Thus, the research titled “Contextual factors affecting the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks” aims to provide more evidence and more views about the internal brand
Trang 1CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 The research context and reasons for the research
Since 2007 to the nearly years, Vietnamese commercial banks have experienced a toughly
difficult stage because of many risks in traditional banking activities The Vietnamese banks have
also faced up to the competitive pressure from foreign banks in experience-needed banking
services as well as modern and high technological services and in retail banking.To overcome
this situation, Vietnamese banks have made many strategic solutions such as raising the charter
capital, improving the management capacity, enhancing the quality of their human resource,
technological modernization, building and promoting the competitive advantage such as the cost
advantage (through the interest rate competition), differentiating by the quality of service, using
the procedure and process advantage However, these solutions’ effectiveness haven’t been
shown clearly The point is that Vietnamese banks have focused on credit – deposit services and
made their much more funds on banking technologies to face to these difficulties The result is
that bank clerks have experienced more pressure on developing banking services from card
services, deposits, credits to e-banking services
Because the banking services are intangible dominant, easy to copy and banking people are the
role of all banking activities, the main focus Vietnamese banks should be based on are “service
people” and “ the corporate brand” These two factors make sure that Vietnamese banks
have delivered competitive advantages successfully such as the service quality, the service
process etc in the difficult situations in Vietnamese bank sector today However,
Vietnamese commercial banks have focused on external branding toward their customers
and haven’t implemented internal branding toward employees Papasolomou & Vrontis
(2006) showed that the background of building a strong corporate brand in English banking
sector is the employee and the internal branding Burman et al (2009) pointed out that
internal branding activities have influenced directly on employee brand commitment, then
employee brand citizenship behavior and the quality of customer and enterprise relationship
in turn Thus, researching and developing the theorical framework about the internal brand
strength in Vietnamese banking sector is very necessity
Theorical framework about internal branding makes clear about the conception, the
constructs of the internal brand strength, activities to develop the internal brand strength
and the importance of internal branding activities in companies (Burman et all, 2009)
Literature review about influencing factors to internal brand strength showed that almost
researchs only focus on influencing factors to brand commitment and lack of researches
about influencing factors to brand citizenship behavior (the second component of the
internal brand strength) Vietnamese researches in this field are limited and focus only on
the importance of the internal marketing activities There haven’t any research about
influencing factors to internal brand strength in banking sector and in Vietnam which shows
the research gap in theory and practices Thus, the research titled “Contextual factors
affecting the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks” aims to provide more evidence and more views about the internal brand strength and internal branding at Vietnamese commercial banks, provide the theriotical framework for Vietnamese banking management consisting of brand management and human resource management in the situation that banking managers have been aware of the importance of employees and internal branding but haven’t make them come into effect
1.2 Purpose and research question
- Examine contextual factors (belonging to the working environment factor group and the individual employee factor group) that affect the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
- Examine the influence (strong/ week, positive/ negative) of Relationship Orientation, Organisational Socialization, Employee Receptiveness and Needs – Supplies fit in the proposed model to the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
1.3 The subject and the scope of the study
The subject of the study includes: (1) Contextual factors which have impact on the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks and (2) The influence of Relationship Orientation, Organisational socialization, Employee Receptiveness and Needs – supplies fit
to the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
- The scope of the study is defined that: (1) The study focuses on examining contextual
factors belonging to the working environment factor group and individual employee factor group at Vietnamese commercial banks (2) The object of the study includes bank clerks working at Vietnamese commercial banks in Hanoi They include both functional employees in different parts at banks and managerial employees in different divisions, departments and branches at Vietnamese commercial banks Vietnamese commercial banks refer to indigenous joint-venture banks and the state bank (in which the government holds 50% of the charter capital), and do not include foreign banks such as foreign joint-venture banks and 100% foreign fund banks (3) Space availability is in Hanoi because of the researcher’s limited resources (4) Study time phrase: The subject
of the study is examined in the period from 2007 to 2016 when Vietnamese banking sector has been influenced by many macro and micro environmental factors
1.4 Reseach methodology
1.4.1 Research process
