What Exposé Adrienn...Brand personality is a set of human characteristics or traits that are attributed to a brand name (Aaker, 1997). ... music, signs, celebrity endorsers, colors,

What factors influence brand perception and employee identification?

Exposé

Adrienn Patányi

European Master in Business Studies

2016-2018

What factors influence brand perception and employee identification? 2

Abstract TITLE: WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE BRAND PERCEPTION AND EMPLOYEE

IDENTIFICATION?

KEYWORDS: Brand perception, Employee identification, Organizational identification

BACKGROUND: Organizational identification is the degree to which members define

themselves by the same attributes that they believe represent the organization. Brand

perception is how consumers perceive the brand and it is formed by all the experiences they

have with the brand, from perceived quality and price to advertising and reputation. However,

this perception does not only influence the external stakeholders of the organizations, but also

the internal ones - the employees.

PURPOSE: To investigate the underlying factors to the relation between brand perception

and employee identification with the organization.

METHODOLOGY: Qualitative research with semi-structured interview format, conducted

with 5 employees with different positions of 5 different companies.


Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Table of Contents 3 Table of Tables 3

Review of Literature 3

Introduction 4

Problem Statement and Research Question 5 Problem Statement 5 Research Question 5

Theoretical Background 6 Employee Identification 6

Social Identity Theory 6 Alternative Theories 6

Brand Perception 8 Employee Identification and Brand Perception 10


Methodology 13 About the Companies 14

Hewlett Packard Enterprise 14 General Electric (GE) 14 Zara 14 Saturn 15

Overview of Chapters 16

Plan of Work 17

References 18

Table of Tables



Introduction

Today there are countless of international corporations with worldwide known brands and

products, and consumers associate certain characteristics to these based on different factors.

We can found a myriad of studies, articles and books on how consumers can be influenced,

and there have been various studies written about organizational identification in the last

twenty years, investigating the different viewpoints and influencing factors, how an

employee’s self-concept is shaped by the knowledge of being a member of an organization.

Employees identify with their organization to a certain degree, whether the picture of the

organisation is positive or negative, depending on how they see the organization from the

inside and what they believe outsiders think of the organization. In my research I try to find

the underlying factors to the relation between brand perception and employee identification

with the organization.


Problem Statement and Research Question

Problem Statement

There has been number of studies on social identification and organizational identification,

and on how consumers are influenced by brands, what factors influence their perception,

however, there seems to be missing research on the link between brand perception and

employee identification.

Research Question

The research question therefore is:

What factors influence brand perception and employee identification?


Theoretical Background

Employee Identification

Social Identity Theory Social identity is an individual’s sense of who they are according to their social group

memberships which will influence their intergroup behaviour. These social groups give their

members a sense of belonging. There can be multiple identities a person has, for example

gender, race, politics, relationship, profession etc (Ashforth and Mael, 1989).

Social identification is the perception of oneness or belongingness to a group. It is considered

as a perceptual cognitive construct which does not have to be related to any distinct behaviors

or affective states. People classify themselves into social categories, and these categories are

determined by characteristics taken from their members. In the social identity theory

Ashforth and Mael states that “identification with a group is similar to identification with a

person, one defines oneself in terms of a social referent” and that group identification is

personally undergoing “the successes and failures of the group”. This identification can be

increased by various factors. First, the distinctiveness of the group’s qualities in comparison

to other groups. Second, is the prestige of the group, as identification influences self-esteem.

Third, awareness of out-groups increases awareness of one’s in-group (Ashforth and Mael,

1989). Henri Tajfel and John Turner made experiments in which they found that in-group

favoritism may happen because of both arbitrary and non-arbitrary reasons, such as tossing a

coin and dividing a class into two parts, or race, sex etc.

Alternative Theories

Organizational identity pursues to answer the question “Who are we as an organization?”.

These are the mental associations about the organization which organizational members have.

