تاثیر برندسازی داخلی شرکت بر رفتار حمایت از برند کارمندان Internal Corporate Branding Impact on Employees’ Brand Supporting Behaviour

1. Introduction The intense competition nowadays has made customers approach many mature products as commodities (Ferrell and Hartline, 2008). More companies are now faced with difficulties in differentiating their offers, especially service companies where managers find themselves challenged by the intangibility, inseparability and variability of services (Wallace and de Chernatony, 2009). However, service variability can be considered as both “a cure and a curse” for the service company (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003): a cure, because it can be used in differentiating organisational associations, building strong corporate brands, and winning competition; a curse, due to the difficulties of branding intangible offers (Aaker, 2004; Papasolomou and Vrontis, 2006). Generally, organisational associations define any corporate brand, associations in terms of its heritage, ability to deliver customer value, employees, brand values (priorities), and performance records (Aaker, 2004). More specifically, corporate brands can be viewed as a group of functional and emotional benefits (Balmer, 2001). In today’s competitive environment, providing functional benefits only (e.g. self-service technology) is no longer a source of sustainable competitive advantage; hence, organisations tend to focus on the emotional benefits of their value propositions, such as employees’ skills, knowledge, interactivity, and on-going relationships. These benefits are derived from the buying experience (Aaker, 2004; Balmer, 1995; Harris and de Chernatony, 2001; King and Grace, 2010). Consequently, employees are considered the foundation of the corporate brand (Aaker, 2004). In fact, they are the service brand (Wallace and de Chernatony, 2009), since they have a major role in translating the corporate identity, in the short run, into image and, in the long run, into reputation ( Balmer, 2013; Halliburton and Bach, 2012). Alternatively, they can reduce the credibility of the advertised message if their behaviour does not reinforce the communicated corporate brand values (Harris and de Chernatony, 2001).Admittedly, corporate branding literature, from early on, has shed light on the essential role that employees play in corporate brand building (King, 1991, cited in Balmer, 2002). Moreover, during the 1980s and 1990s, when service companies started using brand management practices (Knox, 2004) literature recognized the importance of service personnel in delivering services, differentiating offers, and reducing the risk of these services being perceived as commodities (Balmer, 2001; Harris and de Chernatony, 2001; Papasolomou and Vrontis, 2006). More specifically, it stressed the need to consider employees as “brand ambassadors” (Harris and de Chernatony, 2001), and the importance of employees’ commitment, and the importance of consistency of the product/services performance in delivering the brand promise (Balmer, 2010). However, people are not alike; thus, customers may have to interact with different service personnel whose attitudes and behaviours may vary.