Journal of Product & Brand Management

Examining the drivers of employee brand understanding: a longitudinal study

Enrique Murillo, Ceridwyn King,
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 Examining the drivers of employee brand
understanding: a longitudinal study
Enrique Murillo
Escuela de Ciencias Econ
omicas y Empresariales, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, Mexico, and
Ceridwyn King
School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to extend previous research by using a longitudinal design to examine the differential contribution of brand
understanding (BU) drivers at various moments in the early tenure of service employees. Employee BU is a prerequisite of brand promise delivery
among service employees. Previous studies, using cross-sectional samples, established that brand-oriented recruitment, training and leadership are
significant BU drivers.
Design/methodology/approach – A three-wave survey was collected from a 105-member panel of recent hires at a restaurant chain that
displayed a strong brand culture and adopted internal brand management (IBM) practices. Structural equation models with carryover effects were
estimated to measure the impact of BU drivers on Day 1, as well as at four and seven months of tenure. In addition, a latent growth model of BU
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was estimated using random coefficients modeling.

Findings – Results show a significant positive effect of IBM practices on BU at each point in time; however, despite this, by the seven month
milestone, BU is still not fully developed.
Research limitations/implications – As with most organizational longitudinal studies, there was sample attrition because of the high turnover
that characterizes the restaurant industry. This attrition is not believed to be correlated with the variables measured in the study.
Practical implications – Managers seeking a differentiated customer experience should not assume new hires attain a good understanding of the
service brand even after the first seven months of tenure. Hence, brand training and leadership should extend well beyond this time frame.
Originality/value – This study is the first, as per the authors’ understanding, to use a longitudinal design to model BU as a dynamic variable
because it befits the learning trajectories of new employees.
Keywords Service employees, Internal brand management, Longitudinal design, Employee brand understanding
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
In today’s hyper-competitive environment, fueled by informed
consumers, a strong brand is one of the few effective sources of
differentiation in service industries (O’Neill and Carlbäck, 2011;
Becerra et al., 2013; Sevel et al., 2018). To this end, marketers
have sought to influence what brands mean to customers through
strategic brand management. While traditional advertising and
other promotional initiatives aid in this process, interactions
between employees and customers for service brands (i.e.
personal service encounters) are also significantly influential in
shaping customer brand perceptions (Sirianni et al., 2013).
However, unlike traditional brand management tools, the
influence of personal service encounters on customer perceptions
is difficult to control given that the frontline employee brand
promise delivery is variable (Foster et al., 2010; Baker et al.,
2014). The service literature emphasizes the importance for
management to ensure employees have the training, resources
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
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and personal attitudes that enable them to fulfill the promises that
the company makes to consumers through external marketing
(Berry and Lampo, 2004; Sirianni et al., 2013).
In pursuit of this goal, the literature on internal brand
management (IBM) has identified several practices that service
companies should adopt to ensure that their employees have the
knowledge and attitudes that will enable them to champion the
brand (Jacobs, 2003; Burmann and Zeplin, 2005; De
Chernatony et al., 2006; Chong, 2007). IBM research has
examined antecedents such as brand-oriented recruitment,
training, communication, leadership and brand-values fit
(Vallaster and De Chernatony, 2005; Burmann et al., 2009;
King and Grace, 2009; Punjaisri and Wilson, 2011; Baker et al.,
2014; Löhndorf and Diamantopoulos, 2014; Xiong and King,
2015; Tuominen et al., 2016), as well as employee outcomes
such as brand knowledge, brand commitment, brand
identification, brand motivation and various forms of brand
citizenship behavior (Burmann et al., 2009; Kimpakorn and
Tocquer, 2009; Punjaisri and Wilson, 2011; Xiong and King,
The support of Juan Pablo García, Cristina Macaya and Asociaci

on
Mexicana de Cultura, A.C. is gratefully acknowledged.

Received 4 September 2018

Journal of Product & Brand Management Revised 23 January 2019
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421] 30 March 2019
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-09-2018-2007] Accepted 5 April 2019
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
2015; Terglav et al., 2016; Du Preez et al., 2017; Garas et al.,
2018). Such research is informed by the understanding that to
deliver a differentiated customer experience in a considered and
reliable manner, service employees must have a solid and
actionable understanding of the service brand. This includes
factual knowledge of the brand promise made to customers
through marketing communications, as well as practical
knowledge of their role in creating a customer experience that
delivers on that promise. Hence, it can be argued that brand
understanding (BU), which is the cognitive representation of the
brand within employees’ mind (Baumgarth and Schmidt, 2010),
is an essential prerequisite of brand promise delivery among
service employees (Xiong et al., 2013). It is considered a core
employee enabler in the IBM processes of service organizations.
However, previous studies of BU have been limited in their
insight because they rely on a single-point-in-time cross-
sectional sample to examine what is an inherently dynamic
construct. In particular, in the case of new hires, who constitute
a prime focus of IBM efforts, enhancing BU involves a dynamic
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process of learning, which cannot be adequately explained with
a single cross-sectional sample. Given the central role that BU
plays in facilitating the delivery of a differentiated customer
experience, insight on how BU develops during the first months
of employee tenure would be an important contribution to the
IBM literature. Such insight has the potential to inform
practical interventions, as well as enhance theoretical
comprehension of IBM processes from a longitudinal learning
perspective. Therefore, the objective of this research is to
examine the evolution of BU and its antecedent variables over
time, by using a longitudinal panel survey of recently hired
employees in a service organization. The paper is organized as
follows. After the Introduction, in Section 2, the theoretical
framework is presented. In Section 3, study hypotheses are
developed and justified. In Section 4, the longitudinal survey
design over three time periods, the research site and the data are
described. In Section 5, the results of the various models that
were estimated to address the articulated hypotheses are
presented. In Section 6, the results and the extent of support
found for the study’s hypotheses are discussed. Finally, in
Section 7, the theoretical and practical implications, as well as
directions for future research, are presented.
2. Theoretical background
2.1 Brand understanding
While BU is not a novel concept within IBM literature
(Thomson et al., 1999; Vallaster and de Chernatony, 2005;
Chong, 2007), it has yet to achieve a widely accepted
definition. Various labels have been proposed for constructs
that share similar conceptualizations such as brand knowledge
(Kimpakorn and Tocquer, 2009; King and Grace, 2009;
Löhndorf and Diamantopoulos, 2014; Terglav et al., 2016),
internal brand knowledge (Baumgarth and Schmidt, 2010;
Biedenbach and Manzhynski, 2016; Morokane et al., 2016),
corporate brand knowledge (Hoppe, 2017), knowledge of desired
brand image (Miles and Mangold, 2005), shared brand
understanding (Vallaster and de Chernatony, 2005) and brand
understanding (Xiong et al., 2013; King and So, 2015; Piehler
et al., 2016). Furthermore, BU has been operationalized with both
unidimensional (Kimpakorn and Tocquer, 2009; Baumgarth
Journal of Product & Brand Management
and Schmidt, 2010; Löhndorf and Diamantopoulos, 2014;
King and So, 2015; Terglav et al., 2016; Hoppe, 2017) and
multidimensional approaches (Xiong et al., 2013; Piehler, 2018).
Despite these differences, the conceptualizations share a view
of BU as the cognitive dimension of the corporate brand in
employees’ minds, thus establishing a distinction from the
affective (e.g. brand commitment) and behavioral dimensions
(e.g. brand citizenship behavior) (Piehler, 2018). Furthermore,
they all consider BU as a prerequisite for brand-aligned
employee behaviors. Some studies have also explored the role of
BU as an antecedent of employee-based brand equity (Xiong
et al., 2013; Morokane et al., 2016; Altaf et al., 2017; Boukis and
Christodoulides, 2018). The literature shows an increasing
awareness of the theoretical and practical importance of BU,
which is defined here as the cognitive representation of the brand
within employees’ mind (Baumgarth and Schmidt, 2010).
