Content area
Purpose - This study seeks to focus on front-line service employees and their views of internal branding and the extent to which personal and job-specific factors impact on the success of internal branding in the reinforcement of brand identification and brand loyalty among service employees. Design/methodology/approach - The research, based on a multiple case study representing the hotel industry in Thailand, involved the completion of 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with customer-interface employees followed by a quantitative survey with 680 customer-interface employees located in five major hotels. Findings - Corporate service brands need to coordinate internal branding activity to enhance their employees' identification with, commitment to, and loyalty to, the brand. The relationships between the concepts of identification, commitment and loyalty of employees are determined. Personal variables such as age, education, and length of service as well as situational factors regarding their work environment are found to have moderating effects on the effectiveness of the internal branding process. Practical implications - The paper highlights the importance of internal branding on employees' brand identification, commitment and loyalty. However, management should also be aware that the impact of internal branding would not be constant across all employees within an organisation. Personal variables such as age, educational background, and length of service with the brand should also be taken into account. The impact of internal branding on an employee's attitudes and behaviour are heightened when employees are satisfied with their workplace. As such, internal branding cannot be looked at in isolation and is unlikely to be successful if the work environment is not conducive to the employees and the brand values. Originality/value - Much of the work on internal branding is conceptual and based on small-scale studies undertaken with management or consultants. This paper provides empirical evidence from the front-line service employees' perspective on the relationships between internal branding and brand identification, brand commitment, brand loyalty and brand performance. It also provides an empirical investigation of potential moderators for internal branding.
Identity perspectives on corporate and organisational marketing
Edited by John M.T. Balmer and Shaun M. Powell
Introduction
[5] Balmer (2009) indicates that corporate marketing allows the synthesis of a myriad of corporate-wide concepts such as corporate identity, corporate image, corporate branding, corporate reputation and corporate communications. These are encompassed within the corporate marketing mix ([7] Balmer and Greyser, 2006), which relates to the six elements or the 6Cs of corporate marketing: corporate identity (character), corporate communications (communications), stakeholders (constituencies), covenant (corporate brand promise), corporate image and reputation (conceptualisation) and organisational cultures (culture). This paper focuses on the management of the corporate brand promise in service organisations, an activity that needs to take account of each of the other elements of the corporate marketing mix and in particular internal stakeholders.
In a service organisation, the delivery of the corporate brand or "brand covenant" ([6] Balmer and Gray, 2003) is frequently dependant on staff effectively delivering the core values of the company to the customer. Indeed, [16] De Chernatony (2002) postulates that service staff are the embodiment of the corporate brand through the adoption of behaviours that support a predetermined and common set of brand values. Internal branding activities are therefore seen ([13] Cleaver, 1999) as being as important as external branding activities in communicating and delivering the brand promise to the customer. This communicated promise needs to reflect the uniqueness of the corporate brand ([26] Ingenhoff and Fuhrer, 2010) in order to ensure a corporate brand's virtue as a source of an organisation's competitiveness ([4] Balmer, 2001).
Despite the growing interest in internal branding, there has been very little research undertaken on the subject from the employees' perspective. The focus has tended to be on the perspectives of management and brand consultants, looking at the issue from a top-down viewpoint. Therefore, this study focuses on front-line employees and their perceptions of internal branding influencers and the extent to which personal and work environment factors moderate the success of internal branding in the reinforcement of brand-supporting attitudes and behaviours among employees. The research, based on a multiple case study representing the hotel industry in Thailand, involved the completion of 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with customer-interface employees followed by a quantitative survey with 680 customer-interface employees located in five major hotels.