The study has begun from the literature review both in Vietnam and in the world about contextual factors influencing a corporation’s internal brand strength The preliminary qualitative research after that has examined and apprased contextual factor affecting banks’ internal brand strength and assessed the scale items of these factors in the Vietnamese banking sector The preliminary quantitative research then has assessed the constructs of definitions and examined the application of the proposed model in the field of Vietnamese
Trang 2banks The official research has been designed to audit the model and examine the impact
of contextual factors on the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
1.4.2 Data collection
Secondary data collection is for examining the research questions, chosing the theorical
framework, proposing the research model and designing the sample Primary data
collection is for exploring the research question in the Vietnamese banking sector, defining
contextual factors that have influenced the internal brand strength at Vietnamese
commercial banks, auditing the construct of scale items in the proposed model and
completing the proposed model in the Vietnamese banking sector.The focus group and
professional personal interview have been designed to find out contextual factors and
complete the proposed model The quantitative research has used questionnaire surveys
based onthe non-ratio layered random selection by bank groups
1.4.3 Data analyzing and processing method
Qualitative data was recorded then tape removed and analysed through Excel to find out
qualitative groups and details by counting the repeatation of words and similarities
Quantitative data was analysed by SPSS 20 with the multivariate regression analysis and
Amos 20 with the Cronbach alpha analysis, EFA, CFA and SEM to audit the scale items of
factors in the model and the goodness of fit of the proposed model and hypothesis
1.5 New contribution
Theriotically, the research makes clear about the trend and the impact level of Relationship
Orientation, Organisational socialization, Employee Receptiveness and the new factor
Needs – supplies fit on the internal brand strength in the Vietnamese banking sector which
there has been no research on this topic area According to that, the research has defined
the application of scale items in the proposed model in the Vietnamese banking sector The
research has identified the considerable differences between two bank groups including the
rated bank group and the unrated bank group (by Moody’s Investor Service) in these four
factors toward the internal brand strength Besides, the research has defined some extra
factors belonging to the working environment factor group and the individual employee
factor group that have impact on the internal brand strength in Vietnamese commercial
banks
Practically, the research helps the Vietnamese bank managers realize the role and the
impact of working environment factors and individual employee factors especially
Relationship Orientation, Organisational socialization, Employee Receptiveness and Needs
– Supplies fit on banks’ brand strength in their employees According to that, the research
makes bank managers control these factors to enhance the internal brand strength at their
banks The research has also pointed out solutions to manage the internal brand strength through
the internal branding in each bank
1.6 Structure
There are 124 pages in 5 chapters: (i) chapter 1: Introduction, (ii) chapter 2: Theoretical framework, literature review and the chosen research model (iii) chapter 3: Organise and implement the research process (iv) Chapter 4: Research result (v) Chapter 5: Conclusion
and recommendation
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, LITERATURE REVIEW AND THE
CHOSEN RESEARCH MODEL
2.1 Theoretical framework
2.1.1 Services marketing trinity
Froms 1970s, there has been a new perspective, that is, marketing belongs to the management aspect rather than an organizational function and the market oriented marketing management should be built based on relationships rather than transactions (Gronroos, 1996) According to that, marketing is all about organizational efforts to manage organizational relationships with the external environment consisting of customers, distributors, suppliers, partners, the government, etc It is especially expressed in the services marketing trinity Three elements in this framework include organization, employees and customers and thus include external marketing (or traditional marketing), internal marketing and interactive marketing The organization provides promises to customers and use external marketing to achieve their belief about profitable and trustful relationship To fulfill promises, the organization let their employees making use of organizational resources to conduct the communicated promises by using interactive marketing between employees and customers Thus, the responsibility of the organization is
to create the ability to fulfill the promises by the internal marketing It means that the organization makes its employees comprehensively understand and believe in the relationships of the organization - employees, employees - customers and the organization – customers, let employees makes use of the organizational resoursces to convey the trustful relationship toward customers Thus, in services organizations, marketing has to arouse and promote motivation of front-office employees and back – office employees to make the team work for the high quality interaction between front-office employees and customers
In fact, the internal marketing should be done before the external marketing
2.1.2 Internal marketing and internal customers in service sector