Companies that compete through a differentiated service
experience must cultivate a sufficient level of BU among their
employees, making it a priority outcome of IBM efforts (Jacobs,
2003; Harris, 2007; Chong, 2007). While this will likely require
a substantial effort by the organization, studies have shown that
in companies pursuing a differentiation strategy, investments in
employees’ human capital have a positive impact on
profitability (Walsh et al., 2008; Cohen and Olsen, 2015). On
entering the employment relationship, employees usually have
some knowledge, and may even have personal experience, of
the service brand. However, this knowledge is informed from a
customer perspective. It may not be sufficient, appropriate or
even useful for new hires to understand their role as employees
are responsible for delivering, as opposed to consuming, the
brand promise (King and Grace, 2009). Furthermore, for
human resource managers, who are responsible for onboarding
new employees (Aurand et al., 2005), developing BU is
challenging because it encompasses both explicit and tacit
knowledge of the brand. For example, explaining the brand’s
positioning vis-a-vis competing brands deals with topics
associated more with “feelings” than hard numbers such as the
brand’s values and personality (Richards et al., 1998). Such
topics can be difficult to grasp, particularly in the absence of
actual brand-related experience.
Explicit knowledge is easily articulated, stored and reused. It
might include specifics such as the espoused brand values and
the mission and vision statements, which are materials that can
easily be transmitted to new hires during orientation. In
contrast:
[. . .] tacit knowledge is highly personal. It is hard to formalize and, therefore,
difficult to communicate to others [. . .] Tacit knowledge is also deeply
rooted in action and in an individual’s commitment to a specific context
[. . .] tacit knowledge consists partly of technical skills [and partly] of mental
models, beliefs and perspectives so ingrained that we take them for granted
and therefore cannot easily articulate them. (Nonaka, 1991, p. 98).
For example, new hires at a luxury hotel might be able to recite
the brand values (i.e. explicit knowledge) after their first day of
training, but they can take much longer to understand how
those values relate to the advertised brand promise, and what
delivering this promise demands from employees in their
particular roles when facing different customer situations (i.e.
tacit knowledge). Considering the carefully scripted behaviors
that service employees must perform to deliver differentiated
customer experiences at firms such as Singapore Airlines
(Chong, 2007), Apple Store (Kane and Sherr, 2011) or IKEA
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
(Tarnovskaya and de Chernatony, 2011), the comprehension
of the brand values and brand promise, as well as their
actionable implications, can take a long time for new employees
to acquire. Delivering the brand promise is more than
delivering good service: it must be brand-aligned good service,
consistent with the differentiation the brand seeks vis-a-vis
competing brands (King et al., 2013).
Because tacit knowledge is “complex, ambiguous, and
subjective; [. . .] accumulated by people through observation,
imitation and repeated interactions” (p. 531), acquiring it can
take much longer than explicit knowledge, which is more easily
codified and recorded (Chuang et al., 2016). At their
orientation, new hires receive mostly procedural or explicit
brand knowledge that can be communicated in a
straightforward manner (King and Grace, 2009). However,
tacit knowledge depends on employees’ practical skills,
experience and judgment (Murray and Peyrefitte, 2007), which
are generally lacking in new hires. Therefore, many companies
use on-the-job training to facilitate employee assimilation of the
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tacit dimensions of the work (Kacmar et al., 2006). Indeed, the
service literature has long recognized that the retention of
service employees is a strategic priority given the loss of
acquired knowledge and the high cost of recruitment and
training (Frey et al., 2013; Hinkin and Tracey, 2000).
Despite the understanding that employee performance can
be enhanced over time through ongoing training and exposure,
the IBM literature specifically, and the service literature more
broadly, lacks insight into how this process evolves. Intuitively,
it seems plausible that service employees who have been at a
company for years, and effortlessly deliver a brand-aligned
customer experience, draw on tacit knowledge when they
interact with customers. However, as this process is in constant
flux, cross-sectional studies only reflect a snapshot in time, with
no insight as to the process or effectiveness of organizational
initiatives created for the purpose of developing employees’
understanding of the brand. In seeking to enhance
comprehension of the process through which employees
develop BU, we draw on situated learning theory (SLT) (Lave
and Wenger, 1991).
2.2 Situated learning theory
SLT was developed from ethnographic studies of traditional
apprenticeships as a critique of the then dominant cognitive
approach to learning. Its central argument is that people learn
by becoming legitimate but peripheral members of social
communities where knowledge resides, not as abstract ideas,
but as embodied and shared practices. Therefore, learning is
conceptualized as the process of joining a community and
actually taking part in its practices, beginning with the most
basic and gradually mastering the most complex, and always
working alongside established members. The theory has now
been generalized to many learning contexts, and not just formal
apprenticeships. One clear implication is that most employee
learning, particularly when it involves tacit knowledge, does not
take place in training workshops that separate employees from
the work, but in everyday work practice, as coworkers interact
with each other (Brown and Duguid, 1991).
Given the substantial level of tacit knowledge involved in
BU, SLT suggests that new hires, who have completed their
orientation and initial training, which takes place away from the
Journal of Product & Brand Management
complexities of real-time customer service, probably have only
a rudimentary and decontextualized understanding of the
service brand and brand promise delivery. However,
immersion in the job, over time, is expected to enhance the
learning process and strengthen BU. Therefore, consistent with
SLT, the objective of this study is to model the growth of BU
over the first several months of employment as a function of
both its known antecedents (IBM practices) and time, which is
considered a proxy for workplace interactions that are varied
and numerous, and thus cannot be easily modeled. This
approach contrasts with previous research on BU (Xiong et al.,
2013; Löhndorf and Diamantopoulos, 2014; Piehler et al.,
2016), which, by using cross-sectional samples, could provide
only snapshots in time of what is clearly a dynamic construct.
This study extends prior work by using proven antecedents of
BU along with a longitudinal design of panel data from a
sample of new hires in a service organization.
3. Hypothesis development
When looking at the learning journey of newly hired employees
over the first months of their tenure, we argue that previously
researched IBM practices of brand-oriented recruitment,
training and leadership will influence BU in distinct ways and at
different times. New employees are first influenced by brand-
oriented recruitment because brand-driven organizations
actively try to attract and select candidates who identify and
perceive a good fit with the brand (Chong, 2007; Tuominen
et al., 2016; Hurrell and Scholarios, 2014). Hence, even before
employees receive any training, they are exposed to brand-
aligned recruitment materials, interviews and other practices in
the selection process. Once new hires attend the initial
orientation, they are exposed to brand-oriented training
materials and workshops, which convey employee-related
information about the brand, as well as their specific role in
delivering the brand promise (King, 2010). At this stage, it is
reasonable to expect that the information supplied though
training will become a more important resource for employees
to understand the brand compared to the limited information
supplied at the recruitment stage. When transitioning to the
actual job, as employees become more familiar with the
position and their role, training will initially remain a primary
source of brand information, but it can be expected that brand-
oriented leadership becomes more influential as managers and
supervisors interact with employees over time to instill the
brand ethos and act as role models for brand promise delivery
(Burmann et al., 2009; King et al., 2013; King and So, 2015).
To examine such propositions, we set three measurement time
periods: T1 is the first day of employment (orientation), T2 is
four months after, and T3 is at seven months of tenure. For
each of the IBM practices, we propose the following
hypotheses:
H1. At T1, Brand-oriented recruitment will exert a positive
impact on BU
H2. At T2, brand-oriented training will exert a stronger
impact on BU than both brand-oriented recruitment and
brand-oriented leadership.
