The role of employer brand equity in employee attraction and retention: a unified framework

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sultan Alshathry ◽  
Marilyn Clarke ◽  
Steve Goodman

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for employer brand equity (EBE) that combines both perspectives of employer brand customers into a unified framework for employee attraction and retention. Design/methodology/approach This paper extends previous conceptual work on EBE by identifying the role of EBE antecedents in internal and external employer branding. In addition, it recognizes the interactive nature of employer-employee relationship. Findings The framework incorporates employee experience with the employer, which relates to the interaction between employee and employer and recognizes the internal and external perspectives simultaneously. Further, the unified framework helps to develop a four-cell typology for the strategic management of an employer brand. Originality/value Existing research has failed to integrate the two perspectives of employment customers in a clear model and, thus, offered limited applicability to an employment setting. The EBE framework goes beyond existing models by providing a conceptualization that aims to reflect the employer-brand relationship from the perspective of existing and potential employees. Further, it provides theoretical and empirical rationale for a set of propositions that can empirically be examined in future research.

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Gunesh ◽  
Vishwas Maheshwari

PurposeThe paper aims to demonstrate the utilization of banks’ career website for publicizing the employer branding strategy to enable effective strategic talent relationship management through talent attraction, engagement and retention.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach using purposive sample comprising HR professionals involving HR directors, reward managers and talent relationship managers, participated in semi-structured interviews.FindingsThis paper provides empirical insights on the use of career websites to disseminate the employer brand. The findings reveal the presence of recruitment orientation career websites across the banking sector. It also conveys HR practitioners’ suggestions for revamping the banks’ career websites to a more screening orientation approach for greater interactivity by both the internal and external talent pools.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper depicts the importance attributed around the utilization of career websites in promoting the employer brand by the HR community across the banking sector. It provides clear insights about the specific contents of career websites to enable sustainable talent attraction, engagement and retention.Originality/valueThis paper provides a qualitative insight to the study of employer branding and career websites. Whereas most previous research on career websites have been of a quantitative nature relying predominantly on fictitious websites, having mostly undergraduate students as research participants. This study contributes enormously to the existing literature and practice by unveiling the perceptions of HR professionals on the dissemination of the employer brand through the career website.


Author(s):  
Kristin Backhaus

Purpose The paper aims at a commentary on Graham and Cascio, “The employer-branding journal: its relationship with cross-cultural branding, brand reputation and brand repair”. Design/methodology/approach Based on the authors’ statement that “people make the brand”, this paper discusses elements of brand making and brand breaking. Findings Specifically, the paper discusses the creation of the employer brand, the positives and negatives of employees as brand ambassadors and the manner in which word-of-mouth information influences brands. Originality/value This commentary reflects on Graham and Cascio’s work and concludes with suggestions for future research.


Author(s):  
Lea Gregorka ◽  
Susana Silva ◽  
Cândida Silva

Employer branding is a marketing strategy that helps employers stay competitive in their markets. Although it is a concept used for over 20 years, its process and consequences have not yet been fully scrutinized. This study characterizes the employer branding implementation and the employers' perspective on it. By conducting ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews, the authors examine not only how employer branding practices have been applied, but also the role of human resources management in the process and used employee attraction and retention practices. The results suggest that although the employer branding process is not clearly structured, some stages can be identified as common. For that reason, the authors outline a stage divided framework and analyse each one of the identified stages. Furthermore, practical insights are provided about the company's departments roles and link them to the current state of the art. Finally, the authors suggest future investigation in particular stages of employer branding.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 218-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linn Viktoria Rampl ◽  
Peter Kenning