Corporate branding, internal branding and the employee
As corporations are trying to eliminate any "corporate dissonance", the alignment between what is communicated with external and internal constituencies is increasingly emphasised ([35] Powell and Dodd, 2007). Indeed, the "corporate marketing vortex" of [3] Balmer (1998) suggests that a corporate brand is an explicit promise between an organisation and its key stakeholder groups. [20] Einwiller and Will (2002) define corporate branding as the systematic planned management of behaviour, communication and symbolism in order to attain a favourable and positive reputation with target audiences for an organisation. The behaviour element relates to the behaviour of employees and they are seen as having a major influence on how external stakeholders perceive the corporate brand and make sense of its identity and image ([1] Anixter, 2003; [23] Hatch and Schultz, 2001; [31] Mitchell, 2002). As such, close alignment of the employees with the organisation's brand values may provide an organisation with a sustainable competitive advantage ([36] Pringle and Thompson, 2001). [46] Stuart (2002) states that "the more employees identify with the organisation [...] the more employees are likely to uphold that identity in their actions" (p. 30). Internal branding aims to achieve this alignment by promoting the brand inside an organisation through the practice of internal marketing ([18] Drake et al. , 2005). It requires not only input from marketing personnel but also from those in the Human Resource discipline. Although a universal definition has not yet been proposed, various authors agree that internal branding is about ensuring that the brand promise is transformed by employees into reality, reflecting the espoused brand values that set customers' expectations (e.g. [2] Aurand et al. , 2005; [10] Boone, 2000; [17] De Chernatony and Cottam, 2006; [27] King and Grace, 2008; [29] Mahnert and Torres, 2007). As such, the definition adopted in this paper is that internal branding describes the activities undertaken by an organisation to ensure that the brand promise reflecting the espoused brand values that set customers' expectations is enacted and delivered by employees.
Employees' brand identification and brand commitment
[4] Balmer (2001) argues for the need of total commitment across all employees of an organisation if a corporate brand is to be truly differentiated and successful. When staff have a clear understanding of brand values, they are more likely to be intellectually and emotionally engaged with the brand ([48] Thomson et al. , 1999). As internal branding strives for a shared understanding of brand values across the organisation, recent studies have found it has a positive influence on employees' brand commitment ([38] Punjaisri and Wilson, 2007; [39] Punjaisri et al. , 2008). That is, committed employees can better fulfil the brand promise because of their emotional attachment to the brand ([48] Thomson et al. , 1999). Furthermore, the organisational identification and the organisational commitment theories have purported that when staff's values are aligned with the organisation's, or the brand's (in this study), their desire to maintain membership or brand loyalty will be enhanced (e.g. [19] Dutton et al. , 1994; [51] Van Dick, 2001). A recent study by [34] Papasolomou and Vrontis (2006) has found that internal branding influences employees' brand loyalty and their willingness to remain with the brand ([40] Reichheld, 1996). It is further noted that authors view brand identification as a precursor to commitment ([12] Burmann and Zeplin, 2005) and to loyalty ([11] Brown and Peterson, 1993; [37] Pritchard et al. , 1999).
However, the effectiveness of internal branding on creating brand-supporting attitudes and behaviours may be moderated by a range of factors relating to the individual (personal factors) and the work environment. Factors such as age ([43] Simons and Enz, 1995), length of service ([52] Van Woerkom et al. , 2002) organisational climate ([45] Steers and Porter, 1983), supervisory support ([47] Susskind et al. , 2007) and perceived autonomy ([49] Tomer, 2001) have all been explored in relation to motivation but have not been examined in relation to their impact on internal branding and the resultant employee brand identification and employee brand loyalty. Therefore this study set out to explore the views of service employees in a service industry with respect to their identification, commitment and loyalty to the corporate brand as a result of internal branding activities taking account of the employees' personal and job specific (situational) characteristics.
Methodology
A case study approach representing the hotel industry in Thailand was chosen using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research. Although a case study approach is frequently criticised for a lack of generalisability and rigour ([56] Yin, 1994), it can generate a richness of information that helps to generate and expand theories and concepts ([21] Gummesson, 1991). Furthermore, the mixed methodologies together with the critical review of literature allow data triangulation, which is known to neutralise the limitations and biases of any single method ([14] Creswell, 2003).
Qualitative phase
The qualitative research used in-depth interviews with 30 customer-interface employees in six major hotels in key tourist provinces in Thailand. Please refer to Appendix 1 (see Table AI [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]) for the profile of participating customer-interface employees. This phase was to validate the constructs found during the literature review as well as to define the parameters to be measured during the quantitative phase. The findings from this research also assisted in the design of the quantitative questionnaires.
