Employee-based brand equity
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2010
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This dissertation examines the importance of company branding strategy aimed at
company employees. The focus of brand equity research to date has been to advance
the knowledge and understanding of the relationship between the brand and the
customer. However, brand equity can also affect a company's employees. This study
proposes a theoretically structured approach to measure brand equity from the employee
perspective, and its outcomes. This study incorporates theoretical customer-based
brand equity (CBBE) approaches of information economics and cognitive psychology
to develop and test the employee-based brand equity (EBBE) framework. The present
study employed a conceptual framework which addresses the relationship between
brand equity and employee. This approach allows the researcher and practitioner to
explore the perception of the company brand from the individual employee perspective.
Driven by the recognition of a need for empirical validation, the present study was
guided by the research question: What is the role of brand equity for the employee? The
following interrelated sub-questions have been formulated: (1) How can employee based
brand equity be conceptualised and measured? (2) What are the outcomes of
employer brand equity? In this study it is hypothesised that where employees perceive
their employer brand to have high equity, they are more able to deliver the company's
brand promise to customers and are more likely to stay longer with the company.
Using the literature review as the point of departure, a conceptual EBBE framework was
developed. A six-step approach was applied to ensure the comprehension of the
measures. Using structural equation modelling (SEM) as the data analysis method, all
major fit indices indicate satisfactory results. The results support hypothesised
relationships between constructs in the conceptual model. The findings in this research
confirm the necessity of understanding EBBE, which can enhance employee's brand
commitment such as perceived value, person-organisation fit and identification with
organisation. The empirical results of this study demonstrate that EBBE has a
significant and positive impact on employees' brand commitment. Moreover, this study
confirms that brand commitment affects employee behaviour, such as customerorientation
and retention.
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