All concepts about internal marketing have considered employees as internal customers The organisation’s internal market is motivated by the internal marketing to make customer oriented behaviours and service thought in employees Internal marketing is any form of marketing done in the internal organization which make its employees toward the internal activities need to be changed to enhance the interaction with the external market Internal marketing is considered as the planned effort using the marketing oriented approach to make good the organizational shortcomings and overcome obstacles to make
Trang 3change, encouraging and motivating for all function connection and employees connection
to conduct the corporate and functional strategy effectively and creating satisfied customers
due to motivated and customer oriented employees (Rafiq & Ahmed, 2000) The
implication is that satisfying the employees’ demand will embrace their motivation and
increase employee retention, in turn more satisfied employees will make customers more
satisfied and loyal (Papasolomou & Vrontis, 2006) These approaches place the first level
concern in an organization for its employees and internal marketing should cover marketing
activities, human resourse management and leadership (Ahmed & Rafiq, 1995) Berry &
Parasuraman (1991) considered employees as the internal customers, considered jobs as the
internal products which have to satisfy the needs and demand of the internal customers
These researchers considered internal marketing as the employee-like-customer relation
philosophy and job-as-product strategy to satisfy employees’ demands
2.1.3 Corporate branding and brand management approaches
Corporate brand is representative for a company and its tradition, values, culture, people,
image and strategies (Aaker, 2004) The audience of corporate branding is not only
customers but also all stakeholders such as employees, partners, supplies, shareholders,
investors, governments and financial institutions, etc Corporate brand is managed by not
only the operational levels of management but also the high level of management and
corporate brand management is done by not only marketing department but also all efforts
of the whole organization (Xie & Boggs, 2006)
There are two major approaches in building and developing the corporate brand including the
management approach and the identity-based brand management approach The
image-management approach is the outside-in perspective and focuses on how outside receivers accept
the brand According to this approach, brand equity is derived from customers’ brand knowdledge
(Keller, 2003) In contrast, the identity-based brand management approach begins their brand
management from the inside people They have an in-outside perspective and focus on the brand
identity and brand personality from the inside of an organization (De Chernatony, 1999, 2006)
According to this approach, the brand identity is the nature and the brand identity management is
the core and the major activities and thus representative for the brand image (Kapferer, 2004) The
good brand identity management will lead to a good brand image in outside receivers including
customers Thus, they said that an active brand management is derived from the brand identity
management (Burman et all, 2009) Although this approach has not been popular until now but it is
relevant that the brand equity is built from the inside (Burman et all, 2009)
2.1.4 Corporate brand strength
Keller (2003) stated that the brand strength is appraised by brand-related behaviours of
stakeholders (customers, employees, partners, etc) Brand-related behaviours consist of
promoting the brand such as talking about the brand, introducing brand to other peoples,
action in different ways to deliver the brand values to other people, buying the
products/services Burman et all (2009) pointed out that the term “brand strength” is derived from the development of brand equity The brand equity is defined as present and future valorization derived from internal and external brand-induced performance The brand equity includes three major categories: psychological brand equity, behavioural brand equity and financial brand equity The conceptual proximity of the first two catergories leads to a compreshensive and widely accepted term: brand strength The brand strength includes internal brand strength in an organization’s employees and external brand strength
in outside people
2.1.5 Internal brand management
2.1.5.1 The concept of the internal branding
F Mahnert & M.Torres (2007) pointed out three core elements of internal branding.The first element is the reflection of brand values on customers by committed employees The second is the realization of the brand promise which is communicated to the internal and external market It’s due to the unification of the internal corporate to make the brand image come through its employees’ spiritual and mental The third element, the internal branding needs to be applied at all organization level in order to align behaviors and values of both managers and staff From this point of view, internal branding is defined
as “the concerted, inter-departmental and multi-directional internal communications effort carried out in order to create and maintain the internal brand in the organization Internal branding attempts to achieve consistency with the external brand, encourage employees’ brand commitment and the propensity for brand championship among employees Internal branding is the reflection of the values and the realization of the promise of the brand internally and externally” (F Mahnert & M.Torres, 2007, p56) According to Burman et all (2009), internal branding includes three areas: (1) Brand focused leadership such as setting brand identity and brand values, building the brand vision (2) Brand focused HR such as employee education about the brand values and HR policies for promoting the brand to customers (3) Internal brand communication for making sure that employees comprehensively understand the brand values and ethors, have high brand commitment and brand citizenship behavior In general, internal branding is the internal effort to build and develop the brand inside that helps the organization achieve the coroporation between the internal and external customers It includes effective communication to employees and effective persuation about the brand values and the brand interpretation in terms of their own roles and daily routines
