Internal Branding: A Comparative Analysis of Banking Sector in Pakistan

Abstract

With the growing consumerism and corporate competition, organizations, particularly banks are required to augment the sense of branding among their employees. In this view, this research study intends to extend understanding towards brand supporting behavior and assesses empirical relationship between brand supporting behavior and brand performance. Also, it evaluates internal branding process from perspective of employees to know attributes of organization that motivate them in living the brand or delivering the brand performance. A quantitative survey is conducted in banking sector and structural equation modeling is applied to assess the goodness of fit of model and to interpret causal relationships. To explore the factors of internal branding which drive performance of employees, in-depth interviews are also carried out. Attributes that motivate employees and contribute in building internal branding process are found as: work environment, employment, and internal communication. These factors can influence employees brand supporting behavior and internal branding process which in turn affect the delivery of brand promise. The results of this study provide practical insights about the internal branding dynamics of local market; and suggests that norms valued by the employees, need attention of top management to let employees relate those norms with the brand of the organization.