2.54), but has no effect on brad commitment. Brand commitment has positive effect on brand loyalty (?=0.53; t=3.32) and band loyalty has positive effect on brand performance in employees` level (?=0.36; t=3.47).
It takes more to succeed in todays global marketplace. More responsiveness. More flexibility. More commitment. To compete, organisations need their staff to understand business goals and brand values ...and feel personally committed to their achievement. To flourish, they need their people to act as champions of their business and their brand, both internally and with customers and other external stakeholders. Many businesses realise this and have started talking about staff buyin. Yet they have failed to achieve the results they need. This paper explores what staff buyin really means and how it ultimately affects customers, using the findings of two major surveys commissioned by MCA and conducted by MORI. It also looks at the managerial implications of new approaches to employee communication and internal marketing and the potential impact on business performance.
Three perspectives of hotel brand equity, i.e., financial, customer, and employee, were identified and reviewed thoroughly in this paper. A holistic model of brand equity management was proposed, and ...relationships among financial based, customer based, and employee based brand equity were investigated. Management implications were made, and future research directions were discussed.
It takes more to succeed in today's global marketplace. More responsiveness. More flexibility. More commitment. To compete, organisations need their staff to understand business goals and brand ...values and feel personally committed to their achievement. To flourish, they need their people to act as champions of their business and their brand, both internally and with customers and other external stakeholders. Many businesses realise this and have started talking about staff "buy-in". Yet they have failed to achieve the results they need. This paper explores what staff buy-in really means and how it ultimately affects customers, using the findings of two major surveys commissioned by MCA and conducted by MORI. It also looks at the managerial implications of new approaches to employee communication and internal marketing and the potential impact on business performance.
In service marketing, the behaviour of personnel is a crucial element in the brand building process. When a brand changes, employees have to adapt their behaviour in order to deliver the new promises ...of the brand to the customer. This paper examines the learning process that leads to that new behaviour. Drawing on a competence based definition of internal branding, we find the three traditional elements of the internal branding process, (i.e. the cognitive, affective and conative elements), although in a reversed order. Facilitating and prohibiting factors are identified. Suggestions for further research and managerial implications are discussed.
Due to characteristics of service such as intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability, the value of service brand is transferred by the interaction between employees and customers. Researchers ...gradually realize that brand building needs involvement of every member in the corporation and emphasis on internal factors of the corporation such as internal communication, corporate culture, etc. Only several scholars have proposed the concept and opinions about "internal brand building", "internal branding", and "internalize brand", but there is little further research. We perform a longitudinal case study of 1 famous insurance company and find out some important factors of service brand building internally. To find out more valuable information and to confirm our conclusions from the above case study, we perform another 4 semi-structured interviews to 4 representative service companies from information communication, bank, hotel and insurance respectively. After these case studies, we propose the key endogenetic factors of service brand internalization, and construct a conceptual model of service brand internalization. Our work will further the research of service brand internalization and provide an effective instrument for service corporations to improve their brand management