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
H3. At T3, brand-oriented leadership will exert a stronger
impact on BU than Brand-oriented training, which will
have a stronger impact than brand-oriented recruitment.
Because learning is a compounding process, it is expected that
over time, through consistent exposure to the brand community
(i.e. training, coworkers, management, customers etc.), an
employee’s perception of their BU and its antecedents will
change. Because longitudinal designs enable modeling of
intertemporal links, or carryover effects, between the measured
variables of the model (Roemer, 2016), evidence of the learning
process with respect to BU is afforded. Conceptually, a
significant intertemporal effect between T1 and T2 indicates
respondents are “updating” their perception of the variable at T2
by relying, to some extent, on their perception of the same
variable at T1 (Mittal et al., 1999). This psychological
mechanism can be explained by adaptation-level theory (Helson,
1964), which proposes that previously formed judgments and
intentions will act as an anchor for subsequent judgments and
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intentions. In a dynamic context, a substantial carryover effect
indicates that the variable is highly dependent on the same
variable’s previous assessment. In turn, this indicates that
respondents’ perceptions of the variable are stabilizing over time
(Roemer, 2016). However, a small or non-significant carryover
effect indicates the variable is not anchored by previous
perceptions but is still very much in flux. This would suggest that
little learning has taken place or rather that the learning has yet to
be fully internalized as tacit knowledge (King and Grace, 2009).
Considering the insights afforded by SLT, we have specific
expectations for the carryover effects between T1 and T2 and
between T2 and T3 in our study. SLT suggests that substantial
learning will take place once new hires finish their orientation
and begin interacting with regular employees in a real job
context (Brown and Duguid, 1991). However, at orientation,
which is often the first day of employment, new hires have not
yet been exposed to the job or had interactions with coworkers.
Hence, there is no real-world context/experience that
employees can accurately draw upon in their assessment of the
brand from an employee perspective. “Prior to commencing a
job, and directly experiencing work conditions first hand,
a potential [new] employee cannot fully assess the quality of a
prospective [new] employer with certainty,” (p. 59) a condition
that Wilden et al. (2010) refer to as information asymmetry.
Nevertheless, as they have made the decision to work for that
organization, disconfirmation bias suggests they will still have a
perception of the brand, of their understanding of the brand
and of any HR-related brand initiatives such as recruitment.
However, because these perceptions can be characterized as
being largely based on information asymmetry, we anticipate
that scores for our measured variables at T1 will have small,
albeit significant, explanatory power for scores at T2 when the
second survey is applied. This is because at T1, limited
information has been provided to the employee to address the
brand information deficit. After orientation (i.e. T1),
employees have more exposure to the brand through training,
leadership and service encounters to reframe their original
perceptions that were evident upon joining the organization.
With new information that is provided on the job, employee
perceptions at T2 are expected to be different than T1 with
carryover effects. After T2, as the situational context between T2
Journal of Product & Brand Management
and T3 remains consistent (i.e. on the job), we expect scores at T2
to have larger explanatory power with respect to scores at T3
when the third survey is applied. Specifically, we expect employee
perceptions, with respect to the brand and the constructs of
interest, to begin stabilizing as employees gain more experience in
delivering the brand promise. Therefore, we posit:
H4. There will be a significant carryover effect between (a)
brand-oriented recruitment T1 and brand-oriented
recruitment T2 and (b) brand understanding T1 and
brand understanding T2.
H5. There will be a significant carryover effect between (a)
brand-oriented recruitment T2 and brand-oriented
recruitment T3, (b) brand-oriented training T2 and
brand-oriented training T3, (c) brand-oriented leadership
T2 and brand-oriented leadership T3 and (d) brand
understanding T2 and brand understanding T3.
H6. The carryover effect between T2 and T3 will be larger
than T1 and T2 for (a) brand-oriented recruitment and
(b) brand understanding.
Our previous hypotheses posit a dynamic trajectory for BU
because new employees acquire explicit and tacit brand
knowledge during their orientation and first seven months of
tenure. Such knowledge comes both from the IBM processes of
brand-oriented recruitment, training and leadership, as well as
from workplace interactions.
In addition to examining antecedents of BU, past IBM
research (Xiong et al., 2013; King and So, 2015; Piehler et al.,
2016) established a positive relationship between BU and
various measures of brand performance (e.g. brand-consistent
behavior and brand promise delivery). As those studies were
based on cross-sectional samples, they could only measure
differences between high and low performers or explain
between-person variability in performance through the
variability between high and low scores of BU. In this
longitudinal study, we propose to take that insight further by
explicitly measuring the variability of brand performance within
individual employees over their first months of tenure, i.e. we
expect substantial variability not only between employees but
also within each employee with time explaining a significant
portion of that variability. Recall that time is acting as a proxy
for workplace interactions. Because workplace interactions are
extremely fluid and provide different learning opportunities on
a daily basis, we anticipate that employees will display different
brand performance trajectories over time.
This dynamic treatment of performance is hardly new
(Stewart and Nandkeolyar, 2006; Sturman, 2007; Dalal et al.,
2014); indeed, changing performance for the better is the stated
objective of training programs. Given the established
relationship of BU with brand-consistent behavior and brand
promise delivery (Piehler et al., 2016), we expect that BU will be
a significant predictor of within-employee brand performance.
Therefore, we hypothesize the following:
H7a. Within-employee variability in brand performance will
constitute a statistically significant proportion of overall
brand performance variability over the first seven
months of tenure.
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
H7b. BU will be a significant predictor of within-employee
variability in brand performance.
H7c. BU will exert a positive impact on within-employee
brand performance.
4. Methods
4.1 Study context
The research took place in a Mexico City restaurant chain,
which was noted for its distinctive brand promise and highly
committed employees. The chain opened its ninth store in the
summer of 2016, which involved several weeks of above-
average recruiting efforts. This provided a window of
opportunity for the longitudinal study, which received strong
support from the chain’s owners. The company has a payroll of
4001 employees, and in the spring of 2017 achieved
recognition in a national best place to work ranking. Generally,
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new recruits go through a two-day orientation workshop where
strong emphasis is placed on the brand values and the customer
experience. After the orientation, new hires start working in the
stores alongside more experienced employees and continue to
receive on-the-job training. Tentatively, after six months of
tenure, they attend another day-long workshop off-site, again
centered on the brand promise and the customer experience.
Hence, we set T3 at seven months, hoping to capture the effect
of the second workshop, and selected the fourth month as the
milestone for T2.
Commencing in June 2016, all new hires completed the first
survey at the start of their first day of orientation. We followed
the recommended practice for organizational entry studies of
applying the baseline survey before new employees received any
training that might change their responses (Vandenberg and
Self, 1993). The survey was deployed in electronic form using
the Qualtrics platform and employees answered using their
own, or an instructor-provided, smartphone. The survey was
anonymous to encourage candid responses. Employees were
matched from orientation attendance lists and three
anonymous security questions. Using the payroll database, the
researchers provided the HR manager with lists of employees to
survey on a weekly basis when they reached the four- and
seven-month milestone. The HR team sent the link to the
employee, and followed-up through phone or text message.
Sometimes, it took several reminders before the employee
answered the survey, but the response rate was over 90 per cent
with the continuing support of company owners.
As is often the case in longitudinal studies, some employees
missed the second or the third survey or failed to provide
complete data to the security questions to make matching
possible. The company experienced high turnover that is
typical of the restaurant industry (Hinkin and Tracey, 2000).
