Awareness and Usefulness of Internal Branding in the Public Sector

Abstract

In service industry the role of employees especially the behavior and attitude of front-liners play a vital role in building a brand’s repute amongst stakeholders. To build employees’ behavior for the delivery of an organizations’ brand promise, role of internal branding and its activities come into play according to relevant and reviewed literature. With previous studies on internal branding confined mainly to private enterprises and service industries, Cahill (1995) included government/public sector agencies in the list of organizations that may derive value from internal branding activities, hence this study focuses on and expands empirical research through delving into the public higher education sector in two highly developed western European countries: Germany and the Netherlands. This empirical study had two objectives, firstly, to investigate the level of knowledge and understanding of the internal branding concept in two specific case studies (Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt in Germany and School of Governance, Utrecht University in the Netherlands) with respect to the cultural perspective (Christensen et al., 2007), and secondly, the social and scientific testing of internal branding theory (dimensions and factors of failure and success as developed by Mahnert, 2009) particularly in universities and the public sector in general. In culmination, based on intensified competition developing in public HEIs, the need for internal branding for the employee engagement was promulgated in the findings with majority approving of the dimensions and factors of internal branding theory (with relevant customization to public sector needs) for improving public service delivery and strengthening public organizations’ brand equity.