Albert and Whetten (1985) defined the attributes of an organization as central, enduring and

distinctive (CED). This identity can be expressed as shared values and beliefs, a mission, the


processes etc. However, it is argued whether identity is enduring or rather ever-changing and

responsive to its environment in modern organizations. (Whetten, 2006) According to Atamer

and Calori (1993) there are four elements of an organization’s identity which are the goal

orientation, norms and values, management system and the organization’s dominant logic. In

Balmer’s (1996) method the affinity organization member retain toward values and

assumption is investigated and so the organization’s identity is defined based on the degree of

this affinity by the usage of ideologies, rituals and language.

Organizational identification is a specific form of social identification, as a person’s social

identity may be extracted from the organization, department, sport club etc. Organizational

identification can be also described as a process of self-categorization (Ashforth and Mael,

1989) and organizational identification is stronger when members categorize themselves into

a group which has distinctive, central and enduring attributes. Organizational identification is

the degree to which members define themselves by the same attributes that they believe

represent the organization (Dukerich, 1994). Employees become linked to their organizations

when they integrate the characteristics they associate with their organization into their

self-concepts (Dukerich, 1994). The strength of members’ organizational identification

depends on how much their self-concepts are linked to their organizational membership.

Self-concept is “an interpretive structure that mediates how people behave and feel in a social

context” (Markus and Wurf, 1987) which may be built of a mixture of different identities of

memberships in different social groups on the basis of race, gender, work place etc

(Dukerich, 1994). Employees regularly have multiple identities as over subunits they share a

common identity, which demonstrate subunit-specific identities (Ashforth and Mael, 1989).

Hall phrased organizational identification as “the process by which the goals of the

organization and those of the individual become increasingly integrated and congruent”.

Likert (1967) stated that organizational identification in organization will produce desirable

results such as goal achievement, job satisfaction and quality of performance. On the other

way round this effect takes place likewise such as when employees feel like that their

employers cannot fulfill their obligations that will follow with low degrees of employee

performance, trust, commitment and organizational identification (Asadullah, Akram, Imran,

Arain, 2017). Efraty and Wolfe (1988) tested that there is a positive consequence of

organizational identification on satisfaction with the five job dimension (work, supervision,


pay, promotion, co-workers), and on three task related variables (task involvement,

investment of effort, performance effectiveness) and a negative relationship with alienation

(powerlessness, normlessness, isolation). Studies have also shown that perceived

organizational support has a positive effect on organizational identification (Edwards, Peccei

2010). Perceived organizational support is an antecedent of organizational identification, “the

extent to which individuals believe that their employing organization values their

contribution and cares for their well-being” (Edwards, Peccei, 2010). Organizational prestige

is also an antecedent of organizational identification and employees’ perceptions of their

organization’s prestige is strengthened and confirmed through the media (Jones, Volpe

(2010).

Brand Perception

Brand personality is a set of human characteristics or traits that are attributed to a brand name

(Aaker, 1997). Consumers can relate to a brand personality, if it has a consistent set of

qualities. When brand image is communicated via human traits it is called brand personality

such as smart, honest, kind but also age, sex or special occasions, quality, expertise. Brand

personality can have a substantial impact on making consumers engage with the brand, on

increasing satisfaction and brand loyalty (Seimiene, Kamarauskaite, 2014). Brand personality

is created by the controlling of brand name and other elements such as symbols, logo designs,

music, signs, celebrity endorsers, colors, layout or adaptation of provocation and humour

(Wee, 2004).

Brand image is the set of beliefs consumers hold about a brand and it is the character of the

organization. Brand image is how consumers perceive the brand. And so this brand

perception is formed by all the experiences customers have with the brand, let them be direct

or indirect. Influencing these experiences there are perceived quality, value, price, product

variety, packaging design, complete customer experience, expectations, reputation, way of

communication, distribution channels, advertising and people - both consumers and

employees of a company. There are studies which show that organizational identification is

externally targeted influenced by advertising, even though the objective ordinarily is to

influence consumers, but as it most probably will affect other groups too, together with


employees. Thus, organizational identification is influenced by the perception of advertising

effectiveness by employees (Rosengren, Bondesson, 2017).