This issue and the seven month tenure requirement resulted in
data collection across all three time periods extending until
May 2017. At the conclusion of data collection, a 105-member
panel was built, comprising recent hires for whom there were at
least two matched surveys: T1 - T2, T1 - T3 or T2 - T3. Within
the panel, we had 83 matched T1 - T2 surveys, 54 matched T2 -
T3 surveys and 49 matched T1 - T2 - T3 surveys.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
4.2 Measurement
All constructs in the model have featured prominently in the
IBM literature; hence, previously published and validated
scales were used. Brand-oriented recruitment is measured with
the three item scale used by King and So (2015). For brand-
oriented training, we complemented the two item scale by King
and So (2015) with three items from the knowledge
dissemination scale by King and Grace (2010). Brand-oriented
leadership uses four items adapted from the scale by King et al.
(2013) and one new item was adapted for this study. BU is
measured with the three item subscale of brand knowledge by
Piehler et al. (2016). Last, we adapted three items from the
employee brand performance scale (Xiong and King, 2015) to
measure brand performance, which is the dependent variable in
the latent growth model that was used to test H7a-H7c. All
scales were translated to Spanish following a team approach
(Harkness, 2003). Translated items were vetted by the
restaurant owners and the HR manager who made suggestions
regarding the wording of the items. Except for the
administrative staff, most employees had only completed
secondary education, which is why we took extra care with each
item’s wording. All items were rated on a seven-point Likert
scale. Please refer to the Appendix for a list of measurement
items used.
4.3 Analysis
To test our hypotheses, we adopted Roemer’s (2016)
guidelines for longitudinal partial least squares (PLS)
modeling. Specifically, for H1-H3, three structural equation
models must be specified, one for each measurement occasion
(T1-T3). Within these consecutive models, the focus is on the
impacts (i.e. path coefficients) from the hypothesized
explanatory variables to BU, and whether these impacts change
significantly over time. Allowance must be made for unequal
sample sizes in these three models because there were some
missing surveys and/or attrition in our 105-member panel. This
setup corresponds to an evolution model with repeated cross-
sectional data, or Model A2, within Roemer’s (2016) typology
of longitudinal PLS models. In specifying Model A2, it is
important to distinguish between the two sources of data that
Roemer (2016) deems acceptable for longitudinal studies.
Specifically, the longitudinal PLS model “may consist of
repeated cross-sectional data from different samples or from
one sample that has suffered from attrition” (Roemer, 2016,
p. 1910). In this study, the data are drawn from one (i.e. the
same) sample surveyed across three time periods (Roemer’s
latter option); therefore, attrition is expected. In this study, a
focus on the same sample over time is an important element to
be able to assess how BU and its contributing factors evolve
over an employee’s tenure. As it is the same sample of
employees, and we are controlling for each employee’s tenure,
inferences can be drawn about the evolution in time of the path
coefficients.
As indicated by Roemer (2016), the decision to use the same
sample over time is subject to attrition. While this is not
considered problematic, provided the sample size for each time
period meets the analysis requirements, it is important to
determine whether there are any differences between
employees that remained in the panel and those that did not for
generalizability purposes. Therefore, new hires that completed
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
the survey only at T1 and later left the company (i.e. 102) were
analyzed separately with regard to H1, and the results were
compared to the panel data for the same model. The coefficient
between RECR1 and BU1 remained significant at the 1
per cent level, and was of similar magnitude to the panel data.
We also performed an independent sample’s t-test for the
means of RECR1, BU1, BRPERF1 and AGE, and none of the
variables showed significant differences between panel
employees and those who exited after orientation. Based on
these results, we do not believe that sample attrition has biased
the results of this study.
Next, to test H4a and H4b, H5a-d, and H6a and H6b for
carryover effects, a single multi-period model with matched
employee surveys or strict panel data with equal sample sizes is
required, which is Model A1 as per Roemer. Finally, to test
H7a, H7b and H7c, a latent growth model for brand
performance is developed using the model-building approach
suggested by Bliese and Ployhart (2002) to examine to what
extent time and BU predict employees’ individual trajectories
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of brand performance.
For estimation purposes, PLS was relied on because the
study is exploratory and focused on theory building rather than
precise estimation of well-established relationships. To this
end, PLS offers statistical power that is greater than or equal to
covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM)
(Reinartz et al., 2009). Other characteristics of our study that
recommended PLS over SEM (Hair et al., 2017a, p. 23) were
non-normally distributed data (substantial skewness), complex
structural models (e.g. Model 5) and the intended use of latent
variable scores to analyze changes in the level of the constructs.
Furthermore, because of the size of the restaurant chain, and
consistent with many longitudinal studies (Jones et al., 2002;
Carless, 2005; Selmer and Littrell, 2010), panel attrition
resulted in smaller sample sizes, which were nevertheless well
above the minimum thresholds recommended by Hair et al.
(2017a, p. 26). While small samples can bias PLS
measurement model estimates (i.e. outer model loadings), our
focus is on the evolution of the inner model structural paths:
Different from factor-based SEM, PLS provides measurement model
estimates even when the sample size is very small. But authors, reviewers
and editors should question the value of those estimates in small sample size
situations and rather focus on the structural model outcomes (Hair et al., 2017b,
p. 13, italics added).
Before fitting structural models, a repeated measures ANOVA
was run to examine change in all four variables (brand-oriented
recruitment, brand-oriented training, brand-oriented leadership
and brand understanding) using the matched T1 - T2 - T3
sample. This allows detection of significant level differences
across all three time points, and not just between pairs of time
points as is the case with the structural models. ANOVA results
show that recruitment, training and leadership all display
significant mean changes between T1 and T3 (for leadership the
p value is 0.059). However, there was no significant change in
BU between T1 and T3.
Nevertheless, repeated measures ANOVA is hampered by
the need to have equal observations in each period, which
forces the use of only the T1 - T2 - T3 data set, thereby
discarding information from the majority of the 105 employee
panel. Moreover, the ANOVA does not allow specification of
dependent and independent variables and makes the
Journal of Product & Brand Management
assumption that variables are measured without error. To
address these limitations, longitudinal PLS models were used
to examine H1-H5. Note that the structural models allow a
more nuanced examination. Specifically, by treating the
constructs as latent variables, they explicitly model
measurement error (Hair et al., 2017a). Furthermore,
modeling BU as a dependent variable that is explained by the
three hypothesized antecedents allows estimation of the
differential contribution of IBM practices to BU at each point
in time, as well as between consecutive points in time, by
modeling carryover effects (Roemer, 2016).
5. Results
5.1 Longitudinal partial least squares models
Structural model estimation was carried out using SmartPLS
version 3.2 (Ringle et al., 2015). The three models with cross-
sectional samples (i.e. Model A2 per Roemer) are displayed
side by side in Figure 1. Because survey data were obtained
from a single source, common method bias (CMB) is
potentially a concern. Kock (2017) shows, using Monte Carlo
simulations, that CMB can artificially improve the convergent
validity of a PLS model and cause Type I errors as well.
Accordingly, we performed a full collinearity test for Models
1-5 (Kock and Lynn, 2012). The variance inflation factors
(VIF) of all latent variables were below the recommended
threshold of 3.3 for Models 1, 2 and 4, which indicated that
CMB was not present. However, Models 3 and 5 had VIF’s
above 3.3 for some latent variables, which we addressed by
removing highly collinear items from the model until all latent
variable VIFs reached acceptable levels (Kock and Lynn, 2012;
Kock, 2017). While removing items, we ensured that such
deletions did not compromise the construct’s integrity (i.e.
content validity).
The estimation at T1 relied on 100 complete surveys from
our panel of new employees. The path coefficient of brand-
oriented recruitment to BU was positive and statistically
significant at the 1 per cent level, thereby supporting H1. Note
that discussion of the measurement model is addressed with
Model 2, which involves the four measured variables but all
fitted models were contrasted against recommended quality
criteria (Henseler et al., 2016).
