New perspectives on employer branding: an empirical investigation of scope, nature and success drivers

Employer branding is a strategic activity that has grown in popularity over the past two decades. Much progress has been made in investigating aspects of employer branding; however, many facets of the process, as it has been conceptualised in the research literature, remain empirically unexplored. The aim of this thesis is to get a deeper, more grounded understanding of employer branding based on an investigation of employer branding processes in practice. Four papers are presented, each providing a new perspective. In the first paper, industry experts’ perceptions of the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful employer brands are used to arrive at a typology of employer branding success. The typology is managerially relevant, providing a means by which firms may assess their employer branding success qualitatively and quantitatively (based on metrics commonly used in practice). Further, theoretical contributions are made by establishing employer branding as a context distinct from corporate and consumer branding, and by providing a basis for assessing variance between employer brands. In the second and third papers, the mechanisms that shape and perpetuate employer brands are explored. Individual (employee) and firm-related mechanisms drawn from the literature are empirically validated in the second paper using qualitative within-case analysis of four employer brands. The firms are from a broad range of industries and are characteristically successful (a pharmaceuticals and a financial services firm) and unsuccessful (a transport firm and a semi-government public utility). The case analysis results in the discovery of additional mechanisms relating to industry-level factors, not previously documented. These findings are built on in the third paper, where cross-case analysis of the same firms is used to establish a set of conditions that support or erode employer branding success. Importantly, theory perspectives outside the traditional domain of marketing (i.e., human resources, organisational behaviour and strategy) are shown to be critical for understanding the process in practice. A taxonomy of generic market segmentation types is used in the fourth paper to investigate the application of market segmentation to employer branding. Market segmentation is shown to provide a useful link between employer branding and broader strategic planning

The Case of Go Footwear and the Gogo Shoe

Online teaching material on book's companion website.2 page(s

Formation of expectations for online MBA units and its impact on satisfaction

Interest in online MBAs has grown rapidly over the past decade. We seek to explore student expectations as a driver of student satisfaction, in the context of online MBA learning. Following expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) we set out a two stage research agenda to explore how MBA students undertaking online courses form their expectations, and subsequently, how online learning environments should be designed to respond to better address these expectations.1 page(s

Employer branding and market segmentation

Over the last decade, firms large and small have begun overtly branding themselves as employers as well as purveyors of goods and services. Drawing on an investigation of employer brands in practice, we examine how market segmentation is being used implicitly by managers and how established techniques for market segmentation can be applied more extensively in the employer branding context. Further, we posit that using a range of segmentation approaches in concert can strengthen explicit links between employer branding and the broader strategic goals of an organization. In particular, the use of a combination of generic types of market segmentation should help the firm to be more efficient and effective in attracting, retaining and motivating both current and potential employees.16 page(s

Employer brands

Employer branding is defined and the virtuous circles of employer branding are described. These comprise an outer circle (the outcomes of employer branding on the external position of firms), an inner circle (the impact on the internal capabilities of firms), and interactions (where internal and external outcomes intersect). There follows a discussion of the identification of successful and unsuccessful employer brands. Finally, a call is made for a more holistic, process-based view of employer branding.20 page(s

Characteristics of successful employer brands

Based on the analysis of data gathered from industry experts, a typology of the characteristics of successful employer brands is presented. Depth interviews were carried out with senior industry participants from the fields of internal marketing, human resources, communications, branding and recruitment. Transcripts were analysed using formal interpretive procedures. Member checking was undertaken to confirm interpretations. Analysis of the transcripts shows there are two key dimensions of success for an employer brand: attractiveness and accuracy. As with customer-centric brands, attractiveness is underpinned by awareness, differentiation and relevance. For employer brands, however, the accuracy with which the employer brand is portrayed is also critical to success. This emphasis on accuracy highlights the importance of consistency between the employer brand and employment experience, company culture and values. General implications for the strategic management of employer brands are presented as well as marketing and human resource management strategies for each of the four states of employer branding success in the typology. It is proposed that researchers and firms should assess employer brand success according to the typology, using commonly collected human resources metrics. More generally, a case is established for studying employer branding as a context distinct from consumer and corporate branding and conceptualising the employment experience of a firm as a product produced by the culture, policies and processes of the firm.16 page(s

It’s all about the experience – drivers of success in employer branding

In this study, cross-case analysis of the employer brands at four firms is undertaken to examine, empirically, how employer branding processes interact with anticipated and actual employment experience to produce conditions for employer brand success or failure. Activities and processes underpinning the employer brand are derived from the employer branding literature and are then used as a systematic framework to analyse the cases. This study establishes that aligning employer brand experience with the employer brand "promise" is critical to employer brand success. Employer brand activities and processes that support this alignment are elucidated, including psychological contract fulfillment, internal and external marketing communication, employee and brand attraction, meaning and loyalty and identity and image management.7 page(s

Strategic employer brands : current domain, future directions

15 page(s

Trashing the brand: ANZ and CBA could pay a high price for choosing profit over people

The recent CBA and ANZ scandals show that the big banks fail to understand the long-term pay off from investing in their relationships with people over short-term profit

How do brands capture value through engaging non-paying consumers?

The customer engagement concept has received increasing attention in the Marketing literature in recent years. Within this emerging literature, customer engagement behaviours (CEBs) are heralded, in particular, to reflect consumers’ engagement with focal brands or firms. Further, based on the emergence and rise of influential consumer networks, the role of non-paying consumers is rapidly gaining traction. Although the literature has addressed customer engagement behaviours displayed by paying customers, those exhibited by non-paying consumers remain largely unexamined to-date. In this paper, we explore and develop the concept of non-paying consumer engagement behaviours (NPCEBs); i.e. “positively-valenced behavioural manifestation toward a product, brand or firm, which are not predicated on a transaction, but none-the-less create potential value for the firm”, and develop a conceptual model comprising key NPCEB antecedents and consequences. The paper concludes with an overview of key implications for future empirical research.21 page(s