2.1.5.2 Internal branding management
Internal branding management is divided into two stages: (1) Setting, educating and promoting brand values and brand identity In this stage, the effectiveness is under the organization’s control From the beginning, employees may or may not understand the brand, they will have a comprehensive understanding of the brand through brand education
Trang 4and socialization Successfully, the organization will get the employee belief and
commitment, and then employees make voluntary agreement to interprete and communicate
the brand identity toward outside stakeholders (2) The internal branding strategy is up to
employee interpretation Employees have internalized the brand and begin to interpret the
brand in terms of their own roles Employee behavior is automatically based upon the brand
(De Chernatony và Cottam, 2005) In this stage, the brand identity is not under the
organization’s control but developed by employees’ internalisation of the brand and then
epmployees’ attitude and behavior toward customers and outside stakeholders In the
process of internal branding management, creating, developing and making the consistency
between employee’s personal values and organization values is the key to make the success
and effectiveness of the internal branding and the internal brand strength
2.1.5.3 The role of internal branding in an organization
It is said that internal branding makes great impact on employees’ attitude and behaviour
toward the brand by the way that it creates brand knowledge for employees and in their
turn, they make the brand live in customers Internal branding will build and develop the
organization image and enduring the organization – employee relationship and thus build
and develop the organization image and enduring organization – customer relationship (De
Chernatony & Segal-Horn, 2001; Drake et al, 2005; Kotler & Heskett, 1992; Thomson et
al, 1999, Punjaisri et al, 2009) Burmann và Zeplin (2009) pointed out that internal
branding leads to the internal brand strength and this strength makes a positive impact on
the quality of the organization – customer relationship
2.1.6 Conceptualization and the construct of internal brand strength
The internal brand strength is the psychological and behavioral brand equity in the internal
stakeholders (employees) A corporate brand which has interbal brand strength can make the
differences and preferences in its employees in their psychology and brand-related behaviours
such as loving the brand, talking about the brand, and action in different ways to deliver the
brand values to other stakeholders, buying the products or services Burman et all (2009)
developed internal brand strength via two related aspects: (1) employee attitude which is
expressed through the identification with and the internalization of the brand identity, and (2)
behaviour which is expressed in employees’ actual activities toward the brand According to
that, internal brand strength is measured via two related constructs: brand commitment and
brand citizenship behaviour Brand commitment was illustrated the psychological processes
that lead employees to show brand citizenship behavior Brand citizenship behaviour was
developed to explain the behavioural processes that employees engage in living the brand
It is defined as employee behaviour that are above and beyond the norm and consistent
with the brand value of the organization and then engender the brand identity, reflected
through three determinants: helping behaviour, brand enthusiasm and self-development
Based on the research of Burman et all (2009), King & Grace (2012) measured brand
commitment and brand citizenship behaviour by the likert scale as following:
Constructs of “Brand commitment”:
1 Proud to be a part
2 Care about fate
3 Similar values
4 Put in extra effort
5 Fit in
Constructs of “Brand citizenship behavior”:
1 Take responsibility for task outside of own area
2 Demonstrate brand consistent behavior
3 Consider impact on brand before acting
4 Show extra initiative to maintain brand behaviour
5 Regularly recommend brand
6 Pass on brand knowledge to new employees
7 Interested to learn more about brand
2.2 Literature review about contextual factors affecting the internal brand strength
2.2.1 The model of Burman, Zeplin and Riley (2009)
Burman & Zeplin (2005) and Burman et al (2009) show that Brand Commitment has a positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behaviour Both contextual factors including “corporate culture fit”’ and “corporate structure fit” were found to exercise a positive effect on Brand Commitment In the factor of “corporate structure fit”, incentive programs have the most effective on brand commitment rather than others such as information infrustruture, planning, budgeting and controlling system Employee knowhow (employee knowledge and skills) and financial resource are proved to have highly significant causal links with brand citizenship behaviour in a moderating capacity At the same time, the research showed that brand citizenship behaviour has an effective on the quality of the brand-customer relationship The employee, customer compertitor surveys at 14 companies respresenting 14 brands from different sectors in German were conducted The study used the personal interviewing process
of marketing professionals who were responsible for brand management There are 3 stages in the study In the fist stage, the expert interviews investigated the applicaion of concepts in the real situations In the second stage, employees of these 14 brands of financial services, retails, transport/tourism, telecommunications, automobile and consumer goods sectors were surveyed
