Exploring the relationship between corporate, internal and employer branding
| Date | 21 September 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421011085712 |
| Published date | 21 September 2010 |
| Pages | 401-409 |
| Author | Carley Foster,Khanyapuss Punjaisri,Ranis Cheng |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
Exploring the relationship between corporate,
internal and employer branding
Carley Foster, Khanyapuss Punjaisri and Ranis Cheng
Nottingham Business School, Chaucer Building, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The corporate branding concept places an emphasis on employees’ attitudes and behaviours. This has given rise to internal branding and
employer branding, which argue for a closer alignment between the employees’ values and those of the corporate brand. However, few studies have
attempted to provide a platform by which the two concepts could be synergised to achieve a strong, consistent corporate brand. This paper therefore
seeks to explore and demonstrate how the three concepts of branding are interrelated through a new framework.
Design/methodology/approach – Three bodies of literature (corporate branding, internal branding, and employer branding) were selected for
review and examination in terms of their implications for the proposed framework that conceptualises the relationships between the three areas.
Findings – The review of the literature highlights the importance of employer branding and internal branding, and its potential to support the
corporate brand-building initiatives, whilst maintaining their distinctiveness in the literature. It also sheds light in terms of the inter-relationships among
the three concepts of branding.
Originality/value – The analysis of the literature reveals a degree of synergy and integration between employer branding and internal branding. It also
facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the implications of the two concepts for branding and integrated corporate brand management.
Keywords Corporate branding, Brand management, Employees attitudes, Employees behaviour
Paper type Conceptual paper
An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this article.
Introduction
Balmer and Gray (2003) advocate that a strong, favourable
corporate brand is a powerful “navigational tool” to a variety
of stakeholders, which include not only existing employees
and shareholders, but also potential employees. This
underlines that effective corporate brand management needs
to balance an external orientation with an internal orientation.
The importance of existing employees – internal stakeholders
– has been recognised in the literature due to the r ise of the
service era. Because employees are central to corporate brand
management, internal branding and employer branding have
recently been introduced to the branding literature. While
internal branding focuses largely on the adoption of the
branding concept inside an organisation to ensure that
employees deliver the brand promise to the external
stakeholders, employer branding offers a way of ensur ing
that an organisation recruits the right people in the first
instance. However, the relationship between corporate
branding, internal branding and employer branding are yet
to be fully explored in the corporate branding literature.
Although there are a number of studies which investigate
corporate branding, internal branding and employer
branding, this research tends to regard these concepts as
stand alone elements. Few papers (e.g. Mosley, 2007) have
discussed internal branding and employer branding together.
Still, they have not clearly addressed how the two concepts
could be adopted together to ensure the consistent corporate
brand experience. Furthermore, how the three concepts of
branding, namely corporate branding, internal branding, and
employer branding, are fundamentally inter-related has been
overlooked. Without this basic understanding of their inter-
relationships, it is difficult to understand how a consistent
corporate brand can be achieved, and to pursue any future
research to understand how these inter-relationships may vary
by the type of industry, market and organisation. The aim of
this paper is therefore to explore and demonstrate through a
proposed conceptual model how corporate branding, internal
branding, and employer branding relate to one another.
Although back office staff play a role in corporate, employer
and internal branding activities, the focus of this paper is
customer-facing staff, since these represent the crucial
interface between the organisation and customers (King,
1991). Consequently, the model put forward in this paper is
most relevant for those organisations operating in a ser vice
environment.
Corporate branding
As a corporate brand is an explicit promise between an
organisation and its key stakeholder groups (Balmer, 1998), it
is important that the promise is kept at all times for all
company constituencies. All attributes of the organisation’s
identity need to be made known in the form of a clearly
defined branding proposition, which underpins organisational
efforts to communicate, differentiate, and enhance the brand
vis-a
`-vis key stakeholder groups and networks (Balmer,
2001a). Simply put, corporate branding concerns
the systematic planned management of behaviour,
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
19/6 (2010) 401–409
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/10610421011085712]
401
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