Antecedents to Employer Branding

In the present competitive era, it has become difficult for organizations to attract and retain talented employees. In view of this constraint many organizations have adopted the employer branding concept in organizations. However, it has been found that multinationals and large business entities practice employer branding but it is not being practiced in SMEs in Pakistan. Thus, SMEs in Pakistan are not able to operate at full capacity due to lackof talented workforce. Past studies despite the importance of employer branding have used it in large industries. Moreover, these studies have examined the consequences of employer branding and have not adequately examined the mediating roles of personal organization and recruitment. This study has examined the effect of employer branding on organizational identification, personal organization, recruitment and satisfaction. Additionally, this study has also examined the mediating roles of personal organization and recruitment. The sample size for the study was 415 SMEs in Karachi. Smart PLS was used for testing the measurement and structural model. The results show that employer branding has a positive and statistically significant impact on organizational identification, personal organization, recruitment and job satisfaction. In addition, the study found that personal organization has a positive and significant effect on organizational identification while recruitment has a positive and significant effect on job satisfaction. Further, we find that recruitment mediates the relationship between employer branding and job satisfaction.Keywords: Employer branding, organizational identification, personal organization, satisfaction, recruitment