by questionaire to investigate the psychological constructs of brand commitment and brand citizenship behavior In the final stage, customers and key competitors of 14 brands were surveyed to determine the success factors for brand strength in terms of quality of the brand-customer relationship
2.2.2 The model of King and Grace (2012)
King & Grace’s study shows that Organizational Socialization was found to have a
Trang 5significant positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behaviour but not Brand Commitment On
the other hand, Relationship Orientation was found to have a significant positive effect on
Brand Commitment, but not Brand Citizenship Behaviour Employee Receptiveness was
the only one having a strong positive effect on both Brand Commitment and Brand
Citizenship Behaviour The implication is that individual employee factors are more
important than organizational factors in relation to employee attitude and behaviours
Thererfore, organizations should recruit employees owning personal values similar to the
brand values Methodology, King & Grace used the quantitative research through online
surveys of service employees A random sample of 2000 email addresses from the
Australian database of service employees were invited to participate in the survey and the
response rate is 19% with 371 online surveys The limitation of the research is that only
one individual factor (employee receptiveness) was considered and thus the conclusion
about the importance of employee individual factors is not persuasive
The literature review about the contextual factors affecting the internal brand strength
shows the lack of studies on this issue The past studies have been done in service sector in
general, and no research is done in commercial banking services at Vietnam It shows the
research gap and the necessity of doing this research in the commercial banking service at
Vietnam
2.3 The chosen model
2.3.1 Vietnamese banking service’s specific characteristics
The chosen model was based on the Vienamese commercial banks’ specific characteristics
including: (1) Risks are be ale to happen in all banking activities (2) Bank staff is very
important in all banking activities.(3) Banking operational environment has a high standard
of discipline and require all people to follow the rules strictly (4) Banks are usually big
corporations with an imposing structure and a large number of staff The banking financial
health has much impact on the banking activities
2.3.2 Analyse and choose the model
The model of Burman et all (2009) did not mention the impact of Brand Citizenship
Behaviour on the internal brand strength and the impact of contextual factors on the internal
brand strength is not the main concern of the research
King & Grace’s model (2012) focused on the impact of contextual factors on both two
components Brand Citizenship Behaviour and Brand Commitment This model was tested in
the services field and matched up to Vietnamese commercial banks The research focused on
two contextual factor groups including the individual employee factor and the working
environment factors The individual employee factor is all about Employee Receptiveness and
it is the limitation of the research The working environment factors include Relationship
Orientation and Organisational Socialization These two factors express the banking
environment’s setting and support for its staff toward the bank brand and match up to the
specific characteristics of Vietnamese banking system Thus, the model of King & Grace (2012) is chosen for the Vietnamese banking service
2.3.3 The chosen model and should-be-solved problems
(1) Relationship Orientation has influenced on Brand Citizenship Behaviour or not and Organisational Socialization has influenced on Brand Commitment or not (2) Beside Relationship Orientation and Organisational Socialization in the banking environment, is there any other working environment contextual factor influencing the internal brand strength? (3) Beside Employee Receptiveness, is there any other individual employee factor influencing the internal brand strength?, (4) Compared to the individual employee factors, the working environment factors have the more or less impact on the internal brand strength?
CHAPTER 3 – ORGANISE AND IMPLEMENT THE RESEARCH PROCESS 3.1 The qualitative research
3.1.1 Purpose
The qualitative research is to: (1) Examines contextual factors belonging to individual employee and working environment influencing the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks (2) Assesss the application of the chosen model in the Vietnamese banking sector (3) Assesss the nature and the influencing level of contextual factors: Relationship Orientation, Organisational Socialization and Employee Receptiveness on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour toward bank brands (4) Assesss the nature and the influencing level of contextual factors which are examined from the qualitative research but out of the chosen model and related to the specific characteristics
of Vietnamese commercial banks (5) Compare the impact of the individual employee factor group and the working environment factor group on the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
3.1.2 The population of interest and the content of the survey
The population of interest was employees working in Vietnamese commercial banks including bank staff (functional and managerial clerks, other-functional and marketing people front–office and back-office clerks) at departments, branches and headquarters, who were randomly selected from the list of employees
The content of the survey is following:
RQ1: How is a strong banking brand in the mind of employee? What should banks do to make the internal brand strength?
