Examining the Relationship of Employer Branding with Organization Culture and Employee Brand Equity

Abstract

The inconsistent environment in terms of technology, increased competition, social, cultural, and economic facets has altered the perceptions of employees towards their employers. This shift to the information age has made human capital a competitive enabler, which contribute to an organizations success in global economies (Alniacik and Alniacik, 2012, Maurya, & Agarwal, 2018). Hence, today, companies strategically plan to attract and retain the talent for achieving corporate success (Alniacik and Alniacik, 2012). Employer branding is one of the significant comprehensive strategy added to the kits of companies like Henkel (2017) and Deloitte (2016). Employer branding strategy is the answer to the needs of employees through the provision of various benefits to them (Arriscado, Quesado, & Sousa, 2019). Also, Companies emphasize on the various organizational features which determine the attitude of employees in terms of joining, loyalty, and longtime stay with a company. "In its full scope, employer branding cuts across many traditional human resource specialisms and becomes an umbrella program that provides structure to previously separate policies and practices" (Edwards, 2009, p. 5). This area has drawn the attention of various researchers, who have studied the relationships between employer branding and its different antecedents and outcomes. In spite of increased research interest, a considerable gap was found in the literature. The literature discusses organizational culture as an essential antecedent conceptually for employer branding; the empirical testing of this relationship was found missing. This study attempts to examine the impact of the organizational culture (Bureaucratic culture, Supportive culture, and innovative culture) as an antecedent to employer branding. Further, the current study is measuring the employee brand equity (Brand endorsement, Brand allegiance, and Brand consistent behavior) as an outcome of employer branding. According to the literature of marketing area, brand equity is a major outcome of branding. In previous studies, employer branding and employee brand equity are studied individually. Additionally, the mediating role of employee trust in management and the moderating role of gender and experience with the current organization upon the relationship of employer branding and employee brand equity dimensions is also measured. A non-probabilistic sampling procedure, i.e., convenience sampling, was adopted for data collection from the target population of Indian private banks employees. A total of 490 responses were collected out of which 454 was the usable sample. The direct, mediator and moderator relationships between different variables were tested with the help of the following analysis: (1) Testing of factor structures by performing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using SPSS 22, (2) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and model testing using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS 20. The results of the study indicate that bureaucratic culture and supportive culture are significantly related to employer branding of an organization. The innovative culture was found to be non-significant. Further, the study finds that employer branding is significantly associated with all the variables of employee brand equity, that is, brand allegiance, brand endorsement, ust in management' upon the relationship between employer branding and dimensions of employee brand equity is also proved. This study also finds that gender moderates the relationship between employer branding and employee brand equity, but, experience with current organization statistically fails to moderate the relationship between them. The results of the current study give new insights to academicians and practitioners. The present study contributes towards existing employer branding literature by explaining and empirically establishing the relationship between organizational culture, employer branding, and employee brand equity. The results provide inputs for management to develop employer branding strategies which lead to the development of an upright management-employee relationship. On the border context, the study will help organizations to design and execute programs which aid to increase employee brand equity for the organization and results in attraction and retention of the talent with companies.