Essay on Organizational Loyalty
To investigate the reason behind the impact of internal branding on customer-based brand equity. Moreover, organizational loyalty mediates the relationship between internal branding and customer-based brand equity. Furthermore, relationships also have a mediating impact on organizational loyalty. Researchers suggested the use of entirely different theories like the balance theory (Heifer, 2013). The balance theory explains that individuals attempt to recall orderliness within the trios of similar arguments i.e. company workers & customers (Heider, 2013).
According to Hatch & Schultz (2008), a branding program relies on various visions, values and cultures that help build a strong organization. Furthermore, Ind(2007,p.123) suggests the practice of “Internal Marketing of External Campaigns” That can be an effective tool for organizations. But unluckily, organizations are usually stuck between internal brand values and external brand messages. Delivering is thought to be the hardest part of marketing. The million-dollar investment is made by the companies in marketing, but little investment is made in the employees who are responsible for transforming the brand messages into the real customer world.
Active Internal branding involves workers creating conscious aware choices to ponder on remodeling the whole commitment into reality once cooperating with the customers (Baker et. al,2014; Morhart et al., 2009) consistent with the attention-based views. The staff involved in decision-making the internal branding staff brand building behavior depicts the employees’ role as decision-makers who choose to provision the organizations’ brand-building efforts. (Miles & Bect,2004; Morhart et.al., 2009).
Employees must be engaged to encourage the brand. Therefore, the messages sent to staff conveying the brand are even as vital as the ones sent to customers.
This interprets that organizations ought to be balanced not solely on brand activities that focus on the external stakeholders (customers) but internal branding activities to make sure the worker behaviors are in step with external branding efforts otherwise the investment efforts may lead to futility and ineffectiveness.(Punjaisiri and Wilson,2017)
Employees and customers are the prime stakeholders of an organization. Employees have a direct influence on customers and provide products and services to customers. Biedenbach, Bengtsson, and Wincent(2011) concisely this impact on a customer-employee relationship in their study. They further claimed that employee behavior, work quality, and interactions with customers impact the relationship between customers and an organization, both positively and negatively (Maria Stock et al., 2017). While employee and customer relationships have been deliberate by some scholars (Poon et al., 2017), who found various associates such as skilled, committed, satisfied, and loyal employees interact positively with customers, which may lead to CBBE.
Other than employees, some other prominent factors lead to this complex investigation.
The factor ‘Loyalty’ to an organization ensures to be an exciting topic for the researchers (Lim, 2016; Bahri-Ammari et al, 2016). Loyalty is a key to a successful relationship, not only from the employees’ point of view but also from the customers’ view. Company management tries to make strategies for the retention of employees in the long term, while employees hold customers by providing the best quality services. Echchakoui (2015) explained that employee loyalty concluded equity occurs when an employee shows loyalty to a company, which grows the output of all efforts, e.g., training, role clarity, briefing, etc., which have been employed by an organization on its employees. According to the theory of emotional contagion, emotions are linked to humans; accordingly, employee loyalty is transferred to customers as well (Maria Stock et al., 2017).
Factually, organization loyalty refers to dedication. In this respect, organizational studies (e.g. Vallaster and Lindgreen, 2013) have recognized that customer satisfaction and equity are broadly influenced by service providers’ employees. In an organization the employees are not only viewing trustworthiness with that particular organization, they are also revealing a positive image in consumer mind by keeping a long-lasting stay in the organization (Kang and Kang, 2016). The research society is ambiguous about the role that organization loyalty plays either in building or breaking the relationship between an organization and its customers.
A loyal employee remains an effective employee, as Clark discussed that loyalty is the main component of an idealistic organizational culture. When an organizations focus on aligning human resources with brand promises through internal branding, this leads to employee loyalty to brands (Du Preez et al., 2017). As a mediating influence of Organizational Loyalty, traditionally, organizational loyalty is surrounded by the concept of devotion. In this perspective, organizational study (e.g. Vallaster and Lindgreen, 2013) has recognized that customer satisfaction and equity are widely influenced by service providers’ employees. In an organization or institute, the employees are not only showing trustworthiness with that particular organization, but they are also portraying a positive image in consumer minds by keeping a long-term stay in the organization (Kang and Kang, 2016).
Intention to stay has been identified as one of the strongest predictors of employee retention. Employers have to deliberate the risk of losing their well-trained employees, who might leave for better scenarios elsewhere. Replacement of those employees who quit is another concern that involves not only the expenses of recruitment and new hire training, but also the time essential for the new joiners to establish themselves in their territories, develop trust, and make acceptable revenue streams (Sunder et al., 2017). To deal with this issue, organizations may need to adopt proactive strategies to hold skilled employees.