Intended image is the mental associations about the organization that organization leaders

want important audiences to have. Intended image answers to the question “What does the

organization want others to think about the organization?” However, the intended image can

be different to the different stakeholder groups. Intended image is the reflection of how the

management views the way they want the organization to be perceived by different

stakeholders (Brown, Dacin, Pratt, Whetten 2006).

Construed image is the mental associations about the organization that organization members

believe others outside the organization have. Construed image answers to the question “What

does the organization believe others think of the organization?” (Brown, Dacin, Pratt,

Whetten 2006).

Corporate reputation has been defined in countless ways in the literature during roughly the

past twenty years, as it gained increasing momentum. From the cluster of assets (Barnett,

Jermier, Lafferty, 2006) as an intangible resource (Goldberg et al., 2003), through the cluster

of assessments as opinions of an organization developed over time (Bennett and Kottasz,

2000), or a value judgment about a company’s attributes (Gray and Balmer, 1998), to the

cluster of awareness as a perceptual representation of a company’s past actions and future

prospects (Roberts and Dowling, 2002). Dutton and Dukerich (1991) phrased organizational

reputation as outsiders’ beliefs about what differentiates an organization. Organizations

evidently have to strive for a positive reputation, as a positive brand reputation not only has a

positive impact on organization value performance (Koh, Lee, Boo, 2009), but brand

reputation also means the attractiveness towards the different stakeholders, such as

employees, investors or customers (Blackstad & Cooper, 1995). Thus, just like advertising, a

positive reputation can have a more favorable influence on employees, too, as employees will

have stronger feelings of pride (Rosengren, Bondesson, 2017).


Employee Identification and Brand Perception

From the various theories it can be observed that people in general can always identify with

something - with all the many different social groups, because each individual has multiple

identities, depending on the social context, what types of roles do they have to fit at a specific

point. Thus, so will employees identify with their working organizations. We also know that

both consumers and employees are influenced by their perceptions of the brand and

organization based on the various characteristics of the products or services and of the way

they are communicated and sold. However, there has been missing research on exactly what

factors influence brand perception and employee identification.


Review of Literature In this table there can be found the most important and relevant studies concerning research

on social identity, social identification, organizational identity, organizational identification

identity, intended image, construed image, reputation and also the source of description of

qualitative research method.

Topic Title Author Source Content

Social Identity Social Identity

Theory

Blake E. Ashforth, Fred Mael

The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 20-39

Social identification and organizational identification

Organizational Identification

Organizational

Images and

Member

Identification

Jane E. Dutton, Janet M. Dukerich, Celia V. Harquail

Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2, (Jun.,1994), 239-263

A model of how images of a work organization shape one’s strength of OI

Identity, Intended Image, Construed Image, Reputation

Identity,

Intended Image,

Construed

Image, and

Reputation: An

Interdisciplinary

Framework and

Suggested

Terminology

Tom J. Brown, Peter A. Dacin, Michael G. Pratt

Academy of Marketing Science. Journal; Spring 2006; 34, 2; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 99

Identifying four central viewpoints of an organization and proposing labels for each one of them

Organizational Identity

Operational

Measures of

Organizational

Identity: A

Johan van Rekom, Cees B.M. van Riel

Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2000, pp. 334–350 Henry Stewart Publications,

Review of empirical studies of organizational identity, how the construct has been


Review of

Existing

Methods

1363–3589 operationalized and measured

Qualitative, Quantitative, Mixed Research Methods

Research

Design

John W. Creswell

SAGE Publications, Inc., 2013

Qualitative method approaches

Qualitative Research Method

What is

qualitative

interviewing?

