TURNING EMPLOYEES INTO BRAND CHAMPIONS The EFFECTS OF INTERNAL BRANDING OUTCOMES ON EMPLOYEE BRANDBUILDING BEHAVIORS THROUGH ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATIONIN ZABANSARA- REY INSTITUTE

Previous research acknowledges employees’ significant role in construction of strong service brands, so far ,empirical research on how to turn employees into brand champions is still limited. In this research we try tolink internal branding outcomes (employee–brand fit, brand knowledge, and belief in the brand) and employees’perceptions of organizational support to a range of employee brand-building behaviors, with organizationalidentification as the key mediating mechanism .This research has been conducted in Zabansara institute andwith 124 questionnaire responded by employees of this institute. Result shows that identification is a strongmotivational factor for employees to become brand champions .When organizational identification is low,perceived organizational support (as a quality indicator of employees’ exchange-based relationship with theorganization) contains an alternative, external motivator of on-the-job brand building behaviors; whenorganizational identification is high, perceived organizational support enhances employees’ voluntaryparticipation in brand development and positive word-of mouth. These findings highlight the managerialimportance of the employee–organization relationship for turning employees into brand champions and indicatehow organizational identification can be stimulated by means of internal branding.

Keywords:

service brands , employee brand-building behaviors , internal branding , organizational identification , perceived organizational support