Employee Responses to Changing Aspects of the Employer Brand Following a Multinational Acquisition: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

This study examines changing employment brands in the context of a multinational acquisition, specifically the implications for current employees. Using a sample (N = 251) from both the acquired and acquiring workforces, employees are tracked across 12 months following acquisition. The study explores predictors of identification with the acquiring organization, intent to quit, and discretionary effort. We focus on employment brand–related predictors, specifically perceptions linked to the provision of unique employment experiences, organizational identity strength, perceived prestige, and judgments of whether the acquiring organization acts in accordance with its corporate identity claims. The study showed that perceptions of prestige immediately after acquisition predict identification 12 months hence, as do judgments of whether the organization acts in accordance with its corporate social responsibility–based corporate identity claims. These judgments also predict subsequent levels of discretionary effort and long‐term intent to leave, as do perceptions linked to the provision of unique employment experiences. Perceived change in these unique employment experiences is also related to change in identification and intent to leave across time. Importantly, these elements have a varied effect on the adjustment outcomes when comparing the two workforces.

Benefits of Employer Brand and the Supporting Trends

“…HR marketing is successful when employees themselves are involved in their company's presentations and recruitment campaigns, which is in line with the conclusions of Edwards and Edwards (2013), Elving et al (2012) or Grabar (2013). However, in order to develop and set HR marketing, it is necessary to continuously analyse changes in both internal and external environments of the organization, as is underlined by the research of Aggerholm et al (2011).…”

“…Not only a logo, history, quality of products and services etc., but also employees are the most important ambassadors of an employer's brand (Edwards and Edwards, 2013). Since most of employees act externally, they speak -directly or indirectly -about the organization in which they are working: they may recommend company's products and services to their friends and familty, they present their company as a suitable employer to others etc.…”

Employer Image and Employer Branding: What We Know and What We Need to Know

“…Examples include mergers, product recalls, financial crises, and ecological disasters, thereby highlighting again how employer image and other images are interwoven. Edwards & Edwards (2013) conducted a case study in which they examined the impact of a multinational acquisition on changes in employer image dimensions. Interestingly, employee perceptions linked to aspects of the employment brand that were formed just after the acquisition (i.e., an organization's so-called transitional identity; see, e.g., Clark et al 2010) impacted organizational identification, citizenship behavior, and turnover intention a year later.…”

Employer branding in the agricultural sector: making a company attractive for the potential employees

“…However, it should be noted that the business can influence the internal factors only and, what is more, these factors must be addressed systematically. According to Edwards and Edwards (2013) and Love and Sigh (2011), it can be summarized that one possibility is the systematic employer branding due to the negative demographic trend which predicts an increasingly deteriorating situation in the development of the numbers and structure of workers in the individual sectors of the economy, for which the support of individual personal activities, increasing the motivation of the current employees, informing the employees and the general public about the news in the company et cetera might be of help (Chhabra and Sharma 2014).…”