Employer Branding and Employee-based Brand Equity: The Mediating and Moderating Effects in Multilevel Models

Abstract

Purpose – Prior research mainly focused on the effect of employer branding on external job seekers, revealing a critical research gap. This study aims to investigate the impacts of employer branding on work meaningfulness, employee-based brand equity, and employee self-concept.

Design/methodology/approach – 373 employees of 29 organizations were collected from financial industries. Hierarchical linear regression was utilized to analyze multilevel relationships.

Findings – Results demonstrate that employer branding positively affects work meaningfulness and employee-based brand equity in multilevel relationships. Work meaningfulness partially mediates the multilevel relationship between corporate branding and employee-based brand equity. Employees’ actual self-brand congruity and ideal self-brand congruity moderate the relationship between work meaningfulness and employee-based brand equity.

Research limitations/implications – This study collected data form financial industries which comprises commercial banks, insurance and securities companies, indicating that external validity of the research is limited. Moreover, employee self-concept in the research only includes actual self and ideal self, whereas self-concept still contains more different contents.

Practical implications/Social implications – Employer branding can be regarded as a part of strategic human resource management, which helps the organization to shape work meaningfulness and build the strategy of brand human resource management in the employer branding practices.

Originality/value – This study reflects new perspectives on the internal impact of employer branding and fills the gap of employer branding in multilevel research.

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