Purpose – The importance of employer branding to attract talent in organizations is increasing rapidly. Brand personality traits, particularly, have been shown to explain considerable variance in employer brand attractiveness. Despite such awareness, little is known about the underlying processes of this effect. The purpose of the authors is to close the research gap by drawing on a consumer brand model of brand affect and trust as a means of explaining employer brand attractiveness. Design/methodology/approach – Students interested in working in the consultancy industry completed a survey designed to evaluate consultancy employer brands. Established scales for brand personality, trust, and affect, and employer brand attractiveness were used to test the conceptual model. Findings – The results indicate that employer brand trust and affect are both influenced by the brand personality trait sincerity. Further, employer brand affect was positively affected by the traits excitement and sophistication, while negatively affected by ruggedness. Together, employer brand affect and trust explain 71 per cent of the variance in employer brand attractiveness. Research limitations/implications – While the results show the importance of branding an organization as a sincere, exciting, and sophisticated employer, future research is needed to identify adequate marketing tools to achieve this goal, also in other industries besides the one investigated here. Originality/value – This study is the first to apply a model that includes brand personality, trust, and affect to employer branding. By doing so, the variance explained in employer brand attractiveness could be increased substantially.


2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 1185-1208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Anselmsson ◽  
Niklas Bondesson ◽  
Frans Melin

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between an organization’s human resource management (HRM) image and its customer-based brand equity. Research into HRM in relation to branding has mostly dealt with how to attract and maintain employees through employer branding. The present study attempts to link HRM directly to marketing and branding aimed at customers as an altruistic dimension of the brand image and as something that applies to customers’ sociological needs. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a survey of Swedish customers in two different retail categories: groceries and home decoration. Findings The results show that HRM image is distinct from a more traditional service image and that there is a significant relationship between favourable customer perceptions of an organization’s HRM and customers’ willingness to buy and pay a premium for products provided by the retail chain. This finding leads to the conclusion that HRM is not only relevant for employer branding, internal branding and operations management but also plays a significant role in building customer-based brand equity. The results show that further integration of HRM and brand management is needed, both in theory and practice. Originality/value This study takes a holistic approach to marketing and is one of the first attempts to incorporate HRM and employer branding into the customer-based brand equity framework. Implications for future research, retailing and other businesses are discussed in the conclusion.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Yameen ◽  
Shubhangi Bharadwaj ◽  
Izhar Ahmad

Purpose This study aims to unveil the determinants of employer branding (EB) that attracts and retains the employees working in the Indian higher education sector using the factor-analytic approach. Design/methodology/approach The study is cross-sectional, and the data were collected from 141 employees working in the higher education sector. Exploratory factor analysis and independent t-test were deployed to analyze the data. Findings The results of independent samples t-test explicate that perception of male and female university employees pertaining to EB factors of employee attraction (EA) and employee retention (ER) is congruent. Further, the perception of employees in public and private universities on EB factor is similar for ER and non-similar for EA. Originality/value The present research is an effort to unveil the employee attraction and retention factors that play a vital role in showcasing an employer as a great place to work in the Indian higher education sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alka Rai ◽  
Benjamin Nandy

Purpose This study aims to explain the linkage between employer branding and employee retention; a sequential mediation is hypothesized, where it is proposed that the relationship between employer branding and employee retention is sequentially mediated by person–organization fit (P-O fit) and organizational identification. Design/methodology/approach The sample belongs to 224 executive-level employees of the Indian power sector organization. The sequential mediation model is tested by using SPSS macro command of Preacher and Hayes. Findings The findings established that the relationship between employer brand and employees’ intention to stay is sequentially mediated by P-O fit and organizational identification. Practical implications The findings emphasize the role of employer brand on constructs such as P-O fit, organizational identification and intention to stay. In addition, the established mechanism emphasizes the role of P-O fit to realize the benefits such as organizational identification and employee retention. Originality/value Internal branding efforts may have a major impact on workforce attitude and behavior including engagement, job performance and retention. “Yet studies of the positive impact of employer brand on employee attitudes and behaviors, or of the factors that shape employer brand, are rare” (Charbonnier-Voirin et al., 2017, p. 2). Along the line of such gap, this study has taken up to test the unexplored sequential mediation mechanism between employer brand and employees’ intention to stay through P-O fit and organizational identification.