To test H2, Model 2 was estimated with paths from all
explanatory variables to BU using 90 valid surveys at T2. All
items having loadings above the 0.70 level suggested for an
exploratory study (Hulland, 1999). Composite reliabilities for
all scales exceeded 0.80, indicating good internal consistency
(Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). In addition, Table I displays the
average variance extracted (AVE), square root of the AVE (in
italic on the main diagonal) and inter-construct correlations.
All AVE values are well above 0.50, which is indicative of good
convergent validity (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Furthermore,
complying with the Fornell
Larcker criterion, each of
the elements on the main diagonal is greater than the respective
row and column off-diagonal elements, indicating adequate
discriminant validity at the construct level (Hulland, 1999;
Henseler et al., 2016).
The cross-loadings of the indicators (not shown) provide a
complementary check for discriminant validity at the indicator
level (Henseler et al., 2016). The loading of each indicator
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
Figure 1 Model estimations with cross-sectional samples at T1, T2 and T3
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Table I AVE and inter-construct correlations
Construct AVE BU2 LEAD2 RECR2 TRAIN2
BU2 0.777 0.882
LEAD2 0.842 0.693 0.918
RECR2 0.621 0.619 0.654 0.788
TRAIN2 0.859 0.802 0.819 0.626 0.927
should be greater than all of its cross-loadings, which was
indeed the case. To summarize, the measurement model
displays adequate scale reliability, as well as convergent and
discriminant validity. As mentioned before, the VIF’s were
below the 3.3 threshold for this model.
The hypothesized structural model explains 67 per cent of the
variance in BU2. The significance of the path coefficients was
calculated using the bootstrap procedure in SmartPLS with
5,000 random samples. Brand-oriented recruitment and
training had significant path coefficients at the 5 and 1 per cent
level, respectively. Moreover, using the bootstrap test suggested
by Chin et al. (2013) with 5,000 samples, we found an estimated
p value of 0.0082, leading us to conclude that the path
coefficient of TRAIN2 ! BU2 is significantly larger than the
one for RECR2 ! BU2, which provides partial support for H2.
Model 3, in the third panel of Figure 1, corresponds to T3
with an effective sample size of 71 complete surveys from our
panel data. The full collinearity test detected a VIF of 3.58 for
the latent variable of TRAIN3, indicating possible CMB. We
corrected this by discarding one item from that scale
(TRAIN3-5), which rendered all VIFs below the conservative
threshold of 3.3 (Kock and Lynn, 2012). All other quality
indicators for the measurement model were acceptable.
At T3, brand-oriented recruitment stopped being a
significant predictor of BU, brand-oriented training retained its
strong significance, and brand-oriented leadership also
achieved strong significance, consistent with H3. The model
explains 72 per cent of the variance of BU3. Using the
bootstrap test, we found that the path coefficient of training was
not significantly different from that of leadership (p = 0.257),
which was not consistent with H3. Overall, H3 was only
partially supported.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
These three cross-sectional models allow us to draw the
following conclusions regarding our hypotheses. Model 1
provides support for H1 because recruitment was significantly
related to BU at T1. Model 2 provides partial support for H2
because, as hypothesized, even though leadership was not
significant, training was significant with a statistically stronger
impact on BU than recruitment. Finally, Model 3 provides
partial support for H3 because the effect of recruitment on BU
becomes non-significant, while the effect of leadership becomes
significant, although not stronger than training as
hypothesized. Note that using a repeated cross-sectional design
for H1-H3, we are able to estimate each model with all valid
surveys at each measurement occasion, which is consistent with
our interest in the evolution of the path coefficients of the
different IBM practices (Roemer, 2016).
In Model 4, we test H4a and H4b by combining in a single
structural model the hypothesized relationships between
dependent and independent variables at T1 and T2 and include
paths for the hypothesized intertemporal or carryover effects of
the variables (Figure 2). Unlike the previous models, this setup
corresponds to Model A1 in Roemer’s (2016) typology.
Within the panel of new employees, there were 83 matched
surveys in the T1 - T2 data set, which is well above the minimum
recommended PLS sample size of 37, given that Model 4 has a
maximum of three arrows predicting a construct and the
minimum R2 is around 0.25 (Hair et al., 2017a, p. 26). Results
show that the estimated path coefficients between the explanatory
variables and BU remained basically the same as for Models 1 and
2. Furthermore, none of the paths for carryover effects were
significant. We conclude that H4a and H4b are not supported
with no carryover effect between T1 and T2 for the variables.
A similar model was used to test H5a-H5d, this time with 54
matched surveys in the T2 - T3 data set, which is still within the
minimum recommended PLS sample size. The full collinearity
test detected two VIFs above the recommended threshold
(3.626 for TRAIN3, 3.46 for BU3). Again, we discarded items,
specifically TRAIN3-5, TRAIN2-4 and LEAD2-5, which
resulted in VIF levels below the threshold. All other quality
indicators were acceptable.
Model 5, shown in Figure 3, reveals statistically significant
carryover effects for brand-oriented training and leadership
 Employee brand understanding Journal of Product & Brand Management
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King

Figure 2 Model 4 estimation non-significant findings for H5a and H5d, H6a and H6b could
not be examined.
Note that, in Model 5, the effect of brand-oriented
leadership on BU at T3 becomes non-significant unlike the
previous result from Model 3. However, the effective sample
size for Model 3 was larger than for Model 5 (71 versus 54);
therefore, there is no reason to doubt the previous result.
Furthermore, the primary purpose of Models 4 and 5 was to
test for significant carryover effects in the variables subject to
the availability of intertemporal matched surveys.
To examine the change in the level of the variables over time,
the unstandardized scores of the latent variables calculated by
the PLS algorithm were used to perform a paired samples t-test,
following the suggestion of Roemer (2016). Table II shows the
mean and standard deviation of the scores at T1 and T2,
(Model 4), T2 and T3 (Model 5); the mean of the difference
between them; and the statistical significance of the said
difference. For Model 4, with 83 paired surveys, there is a
significant drop in the level of brand-oriented recruitment
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between T1 and T2, but there is no significant change in the

Figure 3 Model 5 estimation level of BU. For Model 5, with 54 matched pairs, there is a
small but significant drop in brand-oriented training but
neither brand-oriented leadership nor BU show any significant
change in level between T2 and T3 (Table II).
To summarize, using matched surveys from our panel data to
estimate intertemporal models with carryover effects allows the
following conclusions to be reached. Model 4 provides no
support for H4a or H4b with no significant carryover effect for
any variable measured between T1 and T2. Model 5 provides
partial support for H5 with a strong carryover effect between T2
and T3 for brand-oriented training (H5b) and brand-oriented
leadership (H5c), but not for brand-oriented recruitment (H5a)
and BU (H5d).

5.2 Random coefficients modeling

Having examined the development of BU over the first seven
months of tenure, consideration is given to the effect of BU on
employees’ brand performance over the same period. Such an
investigation is consistent with SLT’s focus on an individual’s
learning, ultimately leading to the acquisition of an identity of
competence. To test H7a-c, a latent growth model for
performance is estimated using random coefficients modeling
(RCM). This longitudinal method has the advantage of using
all available information for estimation. Hence, unlike the
between T2 and T3, thus supporting H5b and H5c. Specifically,
20 per cent of the variance of TRAIN3 is explained by the
Table II Tests of significance of the changes in the level of the latent
previous score of training, and 18 per cent of the variance of
variables
LEAD3 is similarly explained by its own previous value. This
indicates that employee perceptions of these two IBM practices Variable Time Pairs Mean SD Mean diff t-value p
are being updated using the previous score as an anchor (Mittal
BU T1 to 83 6.15084 0.93301
et al., 1999). Stated differently, perceptions of these two
T2 83 6.31255 1.01474 0.161711 1.190 0.237
variables are becoming more stable or consolidated over time
RECR T1 to 83 6.21140 0.75033
(Roemer, 2016). However, brand-oriented recruitment T2 83 5.59334 1.20976
0.618060
4.207 0.000
showed no carryover effect between T2 and T3, thus providing BU T2 to 54 6.31266 0.97275
no support for H5a. Moreover, recruitment was not a T3 54 6.25331 1.23604
0.059341
0.336 0.738
significant predicator of BU at T3, and was subsequently TRAIN T2 to 54 6.44112 0.87704
dropped from the model. Furthermore, the non-significant T3 54 6.05606 1.32729
0.385061
2.321 0.024
carryover effect of BU indicates that employee perceptions of LEAD T2 to 54 6.00691 1.34219
BU are still very much in flux at T3, i.e. they are not anchored T3 54 5.80391 1.31494
0.203004
1.039 0.303
by their scores at T2, thereby rejecting H5d. As a result of the
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
previous PLS models, RCM models were fitted using all 261
observations collected from the 105 new employee panel over
the three waves.