The participating hotels were selected based on their quality standards rated by stars. Four- and five-star hotels were selected because they are more likely to make an effort to maintain their promised brand experience and standards. Due to the focus of the research, employees from three departments (food and beverage, housekeeping, and front office) were considered to be the key informants as they are in constant interaction with customers and other stakeholders. Each interview lasted from one to one hour and a half and was taped and transcribed to reduce the risk of observer bias ([53] Voss et al. , 2002). Content analysis was used to analyse the data. Based on [30] Miles and Huberman's (1984) framework, the transcripts were studied several times to identify common themes, leading to the generation of notes in a matrix format.
Quantitative phase
Following this, the quantitative research phase was conducted to investigate the formal relationships among constructs. At this phase, only five hotels granted access. However, the qualitative findings suggested no significant differences between these five hotels and the hotel that refused to take part.
Sample
The survey was conducted with customer-interface employees from the three departments (food and beverage, housekeeping and front office) in the five hotels. The questionnaires were distributed to each hotel individually and respondents were assured of their anonymity. Of the 797 questionnaires sent out, 699 were returned, giving a response rate of 94 percent. A total of 19 questionnaires were discarded as a result of missing data, leaving 680 to be included in further analysis. The measurement invariance was tested since there were five samples from five hotels. Following the procedure suggested by [44] Steenkamp and Baumgartner (1998, p. 83) (Figure 1 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]), it is noted that configural, metric, and scalar invariance were given. Hence, the five data sets were successfully combined for further analysis.
Measures
The questionnaire used a five-point Likert scale, as it is one of the most common ways of measuring attitudes ([54] Wilson, 2006). Measures for the key constructs (i.e. identification, commitment, loyalty, performance, work environment, internal branding) were adapted from prior literature (e.g. [28] Mael and Ashforth, 1992; [32] Mohr et al. , 1996: [33] O'Reilly and Chatman, 1986; [38] Punjaisri and Wilson, 2007). Please refer to Appendix 2 (see Table AII [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]) for the assessment of the validity and reliability of the scales using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Further analysis testing discriminant validity suggested some cross-loadings. Therefore, five items (I1, I2, I7, L2, and BP2) were deleted. When removed, the result was satisfied (see Appendix 3, Table AIII [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]) for the discriminant validity test and correlations of the constructs). Another two CFAs were conducted as a second-order factor analysis for the work environment and internal branding constructs. Both have the CFI value range from 0.941 to 0.952, in line with the RMSEA value at 0.066, suggesting reasonable fit models.
The analysis of reliability of scale using Cronbach's coefficient alpha was performed using SPSS. The result suggested adequate to very good scale reliability (Appendix 4, see Table AIV [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]).
Qualitative research findings
Internal branding's influences on employees' delivery of brand promise
Analysis of interview transcripts stressed the importance of coordinating internal communications (marketing) with ongoing training programmes (HR). Internal communications were considered as a key to "give" them "an idea about the brand" (R30) whereas training "coaches and educates how to enact the espoused brand values as proposed by the brand promise" (R1).
The attitudinal outcomes of internal branding, namely brand identification, brand commitment, and brand loyalty raised during the literature review were found during the in-depth interviews. All respondents expressed their sense of belonging to the brand as they all used "we" to represent their brand and regarded themselves as the brand (e.g. We are in the same family, we are brand P [R22]). In total, 25 showed their sense of pride towards the brand (e.g. I am proud to tell anyone that I work for brand S [R28]). Similarly, 20 informants revealed their emotional attachment (e.g. I love working with brand O [R17]). Many put this down to internal branding, "we are kept reinforced about brand values" (R27) and 17 of the respondents claimed that they stayed with the hotel because of internal branding that enhance their knowledge, skills, and capabilities: "It's been enhancing my skills and overall knowledge. I don't see why I should leave brand M" (R14). Furthermore, informants attribute their delivery of the brand promise to the practice of internal branding: "Both training and internal communications make me appreciate the brand and its values. I know how to deliver [...] our brand promise and its importance" (R13). Besides, they also contend that because they interpreted their brand's success as their own, they expressed their intention to deliver on the brand promise as guided by the brand standards that were constantly reinforced through internal communications and training: "as we feel we are S, we will surely work and do things for the success of it [...] training and communications across the organisation help us provide services that are in line with the brand's values, expected by our management and customers" (R26).