RQ2: What is banking brand commitment? And how is expressed? Are the scale items suitable for Vietnamese banks? Is there a need of addition and adjustment? How about the constructs in the Kimparkon & Tocquer’s research (2010)?
RQ3: How is the brand citizenship behavior expressed and measured? Is the scale items of brand citizenship behavior suitatble for Vietnamese commercial banks? Is there a need of
Trang 6addition and adjustment?
RQ4: What are contextual factors belonging to working environment that have influenced
the Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour in Vietnamese commercial
banks? What is the nature of the impact on the Brand Comitment and Brand Citizenship
Behaviour in Vietnamese commercial banks?
RQ5: (after explaining terms and showing the constructs of scale items) How has the
Relationship Orientation have influenced the Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship
Behaviour in Vietnamese commercial banks? Is there a need of addition and adjustment for
the constructs in Vietnamese commercial banking sector and a specific bank?
RQ6: (after explaining terms and showing the constructs of scale items) How has the Social
Organization have influenced the Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour in
Vietnamese commercial banks? Is there a need of addition and adjustment for the
constructs in Vietnamese commercial banking sector and a specific bank?
RQ7: What are contextual factors belonging to individual employee that have influenced
Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour in Vietnamese commercial banks?
What is the nature of the impact on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour
in Vietnamese commercial banks?
RQ8: (after explaining terms and showing the constructs of scale items) How has the
Employee Receptiveness influenced Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour
in Vietnamese commercial banks? Is there a need of addition and adjustment for the
constructs in Vietnamese commercial banking sector and a specific bank?
RQ9: How have individual employee factors outside the chosen model (mentioned in the
survey) influenced the internal brand strength? Explain carefully and how are the factors
measured?
RQ10: Compare the impact of the working environment factor group and individual
employee group on the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
RQ11: How has the context of the Vietnamese banking sector from 2007 to present
influenced the internal brand strength?
3.1.3 Data collection and processing
Data collection is based on two methods consisting of the focus group and the in- depth
personal interviews The focus group is to identify the research topic and make the
interviewees clear about the similarities and the differences of factors of the chosen model
The in-depth personal interviews focuses on the relationship among factors in the chosen
model and make clear about the detected factors in the focus group and how they work in
the specific context of each bank and each interviewee Data was recorded and tape
removed both in quickview and in details, after that analysed by Excel
3.1.4 Results
4.1.4.1 Contextual factors influencing the internal brand strength at Vietnamese
commercial banks
The working envirornment factor group of Relationship Orientation, Organisational socialization, leadership and direct managers, and incentive scheme are considered to make impact on the internal brand strength at Vietnamese commercial banks
It is recorded that Relationship Orientation in the Vietnamese banking environment need to reflect more detail relationship between an employee and another employee, an employee and his managers especially his direct manager, an employee and customers Relationship Orientation makes the strong impact on Brand Commitment and has the important influences on Brand Citizenship Behavior Relationship Orientation is confirmed to make influence on the internal brand strength in both shorterm and longterm The working mechanism between employees and their managers (leadership, behaving tradition and support system), the incentive scheme toward employees’ positive and proactive behaviours, the support system at work (teamwork, consulting forum for sharring success and working experience) and the internal communication should be focused to develop Relationship Orientation in the Vietnamese banking environment
It is recorded that Organisational Socialization in the Vietnamese banking environment need to reflect managers’ support for employees’ brand citizenship behavior Organisational Socialization make the impact on both Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behavior Training, working mechanism, information sharring and bank cultural traditions are recognized the most supporting factors for employees’ Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behavior
Leadership and especially direct managers are very important to the brand strength in employees’ minds The direct managers’ characteristics which their employees appreciate are reputation, capacity, the way to motivate employees, and behaving traditions toward employees at work
Incentive scheme is highly approvedr in making the strong impact on the internal brand strength This factor includes the reward system, social welfare regime, personal-fit working environment, effective training, maternity policies and preferential product policíe for bank staff According to bank staff, the reward system is basically accepted Back-office employees see the reward as stability The reward is recognized as a steady growth in the rated bank group At the banks of the restructuring, merging and converted ownership form group, employees see the reward unstable, precarious, low and cut off Front -office employees see the reward unworthy with much difficulty, hardship, stress and high risk at work
