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During the last couple of
decades, a staggering
number of organizations across the globe have turned
from product branding to corporate branding (Hatch and
Schultz, 2001). The transition from traditional product
branding towards corporate branding is, however, not simple as
it incorporates a series of new challenges for the organization.
First and foremost, responsibility for branding expands beyond
the boundaries of the marketing department and flows into
the boardroom as well as into all organizational departments.
This means that whereas product branding is primarily
concerned with the creation and maintenance of bonds with customers created
by marketing departments, corporate branding relates to top
management visions, organizational culture and the outside world's impression
of the company (Totsi and Stotz, 2001). As a consequence,
branding becomes too strategically important to be left to marketing
people. Secondly, the `branding audience' expands beyond customers
to encompass all stakeholders. As such, branding becomes
an emotional bond between the organization and many
different groups of stakeholders (e.g., partners, suppliers,
employees, potential employees and the general public). Thirdly, as
the behavior of employees lies at the heart of the corporate brand, a
series of intra-organizational issues become integral parts of
brandingoften referred to as internal brand management, brand
commitment, brand citizenship or value-based branding.
Due to the fact that corporate branding has expanded the
areas that branding covers, a series of subfields have recently
emerged within the branding discipline. One such emerging field is that
of Employer Branding (henceforth referred to as EB). The key
reason why EB is currently being embraced by many companies is that
`human capital' is increasingly seen as a key driver of success (Moroko
and Uncles, 2008) and concordantly, adopting a resource-based view,
the quest to attract and retain the most sought-after employees
becomes increasingly critical. Accordingly, EB emphasizes the relevance
of applying branding to human resource management
(Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). Although traditional branding theory
and practices are applicable to the EB context, it seems that much
could be gained if we see EB as a distinct and discrete context for
both branding practices and theories. Especially, EB differs from
both product and corporate branding because the target of any EB
effort is current and prospective employees. For example,
Lloyd (2002, p. 65) defines EB as "the sum of a company's efforts
to communicate to existing and prospective staff that it is a
desirable place to work." In the same vein, Dell et al. (2007, p. 10) argue that an employer brand "encompasses
the firm's values, systems, policies, and behaviors toward the objectives
of attracting, motivating, and retaining the firm's current
and potential employees." |
