Pre-Proposal: Internal branding and job satisfaction 1

Pre-Proposal: Internal branding and job satisfaction

Laura Gardner

CC 645: Research Methods

Professor Linda Gallant

April 20, 2009

 Pre-Proposal: Internal branding and job satisfaction 2

Introduction
Many communication practitioners have come to realize that an
organization’s stakeholders are not only customers, but employees as well. Treating
employees as brand ambassador’s attempts to link employees’ everyday work
behavior to a larger raison d’etre of the organization: the organization’s
brand[ CITATION Har \l 1033 ]. Organizations commonly do this from day one. On a
new hire’s first day there is acclimation by learning the company culture, history
and the discovery of social norms. The purpose of this study is to determine the
most successful methods in regards to internal branding.

Justification
With the rise of competition in a global economy, organizations are looking for ways
to remain competitive and retain quality employees. These employees have become
brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors are of growing importance to
organizations for three main reasons. It is said there is a link between how
employees are taken care of at work in regards to how they take care of the outside
customers. The idea that if employees are successfully internally branded that they
will always prioritize the brand’s interest[ CITATION Har \l 1033 ]. Furthermore,
studies show that employee engagement, which can be linked to internal branding,
is positively correlated to customer satisfaction, productivity, profit, employee
retention, and employee safety. [ CITATION Har06 \l 1033 ].

Literature Review
There has been heavy research in both internal branding and job satisfaction.
While there is a lack of studies examining the correlation between them, several
similar concepts can be identified when researching each variable on their own. It is
important to understand previous and state-of-art research on internal branding in
order to develop the tools, i.e. surveys or interviews that will be used to collect the
necessary data. Several studies have been done examining how internal branding
relates to different concepts such as informal relationships (friendships), turnover
intentions, work performance, brand equity, etc. These studies have also produced
useful theories, models, and methodologies that can be used to measure data.
Therefore, its useful to research internal branding and job satisfaction individually,
while looking for similarities.

Internal Branding
A model in explaining the process of internal branding is the Conceptualization of
the Employee Branding Process. This model has five stages: internal entities who
convey specific messages about the organizations, including human resources,
public relations, and managers; employee perceptions of these messages; the
interpretation of these perceptions which creates brand image; the consequences of
this product, including turnover, employee satisfaction, and customer
retention[ CITATION Sut06 \l 1033 ]. “Corporate branding and corporate brand
experience” proposes a model called the Identity-reputation Gap Model of Brand
Management. This model states that there are six components: vision and culture,
which drive the brand’s desired positioning, personality and subsequent
 Pre-Proposal: Internal branding and job satisfaction 3

relationships, all of which are then presented to reflect stakeholders’ actual and
aspirational self-images. This model aims to bridge the gap between brand identity
and brand reputation. The model would be useful in forming questions to use for a
survey to determine the level of internal branding.

Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction has been measured using different questionnaires and surveys. One
of these questionnaires is the MSQ, or the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire.
This specific questionnaire has been used primarily in measuring the job
satisfaction in the counseling sector. It is a self-administered, untimed, paper and
pencil, hand-scored instrument. It consists of 100 items that provide an overall job
satisfaction score and 20 job facet scores including advancement, compensation
social service, and supervision (Jones, Hohenshil & Burge, 2000). Another study
entitled “Determinants of job satisfaction of municipal government employees” used
a self-deigned Likert-style questionnaire to assess employee perceptions about 11
different sectors of job satisfaction including equipment and resources, physical
work space, safe work environment, training, workload, and so on [ CITATION
Ell02 \l 1033 ].

Organizational Commitment
A common concept found in both the literature about internal branding and job
satisfaction is organizational commitment. Organizational commitment has been
described as “the strength of an individuals identification with, an involvement in, a
certain organization [ CITATION Hua07 \l 1033 ]. This is comparative to internal
branding and I would expect correlations and relationships between organizational
commitment and job satisfaction to be similar to those of internal branding and job
satisfaction. “Informal Relationships in the Workplace: Associations with Job
Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intentions” looks at the
correlation between job satisfaction and organizational commitment in regards to
employee turnover. In the article the author also describes The Model of
Organizational Relationships, which gives a visual representation of the correlations
between several concepts that are found in literature about both internal branding
and job satisfaction. The part of the model that would prevalent for my study would
be the positive correlation that it shows between job satisfaction and organizational
commitment.

Methods of Data Collection

The primary method of my study would be a two-part survey. Part A would be the
OCQ study. This would measure the independent variable of internal branding.
The rationalization for my use of the OCQ survey to measure internal branding
comes from “Informal Relationships in the Workplace: Associations with Job
Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intentions”. As previously
stated this study casually looks like the correlation between job satisfaction and
organizational commitment. The author describes organizational commitment as
“the relative strength of an individual’s identification, and involvement in, an
organization” (Morrison, 2004). The OCQ uses a 15-item scale rated on a 7 point
 Pre-Proposal: Internal branding and job satisfaction 4

Likert scale from strongly disagree to strong agree. Part B would be a Gallup survey
to measure the dependent variable of job satisfaction. The Gallup Survey will be
used to measure the dependent variable, job satisfaction. The Gallup is used in the
study “Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction, Employee
Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis”. This study looks at the
relationship between employee satisfaction and several concepts that have already
been addressed such as turnover and customer loyalty. Thus, the objective of the
study is to provide quantitative support for a positive correlation between job
satisfaction and internal branding.

Hypothesis
Successful internal branding has a positive correlation to job satisfaction. The more
an employee feels “connected” in the organizations mission, the happier they are in
the work place.

Participants
For this study I would partner with a small business, ideally a hotel, restaurant or
small office, with 50 to 100 full-time employees. Working with Human Resources I
would request that they ask each employee to take 20 minutes of their day to
complete a short two-part study. The time span allowed for all employees to
complete the survey would be approximately 10 days. This time frame should allow
all full-time employees to complete the study without creating a burden on the
organization. Demographically, the participants should be over 18 and work full-
time. The purpose of the study is not looking for a specific age group and what
variables affect their job satisfaction, although this could be a subject for a future
study. Analysis of the collected data will be done quantitatively by looking at the
numerical results recorded on the OCQ survey and Gallup survey. These results
would then be run through SPSS to look for correlations between the two.
[ CITATION Sut06 \l 1033 ]

Works Cited
 Pre-Proposal: Internal branding and job satisfaction 5

Ellickson, M. (2002). Determinants of job satisfaction of municipal government

employees. Public Personnel Management  , 31 (1).

Harquail, C. (2004). Employees as Animate Artifacts: Employee Branding by

“Wearing the Brand” . Artifacts and Organizations .

Harris, F., & de Chernatony, L. Corporate branding and corporate brand

performance. European Journal of Marketing , 35 (3).

Harter, H. &. (2002). Business-Unit-Level Relaionship Between Employee

Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-
Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology , 37 (2).

Huang, T.-C., & Hsiao, W.-J. (2007). THE CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB
SATISFACTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT . Social Behavior and
Personality .

Jones, H. (2009, Spring). Factors affecting African American counselors' job

satisfaction: a national survey). Journal of Counseling and Development .

Miles, S.J. and Mangold, G. (2004) A conceptualization of the employee branding

process. Journal of relationship marketing, Vol.3, issue 2/3, pp. 65-87.

Morrison, R. (2004). Informal Relationships in the Workplace: Associations with Job

Satisfaction, Organisational Commitment and Turnover Intentions . New
Zealand Journal of Psychology , 33 (3).

Sutherland, M. &. (2006). Obtaining employee commitment to living the brand of the
organisation. South African Journal of Business Management , 37 (1).