Internal branding and employees' brand outcomes: do generational differences and organizational tenure matter?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating effect of brand identification between internal branding and brand citizenship behavior as well as brand loyalty, and the roles of working generation and organizational tenure as moderators of the relationship between internal branding and brand identification. Design/methodology/approach: This research used a survey method and a structured questionnaire to collect data from salespeople working in the cement and construction materials industry. The hypothesized relationships were tested and analyzed by means of a confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression and a bootstrapping procedure. Findings: Brand identification partially mediates the link between internal branding and brand citizenship behavior and fully mediates that between internal branding and brand loyalty. Also, the influences of internal branding on brand identification are varied among generational cohorts and employees with different tenure. Research limitations/implications: The current research took place among customer-interface employees, which can be extended to back-end or supporting workers, in order to better reflect the overall effect of internal branding efforts. Practical implications: Organizations need to undertake internal branding to induce a shared understanding among employees about brand insights, and to foster their perception of belongingness in order to motivate desired brand behaviors. Furthermore, managers may improve internal branding mechanisms by taking generational differences and duration of employment into consideration, since these factors impinge on the effects of internal branding. Originality/value: This study contributes to internal branding research by addressing the contingent influences of employees' differences on the success of internal branding efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]