Antecedents and Consequences of Employee Based Brand Equity

About this Research Topic

Background

HRM (human resource management) and marketing may be two separate areas. However, in today’s advanced world, the lines between the two have become gradually hazy. Brands and human capital are considered the important assets of the firm and the development of these intangible assets is a very challenging and significant management task for HR managers and marketers. A value premium that a firm produces from a product with an identifiable name when compared to a generic equivalent is known as brand equity. Firms create brand equity for their products/services by developing them extraordinary, easily identifiable, and greater in quality and reliability. Employee-based brand equity (EBBE) refers to a value that a brand offers to a firm through its effects on the attitudes and behaviors of its employees. The competent employees meet the deadlines, achieve sales targets, and develop the brand with positive interaction with consumers. When employees fail to perform effectively, consumers realize that the company is not competent to fulfill their needs and look for another option. To develop an effective and strong EBBE, firms need to focus on the perceptions of employees and promote positive attitudes about affiliation with the firm. Several scholars confirm the significance of EBBE as a key source of possible advantages for the organization and an important part of the brand-based evaluation. The scholars from the marketing and management domains have not complete agreement on the conceptualization of EBBE. For instance, ‘the value that a brand provides to a firm through its effects on the attitudes and behaviors of its employees. Another school of thought defines EBBE as the differential impact that the brand has on employees.

Some common antecedents of EBBE are brand commitment, brand knowledge, brand role relevance, brand importance, employee assets, brand orientation, internal brand commitment, internal brand knowledge, and internal brand involvement, brand image, brand awareness, perceived quality, role clarity, brand commitment, CSR, organizational trust, perceived organizational prestige, psychological contract obligation, perceived environmental uncertainty, brand image. Similarly, some common outcomes of EBBE are executive rewards, firm performance, customer-based brand equity, and financial/non-financial performance. Several scholars have been examined customer and consumer-based brand equity. However, very limited studies are available from the perspective of employee-based brand equity. The objective of this special issue is to explore the antecedents and consequences of EBBE from different perspectives, and different artifacts of EBBE.

Interested in types of manuscripts: Original Research; Systematic Review; Review; Hypothesis and Theory; Methods
Research topics/ areas of possible interest include but are not restricted to:

• Employee brand performance elements
• Employee brand and its relationship with brand equity
• Factors of employee brand strategy and investment
• Factors that create employee attractiveness with cultural differences
• Brand preferences and employee association
• Brand judgments for generating employee
• EBBE and competitive advantage
• Role of the psychological contract in the development of EBBE
• Knowledge sharing culture and EBBE
• Impact of EBBE on consumer-based brand equity
• Role of HRM in the development of EBBE
• Employee’s knowledge hiding behaviors and EBBE
• Motivational strategies and EBBE
• Antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement
• Employee attractiveness and organizational performance
• Role of a brand in designing an employee brand signal?
• Factors of employee brand association

Keywords: Brand Equity, Employees Behavior, Branding, Competitive Advantage, Culture, Brand Preferences, Motivational Strategies

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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