Author(s):  
Saud Taj ◽  
Katie Sinclair

PurposeMultinational enterprises (MNEs) face twin pressures of maintaining a globally integrated brand while remaining responsive to local demands. Previous research has shown that misunderstandings may surface from the way subsidiary employees read corporate messages, particularly if institutional and social distances between corporate headquarters (HQs) and subsidiaries are wide. Employer branding is sometimes used to help resolve such tensions if HQs are sensitive to signals from their subsidiaries in the policy development process. Thus, this paper addresses the question: to what extent does institutional proximity facilitates the creation and maintenance of socially legitimate employer brands in MNE subsidiaries.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses an interpretive approach in analysing two cases of multinational subsidiaries operating in Pakistan but with divergent HQ institutional distances (Northern Europe and Middle East). A qualitative approach to data collection was taken and ten semi-structured interviews with senior and middle managers and two focus groups of six lower level employees in each case organization were conducted.FindingsThe findings suggest that institutional proximity played a secondary role in establishing a legitimate employer brand whereas a receptive and responsive signalling process was of greater importance. The authenticity of the employer brand was stronger in the organization that was more receptive to the incoming signals from local employees compared to the firm that was rather institutionally closer due to shared customs and culture.Practical implicationsFindings point to the significance of the character and intensity of the employment relationship at a micro level as the honesty and credibility of organizational messages and interpreted and re-interpreted at a localized level, thereby bearing serious implications for both global and local managers.Originality/valueThese findings contribute to the IHRM literature on the integration-responsiveness problem, to the debate over institutional proximity, and to the influence of religion on people management.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianne Redquest ◽  
Yona Lunsky

Purpose There has been an increase in research exploring the area of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and diabetes. Despite being described as instrumental to diabetes care for people with IDD, the role and experiences of family carers, such as parents and siblings, are often neglected in this research. However, it is clear that family carers do not feel that they have sufficient knowledge about diabetes. The purpose of this commentary is to extend the content from “Diabetes and people with learning disabilities: Issues for policy, practice, and education (Maine et al., 2020)” and discuss how family carers can feel better supported when caring for someone with IDD and diabetes. Design/methodology/approach This commentary discusses specific efforts such as STOP diabetes, DESMOND-ID and OK-diabetes for people with IDD including family carers. Encouragement is given for health care providers to recommend such programmes to people with IDD and their family carers. It is also suggested that health care providers involve family carers in diabetes care planning and implementation for people with IDD. Findings It is hoped that if changes are made to current diabetes practices and more research with family carers is conducted, diabetes prevention and management for people with IDD will be more successful and family carers can feel more confident in providing support to their loved ones. Originality/value Research exploring the role of family carers in diabetes care for people with IDD and diabetes is very limited. This commentary makes recommendations to help family carers feel better supported in their role. It also provides areas for future research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-509
Author(s):  
Deepa Jawahar ◽  
Vinney Zephaniah Vincent ◽  
Anju Varghese Philip

Purpose All touristic cities have their unique attributes to showcase and differentiate themselves from others. This distinctive attribute is the unique selling product or tourism product of a particular city. It could be an art form, culture, regional climate, food and festival. Literature indicates that the identity of the entire city would be affected by such tourism products. The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of the ‘image’ of an Art-event to city branding. The study also examines the mediating role of ‘city attachment’ in the relationship between event image and city brand equity. Design/methodology/approach In all, 432 samples have been collected from visitors to one of the biggest contemporary art events in India – the “Kochi-Muziris Biennale – 2018,” conducted in the city of Cochin, situated in Kerala, the southernmost state of India. Findings Results show that the direct relationship between event image and city brand equity is stronger than the hypothesised path through the mediating role of city attachment. Research limitations/implications This study provides a better understanding of the event image and its importance in creating the host city’s brand equity. It contributes to both the practitioners and tourism researchers. Originality/value This study looks at the event image through functional and affective aspects and its influence on city attachment and city brand equity.


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