Promoting Organizational Brands as Desirable Employers Through Company Websites: A Study of Three Indian IT Companies

--Falguni Vasavada-Oza and Dhriti Bhattacharjee

The organizational brand is the reputation or perception that its major stakeholders have about it. The major stakeholders in this case are investors, employees, consumers, community, government and regulatory authorities and the general public. Of all these stakeholders, this study aims to find out how an organization projects itself as a desirable employer, particularly to prospective employees. The study looks into the brand identity promoted by three IT companies whose origins are in India, namely, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro. These were the top three IT companies in India based on their revenues (source: http://www.nasscom.in/industry-ranking). This study looks into how these companies promote themselves as employers of choice through the internet, as it is the most accessible and used source of information in today’s time. It aims at finding out what identity these organizations want to create and how they promote this image through the career pages of their websites to the target audience. The study involves content analysis of the websites with a special focus on employer branding. The results show that organizations have different approaches to building their brand identity. The study also provides an insight into how organizations try to attract scarce talent in this increasingly competitive world.

© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Artist as Brand Portfolio Manager: A Strategic Brand Management Framing of the Artist

--Henrik Uggla

The purpose of this paper is to expand the perspective on the artist from brand manager to brand portfolio manager, focusing on applying the brand portfolio metaphor and framework from strategic brand management to the artist and art. This paper has two aims, first to embed the creative artist’s work within the strategic brand management literature and the brand portfolio management literature in particular. Secondly, the author moves beyond the traditional description of the artist as a brand by framing the artist as an inclusive brand portfolio manager, leveraging entities, artifacts and impressions in and outside his or her brand territory. It is suggested that the artist can potentially manage a complex brand portfolio of product-brands, brand extensions and co-brands and align distinct brand portfolio objectives with his or her business strategy.

© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

How Service Experience Leads to Brand Loyalty: Perspective from the Telecom Sector in Ghana

--George K Amoako, Robert K Dzogbenuku and Joshua K Doe

This paper seeks to investigate the relationship amongst service experience, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in the Ghanaian telecommunication industry. Students from Central University College Accra were selected randomly to respond to a questionnaire. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used in analyzing the data. The study revealed that service quality significantly influences both customer satisfaction and brand loyalty; and also customer satisfaction significantly influences brand loyalty. Telecommunication firms and other firms which want to survive competition have to know what their customers want and satisfy them. Managers must also be aware that service quality must be measured in terms of customer satisfaction in order to enhance brand loyalty. This paper is one of the very few empirical researches conducted, that investigates the importance of service experience to customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in the telecommunication service industry in an emerging market economy. The findings, if well publicized, will encourage both scholars and professionals elsewhere to value the importance of using customer inputs in developing service innovation strategies in the telecommunication industry in emerging markets.

© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Modeling the Personality Construct of Brands: A Study on Apparel Brands in India

--Saugat Ghosh

Brand personality, which is defined as ‘personality attributes associated with the brands’, forms the core of a brand’s symbolic attributes. As the functional benefits offered by all brands in a product category are similar, symbolic benefits play a significant role in achieving differential positioning of brands. Firms often try to differentiate their brands from those of competitors by designing a suitable brand personality. To develop a suitable brand personality, knowledge related to the brand personality construct is essential. Although theoretical studies have illustrated the construction of brand personality and identified important constructing factors, there are gaps in empirical validation of the theories and the constructing components. Moreover, identification of the relative importance of the brand personality constructing components across different product categories was also not done. In this paper, an attempt has been made to create a model of brand personality for selected brands of apparels, based on theoretical studies. A methodology is also developed to empirically justify the theoretical construct. The relative importance of the constructing components of brand personality is also measured across selected brands of apparels operating in the Indian market.

© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Factors Affecting Shoppers’ Brand Preference Towards Choosing Retail Stores

--Ramulu Bhukya and Sapna Singh

The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors affecting shoppers’ brand preference towards choosing retail stores. The factors considered for this were—store ambience, store location, store layout, parking facility and salespersons’ service quality. Primary data were collected from consumers through a structured questionnaire at 35 different retail stores. Responses were recorded on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents. A total of 320 valid responses were obtained and included for data analysis. Data were analyzed by applying descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis on SPSS 21v. The findings revealed that all the five factors have a significant effect on consumer preference towards choosing retail stores. However, parking facility and store location were found to be the most important factors. Hence, it is suggested that managers of retail stores should consider these five factors as strategically important for their stores to become the preferred choices among consumers.

© 2016 IUP. All Rights Reserved.