Personal and work environment factors as perceived challenges to the promise delivery
The importance of the work environment was addressed during the interviews: "The work environment is good. I feel that I can and want to stay here" (R2). Respondents referred to such factors as relationships with colleagues and leaders, recognition schemes, and perceived autonomy. When employees feel that they get support from their colleagues and management through recognition schemes and certain degrees of perceived autonomy, they believe that they "can deliver the brand promise effectively and efficiently" (R7). For example, "we have good leaders who understand, trust, and, when we excel, reward us. This makes us feel happy and love to work here... and motivated to achieve what we hold dear to - our brand P' (R23). Hence, these factors were also found to enhance employees" attitudinal responses towards the brand, namely brand identification, commitment, and loyalty.
Personal factors, namely age, educational background, and length of service, were found to have impact on employees' brand-supporting attitudes and behaviour. In line with the study of [43] Simons and Enz (1995), employees of age over 30 years old tended to express their intention to be more loyal than the younger counterparts. Similarly, the longer they worked with the brand, the higher their expressed emotional attachment and intention to stay with the brand. However, those who have higher education qualifications seemed less loyal: "although I love and am proud of working here, I cannot say how long I will stay " (R3).
Figure 1 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] represents the framework that was derived from the full qualitative findings and the literature.
Quantitative research findings
A LISREL model using AMOS 7.0 was generated to formally investigate the potential linkages between the constructs identified in Figure 1 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]. Figure 2 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] reveals estimated coefficients of the relationships among all constructs for the model. The goodness-of-fit statistics revealed that the model fits the data reasonably well: The χ2 /df value of 2.5 indicates a satisfactory level as it is below the recommended 3.0 ([9] Bollen and Long, 1993). Other representative indexes also suggest that the results of the structural model analysis are a good fit of the proposed model to the data: GFI is 0.927, CFI is 0.941, RMSEA is 0.047. Although the CFI is lower that the revised cut-off value of 0.95, the CFI value above 0.9 is considered as reasonably well fitting ([22] Hair et al. , 2006). In fact, the CFI value of this research's model is close to 0.95; [25] Hu and Bentler (1995) have recently advised that a cut-off value 'close to' 0.95 is acceptable.
The direct and indirect influences of internal branding on employees' brand-supporting behaviour
The result of a LISREL analysis reveals that internal branding has a significant effect on employees' brand performance (0.37, p <0.001). It also indicated a positive influence of internal branding on employees' brand identification (0.72, p <0.001), brand commitment (0.24, p <0.001), and brand loyalty (0.32, p <0.001). Although the effect of internal branding on employees' brand performance was less than on brand identification.
Following [8] Baron and Kenny's (1986) argument for testing steps of mediating effects, the analysis depicted the mediating effect of employees' brand identification and brand loyalty, explaining that part of the internal branding's total effect on employees' delivery of the brand promise was through its influence on these two brand concepts. This suggested that both brand identification and brand loyalty acted as partial mediators in this link whereas brand commitment exerted no mediating effect because it did not have a significant relationship with the extent to which employees perform the delivery of the brand promise. As the two brand attitudes act as partial mediators in the link between internal branding and employees' brand performance, it is important to acknowledge the direct impact that internal branding still exerts on employees' brand performance. However, because part of its influence is through brand identification and their intention to remain with the brand (brand loyalty), the total effect of internal branding towards employees' brand performance becomes greater when these two attitudes are positive. In addition, the LISREL analysis revealed that employees' brand identification positively influenced employees' brand commitment (0.55, p <0.001), which was a precursor of employees' brand loyalty (0.32, p <0.001).
Moderating influences of work environment and personal factors
After confirming the influences of the relationships among different constructs, moderating effects were tested. Based on the literature review and the qualitative findings, two sets of moderators were found:
Personal variables consisting of age, educational background, and length of service (these were all assessed separately).
Situational factors comprising the relationships with their leaders and their peers, their perceptions towards rewarding and remuneration schemes, and perceived autonomy (these were all assessed as one parameter).
To investigate the moderating effects, this study followed the steps for moderator examination as suggested by [15] Dabholkar and Bagozzi (2002). The total sample was divided into high and low groups according to the median of individual moderating factors ([55] Yi and Jeon, 2003).
