Identity and internal branding : from internal brand management to brand citizenship behavior - a case study

Abstract

Internal brand management efforts are a valuable tool in promoting brand citizenship behavior amongst employees. Committed employees are an important asset to any organization, so examining the corporate identity, the alignment of its vision, image and culture and performing necessary internal brand management measures should be on every organization’s agenda.

This thesis was executed as a case study for a company looking to develop its internal brand management processes. The objective was to examine the relationships between internal brand communication, brand identification, perceived brand value, brand commitment and citizenship behavior. To include all willing current employees, data was collected with an anonymous online survey. Quantitative approach was chosen to gain a more comprehensive view. The survey was sent to 1024 employees and 274 responses were gained during two weeks in March 2023. IBM SPSS Statistics was used to analyze the research data and the model was assessed in SmartPLS 4, using PLS-SEM.

As a result, all six proposed hypotheses were supported. The results indicated that internal brand communication had a positive effect on employees identificating with the corporate identity, which in turn had a positive effect on both employee brand commitment and employee perceived brand value, both of which then had positive effect on employee citizenship behavior. Additionally, employee perceived brand value was found to have positive impact on employee brand commitment.

The findings of this study support existing theories on brand management efforts having a positive impact on generating brand citizenship behavior, but as this research is a case study, generalizing these findings requires further studies. This study contributes to existing literature on the importance of employee identification on building brand commitment and how brand commitment in turn is a recognized antecedent for employee endorsement behavior, or citizenship behavior.