Unveiling front-line employees’ brand construal types during corporate brand promise delivery: a multi-study analysis

Marshalling empirical insights from three empirical studies, this work unveils the heterogeneous nature of front-line employees’ (FLEs) corporate brand construals. Our insights contest corporate brand perspectives that assume employees respond to internal branding initiatives in a homogeneous manner. In Study 1, four types of FLEs’ corporate brand construals are identified (i.e. brand enthusiasts, brand conformists, brand deviants, brand skeptics). Study 2a develops and validates the measurement scales of these four types. Through a Bayesian SEM approach, Study 2b reveals the existence of multifaceted cognitive and affective FLEs’ responses to corporate branding initiatives. Our findings substantiate the significance of the social identity theory to both corporate/internal branding by revealing the link between corporate brand construal and corporate brand identification. In instrumental terms, this typology explains variations in FLEs’ corporate brand promise delivery and renders practitioners more equipped to implement corporate branding initiatives.