The work environment
With regard to the findings presented in Table I [Figure omitted. See Article Image.], it can be noted that all variables show all effects - they moderate the effect of internal branding on all measured constructs (brand identification, brand commitment, brand loyalty, and brand performance). In particular, the results suggested that the strength of internal branding's effects on all three attitudes of employees toward a brand (ßhighsatisfaction =0.39 for the effect on brand identification; ßhighsatisfaction =0.11 on brand commitment; ßhighsatisfaction =0.17 on brand loyalty) was heightened when employees were satisfied with their work environment. This is in line with the qualitative results. For example, remuneration/rewarding schemes influenced not only their decision to apply for a job but also their intention to stay. Indeed, the results resonated with a number of previous studies that consider a good work environment as an enhancer of the effect of the training programmes by increasing employee identification (e.g. [24] House, 1971; [50] Tyagi, 1982), and commitment ([16] De Chernatony, 2002).
On the contrary, less satisfied employees attributed their brand performance more toward internal branding than more satisfied employees (ßlowsatisfaction =0.19). That is, employees who were dissatisfied with their workplace needed to be influenced more by internal branding.
Age of Employees
The links between internal branding and employees' brand identification and between internal branding and employees' brand performance were stronger with employees over the age of 30 (ßoldworker =0.43 for identification; ßoldworker =0.22 for performance) in comparison with employees of less than 30 years (ßyoungworker =0.38; ßoldworker =0.18). However, the links between internal branding and brand commitment and between internal branding and brand loyalty are found to be stronger when employees are younger (ßyoungworker =0.18 and ßyoungworker =0.21 respectively). Both the literature (e.g. [43] Simons and Enz, 1995) and the qualitative findings suggested that older workers generally tended to have a higher commitment and loyalty towards their brand; therefore, they may feel that their commitment and loyalty are less strongly influenced by internal branding.
Education of employees
Education was also found to moderate the effect of internal branding on employees' brand attitudes and brand performance. In particular, less educated employees attributed their brand identification and performance more towards internal branding than their well-educated counterparts (ßloweducation =0.43 and (ßloweducation =0.29 respectively). The qualitative findings explained that well-educated employees perceived themselves as contributing to the success of the brand; thus, they did not need to be so strongly influenced by internal branding. Furthermore, less-educated employees may need internal branding to further reinforce the behaviours that were appropriate for the delivery of the brand promise. The effect of internal branding on employees' brand commitment and brand loyalty was stronger for employees who were well educated (ßhigheducation =0.13 and ßhigheducation =0.21 respectively). The qualitative findings found that employees having lower educational attainment were generally loyal no matter what internal branding was undertaken, whereas employees with higher levels of knowledge were ambitious for career advancement and internal branding was needed to reinforce the value of being loyal to the their current hotel brand.
Length of service
Finally, the length of service was found to moderate employees' brand identification (ßlongservice =0.49), loyalty (ßlongservice =0.25), and performance (ßlongservice =0.20). The longer an employee had been with an organisation, the greater the impact internal branding had on their on-brand behaviour.
Discussion and implications
While most of the existing research has focused on management's and brand consultants' perspectives, this study has looked at the perspectives of customer-interface employees' who are considered as the key audience of internal branding activities. Focusing on these employees, it has been possible to provide empirical evidence showing the link between internal branding and employees' brand-supporting behaviours, which was previously only based on conceptual thinking. As this study measured employees' brand identification, commitment, and loyalty together, it also identifies the relationships among these concepts and how they mediated the strength of internal branding's effect on employees' brand behaviours. Among the three brand concepts, an employee's sense of belonging or "oneness" is influenced most by internal branding. Internal branding also directly impacts on employees' brand performance and ability to deliver the brand promise. This concurs with past studies (e.g. [33] O'Reilly and Chatman, 1986) that demonstrated that employees who identify with the brand will have an emotional attachment to the brand. Similarly, an employee's commitment is positively related to their brand loyalty measured in terms of their intention to stay with brand.
