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Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH For Authors:If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comWith over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The paper seeks to explore the role of the employer brand in influencing employees' perceived differentiation, affinity, satisfaction and loyalty -four outcomes chosen as relevant to the employer brand. Design/methodology/approach -A multidimensional measure of corporate brand personality is used to measure employer brand associations in a survey of 854 commercial managers working in 17 organisations. Structural equation modelling is used to identify which dimensions influence the four outcomes. Models are built and tested using a calibration sample and tested on two validation samples, one equivalent to the calibration sample and another drawn from a single company. Findings -Satisfaction was predicted by agreeableness (supportive, trustworthy); affinity by a combination of agreeableness and (surprisingly) ruthlessness (aggressive, controlling); and perceived differentiation and loyalty by a combination of both enterprise (exciting, daring) and chic (stylish, prestigious). Competence (reliable, leading) was not retained in any model. Research limitations/implications -Further work is required to identify how appropriate improvements in employee associations can be managed. Practical implications -The findings emphasise the importance of an employer brand but the results also highlight the complexity in its management, as no one aspect has a dominant influence on outcomes relevant to the employer. At issue is which function within an organisation should be tasked with managing the employer brand. Originality/value -Employer branding is relatively new as a topic but is attracting the attention of both marketing and HR academics and practitioners. Prior work is predominantly conceptual and this paper is novel in demonstrating empirically its role in promoting satisfaction, affinity, differentiation and loyalty.

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Structured AbstractPurpose: To critique human personality as theory underpinning brand personality. To propose instead theory from human perception and, by doing so, to identify universally relevant dimensions.Design/Method: A review of published measures of brand personality, a re-analysis of two existing data bases and the analysis of one new database are used to argue and test for the dimensions derived from perception theory.Findings: Existing work on brand personality suggests 16 separate dimensions for the construct, but some appear common to most measures. When non-orthogonal rotation is used to re-analyse existing trait data on brand personality, three dimensions derived from signalling and associated theory can emerge: Sincerity (e.g. warm, friendly, agreeable), Competence (e.g. competent, effective, efficient) and Status (e.g. prestigious, elegant, sophisticated). The first two are common to most measures, status is not.Research Implications: Three dimensions derived from signalling and associated theory are proposed as generic, relevant to all contexts and cultures. They can be supplemented by context relevant dimensions. Practical Implications:Measures of these three dimensions should be included in all measures of brand personality.Originality: Prior work on brand personality has focussed on identifying apparently new dimensions for the construct. While most work is not theoretically based, some have argued for the relevance of human personality. That model is challenged and an alternative approach to both theory and analysis is proposed and successfully tested.