Building brand commitment from internal brand management and employee-based brand equity factors
Date
2021
Authors
Sebopa, Caroline Boitumelo
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Abstract
Famous Brands is a JSE listed company with a market capitalisation of over R10 billion
and is the largest food services franchisor in Africa, boasting of over 24 brands. The
organisation has over 2800 restaurants in Africa, the Middle East and the United
Kingdom. Some of their market-leading brands include Steers, Debonairs Pizza,
Wimpy, Mugg n Bean, Fishaways, GBK, and Turn n Tender, amongst others. Various
success factors of the organisation have been documented and these have included
acquisitions, joint ventures, and vertical integration. The success of Famous Brands
could also have been generated from its brand knowledge structure held by customers
and employees. The brand knowledge, role clarity and brand commitment that
employees hold of their company’s brand have been found to be important dimensions
necessary for building employee-based brand equity (EBBE). When EBBE is built, it
is reported that organisations or brand owners benefit in various ways, such as
employees’ motivation, retention, satisfaction, brand citizenship behaviour, willingness
to endorse the brand, and most importantly, it can lead to increased brand
commitment. Brand commitment can be seen through the attachments an employee
has with a brand and the extent to which they are willing to go the extra mile to help
an organisation reach its objectives. These benefits can be achieved if there is good
internal brand management.
Despite the benefits of EBBE, and because there is the notion that the strength of the
brand lies in what customers know and feel about the brand, marketing practitioners
and academics have focused too much on how customer-based brand equity (CBBE)
is built, measured and managed. The building and measuring of the contribution of
EBBE has received limited attention, even though the resource-based view theory
posits that superior customer value is created when the importance of all resources
(i.e., brands and employees) are recognised and nurtured for competitive advantage.
Employees are important company resources, and for them to build good brand
citizenship behaviours, the social exchange theory suggests that they have to perceive
an organisation to be caring and supportive, and the social identity theory suggests
that employees need to identify with the organisation.
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In one of the first empirically tested model on how EBBE can be built and measured,
King and Grace (2010) showed that the benefits of EBBE can be achieved if a brand
is internally well managed through openness, good human factors, information
generation from studying employee needs, management support, brand knowledge
dissemination, which then leads to role clarity and brand commitment. These factors
impacted on the EBBE benefits: brand citizenship behaviour, employee satisfaction,
brand allegiance, and employee willingness to endorse the organisation. Subsequent
studies have tested King and Grace’s (2010) model in various service industries.
However, the importance of testing the resource-based view theory in different
industry contexts has been recommended. Also, the internal brand management
factors may first impact on employee satisfaction, before leading to EBBE benefits and
brand commitment.
Considering the success of Famous Brands in South Africa and the fact that few
studies have tested the sources and outcomes of EBBE in the food service industry,
this study integrated King and Grace’s (2009; 2010) EBBE model and Du Preez and
Bendixen’s (2015) internal brand management (IBM) model to examine the extent to
which IBM and employee satisfaction impact overall EBBE, and whether the overall
EBBE drives employee brand commitment. An integrated conceptual model with
twelve hypotheses was developed. To test the hypotheses, data was collected from
404 Famous Brands employees in South Africa through self-administered
questionnaires. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. Of the
twelve hypotheses that were tested, ten were supported and two were not. Internal
brand communication, role clarity, management support and rewards had a positive
impact on employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction positively impacted brand
citizenship behaviour, brand endorsement and brand allegiance. Employees who
displayed brand citizenship behaviours, endorsed the brand/organisation and
intending to continue working for the organisation were found to be committed to the
organisation. Internal marketing research and employee satisfaction were found to
have a negative relationship, as well as employee satisfaction and brand commitment.
This study contributes to theory on IBM, employee satisfaction, EBBE and employee
brand commitment, particularly in the food service industry in South Africa. These
findings can help better understand employees and how their commitment to a
company’s brand can be gained. The study can help managers and marketers to
understand the factors leading to the commitment of the employees of Africa’s biggest
food services franchisor and the learnings can be used in their own organisations. This
study’s findings can also be used to develop IBM programmes for organisations.
Description
A thesis submitted to the in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economics and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021