{"title":"Much Ado About Little: A Critical Review of the Employer Branding Concept","authors":"T. Behrends, Maren Baur, Larissa Zierke","doi":"10.5771/0935-9915-2020-1-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Within the past ten to fifteen years the concept of Employer Branding (EB) has established itself as a widely known and highly regarded concept especially among Human Resource Management practitioners. In many organizations the development, implementation and communication of a distinctive and unique employer brand is meanwhile considered an important building block for gaining a competitive advantage in the so called “war for talent”. The paper at hand aims at critically exploring the conceptual foundations of employer branding by reviewing an extensive body of EB-literature consisting of standard references, scientific journal articles, textbooks as well as practitioner-oriented literature. This review reveals several general weaknesses, discrepancies and “blind spots” which cannot simply be attributed to some few single publications but rather call for a skeptical look upon the whole concept of employer branding itself. In conclusion the authors assert that the employer branding concept widely lacks innovative novelty as well as content-related persuasiveness. It should therefore be regarded as neither more nor less than a contemporary remake of what is and has for quite some time been well known as “Internal Marketing” or “HR Marketing”.","PeriodicalId":47269,"journal":{"name":"Management Revue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.6000,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Management Revue","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2020-1-1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
Within the past ten to fifteen years the concept of Employer Branding (EB) has established itself as a widely known and highly regarded concept especially among Human Resource Management practitioners. In many organizations the development, implementation and communication of a distinctive and unique employer brand is meanwhile considered an important building block for gaining a competitive advantage in the so called “war for talent”. The paper at hand aims at critically exploring the conceptual foundations of employer branding by reviewing an extensive body of EB-literature consisting of standard references, scientific journal articles, textbooks as well as practitioner-oriented literature. This review reveals several general weaknesses, discrepancies and “blind spots” which cannot simply be attributed to some few single publications but rather call for a skeptical look upon the whole concept of employer branding itself. In conclusion the authors assert that the employer branding concept widely lacks innovative novelty as well as content-related persuasiveness. It should therefore be regarded as neither more nor less than a contemporary remake of what is and has for quite some time been well known as “Internal Marketing” or “HR Marketing”.
期刊介绍:
Management Revue - Socio-Economic Studies is an interdisciplinary European journal that undergoes peer review. It publishes qualitative and quantitative work, along with purely theoretical papers, contributing to the study of management, organization, and industrial relations. The journal welcomes contributions from various disciplines, including business and public administration, organizational behavior, economics, sociology, and psychology. Regular features include reviews of books relevant to management and organization studies.
Special issues provide a unique perspective on specific research fields. Organized by selected guest editors, each special issue includes at least two overview articles from leaders in the field, along with at least three new empirical papers and up to ten book reviews related to the topic.
The journal aims to offer in-depth insights into selected research topics, presenting potentially controversial perspectives, new theoretical insights, valuable empirical analysis, and brief reviews of key publications. Its objective is to establish Management Revue - Socio-Economic Studies as a top-quality symposium journal for the international academic community.