Rosalind Edwards, Janet Holland

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2013

The use of the qualitative interview as a methodological and research tool in social science


Methodology Qualitative research method was chosen since the aim of the study is to investigate what

underlying factors there are to the relation between brand perception and employee

identification with the organization. Qualitative methods are examining the answers to

questions with ‘why’ and ‘how’, not only ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ or ‘who’ by asking

questions, getting answers and developing insights from a relatively small sample size,

working with non-numerical data. Qualitative research is mostly conducted in a natural

setting, where the researcher becomes the main medium of data collection and analysis. The

aim of qualitative research is to examine the meanings that people attribute to their actions,

behavior and communication with others. The research process for qualitative research has an

emergent design, meaning that the original plan for research cannot be strictly determined,

and some phases of the process may alter after the researcher sets out to collect data.

Exploration is central in most qualitative research, to investigate the compound array of

factors surrounding the main phenomenon and demonstrate the various aspects or meanings

about the issue that participants have (Creswell, 2013).

I will use a semi-structured interview format, because unlike with a structured interview

which has a strict set of questions, I can insert new ideas during the course of the interviews

depending on the different ways it can take based on what the interviewees say. In a

semi-structured interview the interviewer has a list of questions and an interview guide, but it

is quite flexible regarding the ‘when’ of the questions and the ‘how’ of the answers.

Generally, the researcher is curious about how the interviewee sees the topic, but there is

structure for comparison in a study with the same topics (Edwards, Holland, 2013, p.29).

I will conduct interviews with employees of different fields and positions from Germany,

Hungary and the Czech Republic. The interviewees will include one inside sales

representative from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Prague, one talent acquisition operations

specialist from GE, for the DACH region (Austria, Germany, Switzerland), Budapest, one

shop assistant from Zara, Hamburg, one marketing manager at Saturn, Berlin and a fifth


interviewee is to be found. All interviews will be audio recorded and then transcribed for

analysis.

About the Companies

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is an American multinational information technology company

based in Palo Alto, California, which was founded in November 2015, after splitting

Hewlett-Packard into HPE and HP Inc. HP Inc. has the personal computer and printing

business, while HPE has two divisions, Financial Services and Enterprise Group which deals

with servers, storage, networking, consulting and support.

General Electric (GE)

General Electric in an American multinational conglomerate corporation, founded in April,

1892 in New York, operating with the following businesses: additive, aviation, capital,

digital, energy connections, healthcare, lighting, oil and gas, power, renewable energy,

transportation, current, global research. They have 295,000 employees in 997 cities. Voted as

Best Companies for Leaders by Chief Executive, 2016, Top Employers for Equal

Opportunity by Equal Opportunity Magazine, 2016 and World’s Most Admired Companies

by Fortune, 2016.

Zara

Zara is the main brand of the Inditex group, which is the world’s largest apparel retailer with

8 brands operating over 7400 stores. Zara was founded in May, 1974 in Arteixo, Spain. There

are over 2100 stores in 88 countries.

Saturn

Saturn is a German electronics stores, founded in 1961 and today operating around 200 stores

in Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and Poland. It belongs to the Media Markt Saturn Retail


Group which belongs to the Metro Group. Saturn had more than 9000 employees in

Germany, in 2015.


Overview of Chapters 1. Introduction

2. Theoretical Background

a. Social Identity Theory

i. Social Identity

ii. Social Identification

iii. Organizational Identity

iv. Organizational Identification

b. Others

i. Brand Personality

ii. Brand Image

iii. Intended Image

iv. Construed Image

v. Corporate Reputation

3. Methodology

a. Qualitative Research Method

b. Semi-structured Interview Format

c. Plan of Interviews

d. About the Companies

i. Hewlett Packard Enterprise

ii. General Electric (GE)

iii. Zara

iv. Saturn


Plan of Work

Time Tasks/Phases Level

1. 01.08-31.08.2017 Finding a thesis topic Completed

2. 07.09.2017 Handing in thesis proposal Completed

3. 04.10.2017 Change of the topic Completed

4.