The five-step model-building procedure suggested by Bliese
and Ployhart (2002) was followed and the models were fitted
using the lme function in the nlme R package (Pinheiro et al.,
2017). Note that, unlike the PLS models, TIME is coded as
having an initial value of 0 (i.e. TIME = 0, 1, 2), to aid in
interpreting the intercept. In Step 1, a null model was fitted
(Model 1), which allowed total variability in brand
performance to be partitioned into within- and between-
employees. From this, the value of ICC of 0.19 was calculated,
which indicates the proportion of total variation that lies
between employees. The implication is that most (i.e. 81
per cent) of the variability in brand performance lies within
employees, which provides a strong support for H7a.
In Step 2, the relationship between time and brand
performance is tested using different functional forms. A
significant negative linear effect of TIME on BRPERF
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(t-value =
2.74, p = 0.007) was found. Both a quadratic and a
polynomial function of TIME were tested, but the quadratic
term coefficients in both cases were not significant; hence, the
linear form was retained. Model 2 detected a negative
relationship between time and performance, but assumes the
coefficient is the same for all individuals. In Step 3, this slope is
allowed to take on different values for each individual, which
led to a better fitting model. Compared to the null model,
Model 3 resulted in a 27 per cent proportional drop in the
residual variance, indicating that 27 per cent of the within-
employee variation in performance is explained by linear time.
This suggests that there is scope for other predictors in the
Level-1 model, as posited in H7b. Hence, Model 3b is tested in
which the time-varying employee BU is used as a Level-1
predictor of brand performance. Compared to Model 3, this
resulted in a 73 per cent proportional drop in the residual
variance and a significant coefficient of BU, which provides
strong support for H7b.
In Step 4, Model 3b was updated with an autoregressive
component to check for autocorrelation in residuals, which is a
potential problem because each employee is being surveyed
three times (Bliese and Ployhart, 2002). Model 4 was a better
fit than Model 3b with a marginal drop in the residual variance.
Heteroscedasticity was also tested but this eroded model fit.
Hence, we retained Model 4 as the best-fitting model. Step 5
was not undertaken, which would have fitted Level-2 models
with substantive predictors, because the data did not include
time-invariant predictors to model individual differences
between employees, and the effect of the time-varying BU was
completely captured at Level-1. A summary of the coefficient
estimates is displayed in Table III.
The negative coefficient of TIME points to decreasing the
self-assessments of performance from orientation to four
Table III RCM final estimates, dependent variable is BRPERF
Variable Estimate Std Error t-value p samples t-test. Note that this does not negate the results of
Intercept 2.779 0.385 7.2204 0.0
TIME
0.182 0.049
3.711 0.0003
BU 0.593 0.057 10.501 0.0
Journal of Product & Brand Management
months and to seven months of tenure, other things remain
equal. Because TIME reflects work interactions, we attribute
the negative coefficient to employees’ self-efficacy dropping
after orientation because they face the demands of their new
jobs and the complexities in practice while delivering the brand
promise and a distinctive customer experience. In effect, this
echoes our earlier intuition about the gap between the
decontextualized knowledge acquired at orientation and the
actual demands of the job. However, this negative trend is more
than compensated by the positive coefficient of BU, which is
over three times larger in magnitude than the coefficient of
TIME. Thus, BU has a positive impact on brand performance
at every time point of employees’ individual trajectories of
performance, which supports H7c. Overall, the results of the
latent growth model provide strong support for H7c, indicating
that the positive relationship between BU and performance
from cross-sectional studies is paralleled in this dynamic
context. With respect to the potential for CMB to affect these
results, we regrettably did not include a predefined marker
variable in our survey. However, Lai et al. (2013) recently
showed in a large simulation study that raising the significance
level to 0.01 reduced the likelihood of Type I errors caused by
CMB. Because Table III shows all estimated coefficients
(controlling for autocorrelation) are significant at a much
higher level than 0.01, we conclude that CMB alone could not
account for this pattern of results.
6. Discussion
Brand promise delivery in service organizations demands that
employees understand the brand and what it means for them in
their roles and responsibilities. Such a requirement necessitates
that employees go through a learning process to acquire such
comprehension. While previous research has established the
relevance of employee brand understanding, informing brand
relevant attitudes and behavior and, more specifically, what
practices contribute to that understanding, knowledge was
lacking of how BU develops over time. This represents a
significant paucity in the IBM literature, hindering
practitioners’ ability to proactively develop effective IBM
initiatives. Moreover, it theoretically oversimplifies a construct
that is inherently dynamic. The results of this study contribute
to the IBM literature by reinforcing the importance of BU and
by offering a long-awaited dynamic treatment of this key
variable, thereby extending previous cross-sectional studies
that could only provide static snapshots (Baumgarth and
Schmidt, 2010; Morokane et al., 2016; Biedenbach and
Manzhynski, 2016; Piehler, 2018). The longitudinal surveys
revealed that while BU can be positively influenced as early as
orientation day through brand-oriented recruitment, it
nevertheless shows no evidence of consolidation even after
several months into the employees’ tenure. This is manifested
in both the lack of a carryover effect between T2 and T3 and the
lack of a significant increase in the BU mean over the first seven
months of tenure, as revealed by the ANOVA and the paired
Models 1-3 (i.e. the effectiveness of IBM practices in driving
BU) because, at each point in time, different drivers and
different perceptions are contributing to the same outcome,
namely, BU.
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
Thus, without denying the effectiveness of IBM practices, an
important contribution of this study is highlighting the slow
development of BU over the first seven months of an
employee’s tenure. We build on previous cross-sectional
studies that established the important role played by BU in
fostering brand-aligned employee behaviors (Xiong et al.,
2013; King and So, 2015; Piehler et al., 2016), but could not
explain how this key construct formed over time as a result of
IBM practices. Nor did these studies account for the potential
differences of employee perceptions as a result of organizational
tenure. Based on SLT, tenure duration is expected to impact
employees from a learning perspective, suggesting that
employee attitudes and behavior will differ, amongst other
things, because of differing tenures in the organization. To
account for the potential impact of tenure differences on
employee attitudes and behavior, this study focuses on the
learning experience of new hires, thereby controlling for tenure
diversity. Despite calls for examining the effect of tenure
(Xiong et al., 2013, p. 357), previous cross-sectional studies of
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BU have neither considered the role of organizational tenure in
their research design nor have they been able to articulate the
process through which BU forms over time. In contrast,
because of the longitudinal design adopted, we are able
to examine the learning evolution of a particular tenured group
(i.e. new hires) as it relates to BU. Using three consecutive PLS
models (1, 2 and 3) to measure the changing relative
importance of BU predictors for employees who, when
surveyed, have the same tenure, we are able to provide more
specificity with respect to BU than is afforded in cross-
sectional, variable tenure studies.
