Managing employee attention and internal branding

We extend the marketing literature on internal branding by developing a theoretical framework to explain the processes whereby brand orientation affects in- and extra-role employee brand-building behavior from the theoretical perspective of the attention-based view. The results of a survey of 314 UK-based nonprofit organizations show that brand orientation leads to the development of internal branding mechanisms, which in turn fosters in-role employee brand-building behaviors. We also find that internal branding mechanisms mediate the effects of brand orientation on extra-role employee brand-building behavior, as there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between internal branding mechanisms and extra-role employee brand-building behaviors. Furthermore, our result shows that the inverted U-shaped relationship between internal branding mechanisms and extra-role employee brand-building behaviors flips to a concave upward curve when strong interfunctional communications exist.