Internal branding: an enabler of employees' brand-supporting behaviours

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to understand the internal branding process from the employees’ perspective; it will empirically assess the relationship between internal branding and employees’ delivery of the brand promise as well as the relationships among their brand identification, brand commitment, and brand loyalty. Design/methodology/approach: On a census basis, a quantitative survey was carried out with 699 customer-interface employees from five major hotels. Findings: Internal branding is found to have a positive impact on attitudinal and behavioural aspects of employees in their delivery of the brand promise. As employees’ brand commitment did not have a statistically significant relationship with employees’ brand performance, it was not regarded as a mediator in the link between internal branding and employees’ brand performance. Furthermore, the study shows that brand identification is a driver of brand commitment, which precedes brand loyalty of employees