Study results confirm that IBM practices are effective at all
three measurement occasions, although differentially. At T1, new
hires have not had time to experience any training or leadership
yet, but brand-oriented recruitment is a strong, significant
predictor of BU. At T2, both brand-oriented recruitment and
brand-oriented training are significant drivers of BU, explaining
67 per cent of the variance of the dependent variable. At T3,
brand-oriented training and brand-oriented leadership are
significant drivers, explaining 72 per cent of the variance of BU.
Thus, the expectation that IBM practices would have a
differential impact on BU at different moments in the employees’
tenure is confirmed. Such a conclusion could only be afforded
with the use of longitudinal panel data. Cross-sectional designs,
even a hypothetical study with three independent samples from
the same organization, are not able to show individual level effects
over time. Because influencing employee attitudes and behavior is
a central focus for IBM, understanding individual level effects is
paramount to effective decision making. This study is the first, to
the authors’ knowledge, that allows for such assessment through
the adoption of a longitudinal design with panel data.
As a result of the longitudinal approach, the study’s findings
also reveal that there is no significant growth in BU over the
employees’ first seven months with the organization. Such a
finding, while not expected, could be the result of employees
possessing inadequate brand knowledge as new employees
when they are first surveyed at T1. Even before recruitment,
new hires usually have some knowledge of the brand, but only
from a customer perspective, which is insufficient to inform
their ability to deliver the brand promise (King and Grace,
2009). We posit that the lack of growth in BU might be partially
Journal of Product & Brand Management
explained by inflated BU scores at T1, based on new hires’
naïve familiarity with the brand. At that point, they lack any
brand training and also lack the context of their actual job and
the interactions with their coworkers. Four and seven months
later, having gained context, consistent with SLT, new hires are
much better informed about the nuances of the brand, and the
intended customer experience, and can give a more realistic
self-assessment of their level of BU.
Consistent with SLT, we hypothesized a significant
carryover effect for BU between T1 and T2 and a larger
carryover effect between T2 and T3, because of the continuity
of increasing tenure and job experience, as well as the
reinforcement of constant brand training and leadership;
however, neither carryover was significant. This result indicates
that, even as brand-oriented training and leadership did show
carryover effects between T2 and T3, BU employees are not just
updating their prior perceptions at T3 but rather building them
anew (Mittal et al., 1999). In combination with the means
analysis, this suggests that BU is growing at a fairly slow pace
among recent hires and that the IBM practices of brand
training and leadership must stay firmly focused on them
beyond the seven month milestone until evidence of
consolidation or significant growth appears.
It was hypothesized that the importance of brand-oriented
training would be superseded at T3 by brand-oriented
leadership, which would become the major driver of BU.
Implicit in this was the view that “basic” training would soon be
internalized by new hires, and the more context-based brand
leadership would take center stage in shaping employee BU.
However, results show that even at seven months of tenure,
training is still very influential and perceptions of BU are still
not anchored by their own past values. Interestingly, the RCM
model shows that employees’ self-rated assessments of brand
performance display a downward trend over time. Thus, while
employees may have the skills and practical experience to
perform their jobs at T3, BU and by implication, the customer
experience and brand performance, is something they are still
struggling to come to terms with.
The slow growth of BU is attributed to three factors. First,
the change in employees’ self-assessments of BU as they gain
context and experience. Second, given employees’ limited
attention span, their priority is mastering the practical skills
needed to perform their jobs in a fast-paced work environment
(Kacmar et al., 2006); hence, abstract considerations, such as
internalizing the brand promise (i.e. BU), is a secondary
consideration. Third, the inherent difficulty of transferring to
new hires the tacit knowledge of the brand and the embodied
performances required for the delivery of the brand-defined
customer experience.
Support for H1 and partial support for H2 is consistent with
previous studies that emphasize the importance of brand-
oriented recruitment (Hurrell and Scholarios, 2014; King and
So, 2015) not only in attracting employees that share the
brand’s values but also in providing a foundation on which BU
can more easily develop. The results only show partial support
for H3, suggesting that the significance of brand leadership only
emerges at T3, i.e. after employees perceive they possess the
appropriate brand skills acquired through training as well as feel
reasonably confident about the practicalities of their jobs. The
results suggest that functional skills, which new hires need to
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
perform their job, have priority in their minds, certainly in these
first few months. This is another reason why BU may be slow to
consolidate and grow and why leadership also takes so long to
have an impact. Functional brand needs (e.g. how do I do it)
precede relational brand needs (e.g. why do I do it).
Another contribution to IBM literature is the introduction of
SLT as a theoretical lens for explaining the transfer of tacit
brand knowledge. Specifically, support for H5b and H5c
confirms the relevance of SLT for explaining the gradual
development of BU, which previous studies only hinted at. The
results show that there is no carryover effect between the
variables surveyed at T1 (first day of employment) and at T2
(four months later). This indicates that for new hires, who lack
the context of the job, the learning attained, or perhaps the
perceptions held, at orientation do not inform (i.e. anchor or
carryover to) their subsequent thinking at T2, which has been
deeply shaped by context and experience. These results do not
invalidate the theoretical relationships measured by Model 1,
but they do show that context and coworker interactions
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change perceptions, as predicted by SLT. This further
reinforces the need for longitudinal studies when examining a
dynamic learning process.
The study also makes a methodological contribution to the
IBM literature because it is the first to use a longitudinal design
to examine the evolution of BU over the first months of service
employees’ tenure, as well as the first application in IBM
research of longitudinal PLS and RCM. The longitudinal PLS
models confirm previous results of cross-sectional studies that
identified the IBM practices that drive BU, but extend those
findings by showing the mix of practices that are effective at
each point in time, and the need to sustain specific IBM
practices beyond the first seven months on the job. For its part,
the RCM model enables the explanation of the dynamic
evolution of brand performance and measures the direct
contribution BU makes in raising both the scores (intercept)
and the rate of improvement (slopes) of brand performance.
The combination of results highlights the importance of
developing employees’ BU, identifies the most effective IBM
drivers and warns of the danger of prematurely discontinuing
IBM practices.
7. Study implications
7.1 Theoretical implications
Previous IBM studies have established the effectiveness of three
BU drivers, namely, brand-oriented recruitment, training and
leadership. However, this longitudinal study suggests that job
context, as reflected in SLT, constitutes an additional and
indispensable influencer of BU among new employees. In
accordance with SLT, the longitudinal design of this study
sought to capture such tacit effects by measuring established
IBM drivers over three time periods. Informed by SLT
thinking, the study simultaneously accounted for implicit and
explicit drivers of BU through the first longitudinal design
adopted in IBM research. While the results show strong
significant effects of IBM practices on BU, the development of
BU over time is slower than expected. Such progression may in
fact be an artifact of job context, particularly in a restaurant,
where there is a high level of variability in the service performed
for each service encounter. This high variability may require a
Journal of Product & Brand Management
longer duration of employee learning as they accumulate new
experiences each day through different interactions with co-
workers, customers and the restaurant environment in general.
Furthermore, we speculate that employees’ self-assessment
of both BU and self-rated brand performance may become
more informed, and hence more self-critical, as they acquire
more work experience. Employees may initially (i.e. at
orientation) perceive they have a good understanding of the
brand because they can only learn what they have been exposed
to. Over time, as employees have better exposure and therefore
learn more, their knowledge of the brand expands. However,
the effect on self-rated BU may be less salient because
employees provide more realistic assessments over time.