04.10-23.10.2017 Development of the topic and

finding the focus of study

Completed

5. 23.10.2017 Handing in the Exposé Completed

6.

24.10-05.11.2017 -Elaboration of the Exposé

-Formation of interview questions

To follow

7. 06.11-10.11.2017 Conducting the interviews To follow

8. 11.10-25.11.2017 Transcription of interviews To follow

9. 22.01.2018 Thesis Deadline To follow


References Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of

management review, 14(1), 20-39.

Dutton, J. E., Dukerich, J. M., & Harquail, C. V. (1994). Organizational images and

member identification. Administrative science quarterly, 239-263.

Brown, T. J., Dacin, P. A., Pratt, M. G., & Whetten, D. A. (2006). Identity, intended image,

construed image, and reputation: An interdisciplinary framework and suggested

terminology. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 34(2), 99-106.

Van Rekom, J., & van Riel, C. B. (2000). Operational measures of organizational identity: A

review of existing methods. Corporate Reputation Review, 3(4), 334-350.

Seimiene, E., & Kamarauskaite, E. (2014). Effect of brand elements on brand personality

perception. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 156, 429-434.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods

approaches. Sage publications.

Garcia, D., & Gluesing, J. C. (2013). Qualitative research methods in international

organizational change research. Journal of Organizational Change Management,

26(2), 423-444.

Rosengren, S., & Bondesson, N. (2017). How organizational identification among retail

employees is affected by advertising. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 38,

204-209.

Barnett, M. L., Jermier, J. M., & Lafferty, B. A. (2006). Corporate reputation: The

definitional landscape. Corporate reputation review, 9(1), 26-38.


Blakstad, M., & Cooper, A. (1995). The communicating organisation. Institute of personnel

and development.

Koh, Y., Lee, S., & Boo, S. (2009). Impact of brand recognition and brand reputation on firm

performance: US-based multinational restaurant companies’ perspective.

International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(4), 620-630.

Asadullah, M. A., Akram, A., Imran, H., & Arain, G. A. (2017). When and which employees

feel obliged: A personality perspective of how organizational identification develops.

Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones.

Efraty, D., & Wolfe, D. M. (1988). The effect of organizational identification on employee

affective and performance responses. Journal of Business and Psychology, 3(1),

105-112.

Likert, R. (1967). The human organization: Its management and values.

McGregor, D. M. (1967). The professional manager.

Edwards, M. R., & Peccei, R. (2010). Perceived organizational support, organizational

identification, and employee outcomes. Journal of Personnel Psychology.

Jones, C., & Volpe, E. H. (2011). Organizational identification: Extending our understanding

of social identities through social networks. Journal of organizational Behavior,

32(3), 413-434.

Edwards, R., & Holland, J. (2013). What is qualitative interviewing?. A&C Black.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_identification

http://managementstudyguide.com/brand-personality.htm

https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2014/03/brand-perceptions-perceived-quality-rules-

the-day.html#.Wehcu6iCzIU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_identification

http://managementstudyguide.com/brand-personality.htm

https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2014/03/brand-perceptions-perceived-quality-rules-the-day.html#.Wehcu6iCzIU

https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2014/03/brand-perceptions-perceived-quality-rules-the-day.html#.Wehcu6iCzIU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology


https://www.hpe.com/us/en/about.html

https://www.ge.com/careers/working-at-ge

https://www.inditex.com/en/about-us/who-we-are

http://www.mediamarktsaturn.com/en/industry-trendsetter

http://www.saturn.de/de/shop/unternehmen.html

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/about.html

https://www.ge.com/careers/working-at-ge

https://www.inditex.com/en/about-us/who-we-are

http://www.mediamarktsaturn.com/en/industry-trendsetter

http://www.saturn.de/de/shop/unternehmen.html

Documents

What Exposé Adrienn...Brand personality is a set of human characteristics or traits that are attributed to a brand name (Aaker, 1997). ... music, signs, celebrity endorsers, colors,