Brand-self connections and brand prominence as drivers of employee brand attachment

Abstract

Past research reveals that customers can attach meanings to brands that create strong connections between the brand and the self. When they do, and when the brand is prominent in their minds, they become psychologically attached to the brand, and display strong brand loyalty and advocacy behaviors. We use a grounded theory framework to ask if employees develop similar brand-self connections and regard the brand as prominent in their lives based on the meaning they attach to the brand they work for. This question is important because employee’s attachment to the brand can have critical equity-driving implications for the brand’s marketplace success and the employee’s commitment to the organization. We also ask what drives such outcomes. Beyond identifying novel drivers of employees’ brand attachment, we find that employees’ attachment to a brand is conceptually and empirically different from attachment or commitment to the organization. Specifically, we observe employees who are not attached to the organization but who are still attached to the brand, and who engage in difficult-to-enact pro-brand and pro-organization behaviors. Finally, our findings contribute to a broader knowledge base on organizational commitment and attachment by identifying brand meaning-related drivers of employees’ organizational commitment/attachment. Prior research has studied non-brand related drivers of these organizational outcomes.