Therefore internal branding is critical to the success of a service organisation and in particular to the success of the corporate brand ([42] Schultz and de Chernatony, 2002). Furthermore, [7] Balmer and Greyser (2006) consider corporate branding as "tightly coupled to corporate marketing" (p. 7). Therefore, this study furthers that internal branding, which engenders employees' cognitive and emotional engagement with the brand, is key to the success of coherent corporate-level marketing. However, management should also be aware that the impact of internal branding would not be constant across all employees within an organisation. This study has successfully managed to reveal the moderating effects of personal and situational factors on internal branding. Although various articles in the internal branding realm have depicted the benefits of internal branding, they have not explored the factors that could hinder its success. In particular, attention should be paid toward how employees perceive their work environment. The relationships that employees have with their peers and leaders, the level of perceived autonomy, and their perceptions toward payment and reward/recognition schemes could limit the effectiveness of internal branding. The impact of internal branding on an employee's attitudes and behaviour are heightened when employees are satisfied with their workplace. Indeed, management can learn from this study that their efforts towards internal branding are also perceived by their staff as being about the relationship between management and their employees, the recognition schemes that they implement, and finally, through the level of flexibility that they allow their staff to have during the service delivery. As such, internal branding cannot be looked at in isolation and is unlikely to be successful if the work environment is not conducive to the employees and the brand values. That is, internal branding needs to work together with other corporate marketing elements (i.e. corporate communications, culture, corporate identity, and corporate image and reputation) as well as other disciplinary frameworks (i.e. management, and human resources).
Personal variables such as age, educational background, and length of service with the brand should also be taken into account. While older employees might require more significant internal branding effort to enhance their identification with the brand, their brand-supporting behaviour might need less support than is the case for their younger colleagues. Furthermore, employees with lower educational qualifications may not see themselves as contributing to the success of the brand. This may mean that strong internal branding efforts may be required to communicate the interdependency between the brand's success and the less educated employee's role in the delivery of the brand promise. When they consider themselves as contributing to the success of the brand, their motivation to deliver the brand message is likely to be enhanced. Finally, the longer an employee stays with the brand, the more the organisation needs internal branding to reinforce employees' brand identification, intention to stay, and performance. This may stop employees becoming tired of the brand and questioning its relevance to them. Effective internal branding is needed to enhance their pride in the brand and their willingness to deliver on the brand promise.
Future research directions
Although this study has identified the importance of internal branding, it has only focused on the hotel industry in Thailand, which may not be representative of all service organisations, suggesting that there is a need for researchers to extend this research into other service industries and other national cultures to enrich internal branding knowledge in the wider service sector. The hotel industry is also affected by employing temporary staff during peak-periods, as a result this cross-sectional study, may have neglected the impact of these seasonal shifts in staffing on the effectiveness of internal branding. A longitudinal study may offer opportunities to improve understanding of the impact of temporary versus permanent employees on the perceived value and influence of internal branding. Moreover, longitudinal data would improve understanding of the ongoing and long-term influence of mechanisms on the attitudes of employees and their behaviours in delivering the sustainable brand promises.
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Appendix 1
Table AI [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]
Appendix 2
Table AII [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]
Appendix 3
Table AIII [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]
Appendix 4
Table AIV [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]
About the authors
Khanyapuss Punjaisri is a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Hull in the UK. She completed a PhD at the University of Strathclyde Business School in the area of services marketing, focusing on the hotel industry in Thailand. Her special research interest is in branding, namely, corporate branding, internal branding, and service branding. Khanyapuss Punjaisri is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Alan Wilson is Professor of Marketing at the University of Strathclyde Business School. He specialises in the marketing of services and has been invited to deliver lectures and seminars on services marketing in a variety of countries throughout the world, to both student and executive audiences. He is a co-author of the book: Services Marketing: First European Edition (2008) with Valarie Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner and Dwayne Gremler.
Khanyapuss Punjaisri, Hull University Business School, University of Hull, Hull, UK
Alan Wilson, Department of Marketing, University of Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Figure 1: The proposed framework based on the outcome of qualitative data analysis
Figure 2: Relationships between internal branding, employees' brand attitudes (e.g. brand identification, brand commitment, and brand loyalty), and employees' brand performance
Table I: Results of multigroup analysis: work environment, age, education, and length of service as moderators
Table AI: Profile of informants from six hotels
Table AIII: Reliability and validity tests of each measurement scale
Table AII: Correlations and test of discriminant validity
Table AIV: Cronbach's alpha for each scale
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