Corporate Brand Experience as a New Construct and Its Effects on Employees’ Corporate Brand Pride and Brand-Supporting Behaviours

Abstract

Employee corporate brand experience is conceptualised as any contact employees have with a corporate brand along the wide range of brand touch-points. To investigate this topic, this paper provides two studies. In Study 1 (n = 195), an employee corporate brand experience scale for direct and indirect corporate brand experiences (DCBEs and ICBEs, respectively) has been developed and validated. In doing so, this paper shows that these scales are distinct from existing experience measures in consumer and organisational behaviour research. Study 2 investigates how these different types of brand experiences generate employee corporate brand pride and turn employees into brand champions. A multivariate data analysis technique (partial least squares) is used to analyse data from 283 employees in Germany. By building on and advancing the assumptions of affective events theory, Study 2 shows that only ICBEs trigger emotional and attitudinal brand pride in turn affect brand-supporting behaviours.