Managerial strategies to promote employee brand consistent behavior: the new frontier for brand building strategies

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of managerial strategies in promoting employee brand consistent behavior. Using a recently developed, holistic model of behavioral branding (Mazzei and Ravazzani, 2015), that suggests that a wide array of managerial strategies affect the branding process, this study addresses two specific questions: What communication strategies, in the opinion of managers, sustain employee brand consistent behavior? and What are the most important factors, both contextual and related to their cognitive-emotional states, that employees think affect their brand ambassadorship behavior. Research was conducted, based on a multiple methods strategy, to answer the two questions. The choice of methods was based on the specific characteristics of the two targets, communication managers and employees. An initial study conducted in-depth interviews with 32 communication managers, and this was followed by a case study of a single company. The results show that enablement-oriented strategies are more effective then communication-oriented strategies in sustaining employee brand builder roles. Weak employee commitment, unsatisfactory external communication, and low levels of motivation are strong contextual factors inhibiting employee attitudes to brand ambassadorship, one of the most relevant employee brand consistent behaviors in competitive contexts. The main practical implication is that companies should engage employees as brand ambassadors, not by means of prescriptions of in-role behavior, but enablement strategies leading to authentic and voluntary behaviors; besides, that companies should put a significant effort in “preparing the soil”, i.e. investing in enhancing employee commitment, level of motivation and understanding/alignment with the external communication. The values of the study lies in highlighting the crucial role of enablement-oriented strategies, and the relevance of specific contextual variables affecting the attitudes of employees towards brand consistent behaviors

The impact of successful cross-competencies on a career in tourism in Italy: the meeting point between the student's perceptions and the requirements for professionals

The paper aims to understand how the changes occurring in the tourism sector are affecting the labor market in Italy, with a special focus on the relevance of successful cross competences (SCC). It focuses on comparing the relevance of these competencies in the perception of both students preparing to enter the tourism field and tour operators. The two-step study combined qualitative analysis that put forth specific characteristics of the tourism labor market in Italy through interviews with experts, and quantitative analysis that correlated the requirements of the tour operators to the ideas students have of what competencies tour operators entering the field should have. The results evinced differing perceptions of SCC and their relative importance in professional fields. Students manifest to miss awareness of the importance of SCC for their future careers. Furthermore, organizational ability, self-control and self-esteem were perceived by tour operators as the most important competencies to be acquired

Benvenuti! Piccola guida per il ben-essere dei volontari e per migliorare l’efficienza organizzativa

Sulla base di dati di ricerca raccolti nel 2012 è stata sviluppata una guida per i coach dei volontari, vale a dire coloro che nelle associazioni si occupano di reclutarli, motivarli, formarli e trattenerli. Il taglio è molto concreto e fornisce indicazioni pratiche su tutte le leve di gestione e sviluppo del capitale uman