Abstract:
Employees are important endorsers and gatekeepers to authentic conversations
brands want to have with their consumers. This research focuses on predictors of
employee endorsement. The purpose of the study was to investigate how internal
marketing, internal engagement and perceived external prestige influence employees’
propensity to engage in positive word-of-mouth conversations about their company’s
brands to their families, friends and close networks. Although the concept of word-ofmouth
has received a lot of attention from researchers and practitioners alike, few
studies have focused on the perspective of the initiator of word-of-mouth
conversations, especially if the sender is employed by the brand being endorsed.
From the literature reviewed an endorsement model was developed testing
relationships between the constructs of (independent) internal marketing, internal
engagement prestige and (moderating) perceived external prestige with (dependent)
employee endorsement. A quantitative study was conducted through an email-based
survey for which data from 156 employees from a South African bank was used to test
hypotheses. A moderated regression was applied to establish the model fit to the data
collected.
The results of the model confirm that internal marketing and internal engagement are
important predictors of employee endorsement. Although an organisation’s external
prestige is theoretically important to employees, data reveals that the variable does not
have a significant bearing on the relationships between internal marketing and internal
engagement with employee endorsement. These findings are relevant for businesses
seeking to leverage their employee potential not only in strengthening their branded
services when servicing customers also growing their client base with an engaged
customer base emanating from authentic trust relationships.