7.2 Practical and managerial implications
This study makes a strong and specific case as to how IBM
practices prepare service employees to deliver a differentiated
customer experience. To consistently deliver the brand
promise, employees require a high level of BU, which in turn
requires managerial commitment to values-based recruitment,
followed by intensive brand training and leadership. Previous
cross-sectional studies have established the importance of the
main drivers of BU. Our intention was to build on this
knowledge to inform practitioners as to how each element
contributes to employee BU over an extended period of time so
that insightful managerial decisions can be made. In this sense,
the researched restaurant chain, with its strong brand culture,
and its visible commitment to service excellence, provided a
strong benchmark from which we hoped to extrapolate
recommendations to a broader audience: an audience that is
motivated to enhance organizational performance through
IBM.
While not expected, the main finding in our study that BU
grows at a fairly slow pace, even with strong management
commitment to IBM practices, should be considered extremely
informative to practitioners. Often, it is assumed that once
employees have had training and opportunities to practice, they
will understand what is expected of them and how they should
perform. However, the results of this study show that even after
seven months, while being influenced by various organizational
IBM initiatives, employees’ BU is still not stable, i.e. it is still
changing and evolving. We attribute this unexpected result to
the difficulty of sharing the tacit components of the brand and
the customer experience, particularly in a high-contact service
environment. The implication is that, in high-contact service
organizations with strong brand differentiation, the training
battle, with respect to internalization of the brand, is not easily
won, even via a comprehensive orientation workshop or after
seven months on the job. The fact that the research site was a
restaurant chain, which would not be considered an overly
complex customer experience, underscores how difficult it is to
build a differentiated customer experience via employee
performance.
However, the findings also highlight that once acquired, tacit
employee skills would be difficult to imitate and can form the
basis for competitive advantage (Berry and Lampo, 2004). The
managerial implication is that the IBM practices of brand-
oriented training and brand-oriented leadership must remain
firmly focused on new hires, even beyond the seven month
employment milestone, until evidence of BU consolidation or
 Employee brand understanding
Enrique Murillo and Ceridwyn King
significant growth appears. In addition, the study results
suggest that brand training should be enriched with as much
real work context as possible and interactions of new hires with
experienced coworkers should be fostered and institutionalized
because it is in these contextualized social settings where
learning is most effective (Brown and Duguid, 1991).
An important practitioner takeaway from the longitudinal
study is that the development of BU goes through distinct
stages, thereby requiring differentiated IBM practices, or at
least differentiated emphases, at various points in an
employee’s initial tenure. In particular, the significance of
brand-oriented recruitment as a driver of BU not only at
orientation but also four months later reinforces the importance
of attracting employees that share the brand’s values because
this provides a long-term foundation upon which BU can grow.
In contrast, the impact of brand-oriented leadership only
emerges after employees perceive they possess the appropriate
brand skills acquired through brand-oriented training (and per
SLT, the context and experience). This does not mean that
Downloaded by Nottingham Trent University At 23:03 07 June 2019 (PT)
leadership is not important from day one of employment, but
rather that the development of BU follows distinct stages,
emphasizing the importance of different IBM initiatives at
different points in employees’ tenure. Functional needs (e.g.
how do I do it) precede relational needs (e.g. why do I do it).
The comprehension of the duration and the process of learning
employees go through when joining an organization may help
managers to make better decisions to combat turnover through
better selection and sustained organizational efforts focused on
building employee competency as it relates to the brand.
Without such insight, as Hinkin and Tracey (2000) argued
twenty years ago, a steep learning curve can make the real cost
of turnover much higher than expected.
Finally, regarding the generalizability of the study’s findings,
based on the profile of the sample (i.e. new hires from a single
company) and the importance placed on work context in the
learning process, as promoted by SLT, the result’s
generalizability is limited to new hires for that specific
company. However, this does not negate the utility of the
results of this study for a broader population. Given that this
organization invested heavily in IBM practices, and BU was still
not solidified in the minds of its employees after seven months,
the results persuasively suggest that IBM practices are not only
important but that they need continual investment to realize
the intent of IBM. This is a relevant insight for any company
that uses IBM processes.
7.3 Limitations and directions for future research
Several limitations of this study must be acknowledged. As is
common with most longitudinal samples in organizational
settings, an attrition problem was faced, which required
adaptation by extending the data collection window to achieve
a sufficient sample size. The attrition had its origin in the high
turnover that is common in the restaurant industry, even for a
company that has been included in a best place to work
ranking. Furthermore, some employees missed one of the three
surveys or did not provide consistent answers to the security
questions to make matching possible. However, based on the
comparative analysis presented with respect to employees that
only completed the first survey and employees in the panel,
path estimates were not biased by non-response/attrition.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Moreover, the sample size was small, especially the matched T1
- T2 - T3 data set, although this was used only for the repeated
samples ANOVA. Regarding structural models, the smallest
sample size used was 54, for Model 5, which was still within the
minimum PLS sample guidelines (Hair et al., 2017a, p. 26).
Even with these limitations, it is clear that the five PLS
models provide a high-order explanation of the dynamic
evolution of BU and its predictors, which no cross-sectional
model could achieve. A similar argument can be made for the
RCM model. Moreover, statistical methods were chosen to
make the best possible use of the collected data. For future
research, working with a larger panel of new hires or applying a
T4 survey at the 10-month milestone are potential avenues for
improving our results.
Because BU is a core intended outcome of IBM programs,
an important agenda suggested by this study is to extend the
extant IBM research, which is based on cross-sectional samples
with longitudinal designs. Future longitudinal studies of BU,
especially among new hires, should examine other types of
service organizations with established IBM practices such as
airlines (Chong, 2007), banks (Wallace et al., 2011), hotels
(King and So, 2015) and retail stores (Tarnovskaya and de
Chernatony, 2011) to determine whether the slow growth of
BU is an artifact of our sample (at this restaurant chain) or is
indeed a characteristic of complex work settings and the
nuanced behaviors required by differentiated customer
experiences.
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Corresponding author
Enrique Murillo can be contacted at: emurillo@up.edu.mx
Appendix. Measurement scales
Brand-oriented recruitment
 RECR-1 Job advertisements of [Restaurant] gave me a
correct picture of what the brand stands for before joining.
 RECR-2 I applied for a job with [Restaurant] because I
identified with the brand even before joining the company.
 RECR-3 From the beginning, all of our new employees fit
in with the brand very well.
Strongly Somewhat
disagree Disagree disagree
1 2 3 4
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Brand-oriented training
 TRAIN-1 When I started working in [Restaurant] the
company took great care to give me an understanding of the
brand
 TRAIN-2 [Restaurant] teaches us why we should do
things and not just how we should do things
 TRAIN-3 In all training programs the relevance of the
particular training topic to the brand is demonstrated
 TRAIN-4 [Restaurant] communicates the importance of
my role in delivering the brand promise
 TRAIN-5 [Restaurant] communicates its brand promise well.
Brand-oriented leadership
 LEAD-1 Managers often give us practical examples about
how to live the [Restaurant] brand (new item).
 LEAD-2 Managers live the brand in an authentic way and
are a good role model.
 LEAD-3 Managers do not just talk about good service,
they provide resources to enhance employee ability to
provide excellent service.
 LEAD-4 Managers give personal input and leadership
into creating quality service.
 LEAD-5 Managers share with employees the results of
customer satisfaction surveys.
Brand understanding
 BU-1 I know what our brand stands for.
 BU-2 I know our brand identity.
 BU-3 I know our brand promise.
Brand performance
 BRPERF-1 I demonstrate behaviors that are consistent
with the brand promise of [Restaurant];
 BRPERF-2 I consider the impact on the [Restaurant]
brand before communicating or taking action in any
situation; and
 BRPERF-3 I am always interested to learn about the
[Restaurant] brand and what it means to me in my role.
Note: All items rated on a seven-point Likert scale with the
following anchors:
Neither
agree nor Somewhat Strongly
disagree agree Agree agree
5 6 7