Individual employee factors include employee receptiveness, personal – work fit especially needs – supplies fit, personal psychological characteristics, personal experience with their bank brand in daily working life
Employee receptiveness is expressed thorough employee’s proactive in branding activities
Trang 7in their banks and being ready to receive coworkers’ contribution to improve customer
services The higher employee receptiveness is, the more employees tend to participate in
and intergrate the banking environment and make the active impact on brand commitment
and brand citizenship behaviour
The personal –bank fit was refered in different point of view: employees’ interests, the fit
between personal core values and characteristics and the bank’s core values and culture, the
fit between personal carreer’s working orientation and the bank development strategy The
most important factor is employees’ interests in which employees perceive the relationship
between their demands and all they received from their bank mainly through the reward
system and working environment in relation to other employees in the same position and
other postions in the bank and the other banks Through this factor, employees feel the
brand values, build their brand commitment, constitute and come to action such as
conveying the brand values and working for their bank brand for long time, etc This factor
was recognised as the especially important factor that make the great impact on brand
commitment and brand citizenship behavior both in short term and long term
The employee’s personal psychological characteristic (extroverted/ introverted), personal
experience with the bank brand in their daily working life are defined to make the impact to
the internal brand strength
The working environment group is identified to be more important than the individual
employee factor group because of the working environment and specific features at each
bank
Brand commitment is identified to have a direct, positive and great impact on brand
citizenship behaviour However, in some circumtance, converting the brand commitment
into brand citizenship behaviour has been influenced by the employee knowhow and the
risk level at work
3.1.4.2 New factor addition into the chosen model
Vietnamese banks’ specific characteristics proves that they should focus on the people,
bank staff, and the working environment factors when studying about the internal brand
strength As identified, there are three cores of internal marketing which are employee
demand satisfying, philosophy of behaving toward employees as customers and the job
strategy as a product satisfying employees’ demand The theoretical framework of internal
branding proved that building, developing and preserving the individual–orgnasational fit is
very important to make the effectiveness and success for the internal branding and the
identity-based brand management approach (De Chernatony và Cottam, 2005) The qualitative
research’s result and the theory of personal –workplace fit has identified the need –suplies
fit as the most important factor and related to many other factors in the working
environment Thus the need –supplies fit has been added in the model of King & Grace
(2012) in my primary quantitative research
3.1.4.3 Survey measures
The scale items in the survey were drawn from the scale of Burman et all (2009) and King
& Grace (2012) and adjusted in Vietnamese and the banking sector
3.2 The primary quantitative research
3.2.1 Purpose
The study is to examine the proposed model’s goodness of fit in Vietnamese banking sector, to test the scale items of the factors in the proposed model, to examine the nature and influencing level (positive/ negative, strong/weak) of following factors: Relationship Orientation, Organisational Socialization, Employee Receptiveness, Needs – Supplies fit on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behavior
3.2.2 The proposed model
The proposed model is developed based on adding a new factor called “Needs – Supplies fit” on the model of King & Grace (2012) The hypotheses are formed based on the results
of King & Grace (2012) and my qualitative results in Vietnamese banking sectors H1: Brand Commitment will have a positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behaviour H2: Relationship Orientation will have a positive effect on Brand Commitment H3:Relationship Orientation will have a positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behavior H4: Organisational Socialization will have a positive effect on Brand Commitment H5: Organisational Socialization will have a positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behavior H6: Employee Receptiveness will have a positive effect on Brand Commitment
H7: Employee Receptiveness will have a positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behavior H8: Needs – Supplies fit will have a positive effect on Brand Commitment
H9: Needs – Supplies fit will have a positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behavior
Fingure 3.1: The proposed model
3.2.3 Data collection
Questionnaire survey method has been used in my research at Vietnamese banks
NT Relationship Orientation
Employee Receptiveness Organisational Socialization
Brand commitment
Brand Citizenship Behavior
INTERNAL BRAND STRENGTH
Needs – Supplies fit
Trang 8Respondents are working in Vietnamese banks (foreign and join venture banks excluded)
According to Bollen (1989) and Hair et all (1998), in a quantitative research, a variable
need 5 observes equally to 5 respondents There are 47 variables in the questionnaire thus
the sample needs a minimum of 235 respondents The sampling probality (random
selection) was applied in the primary research with total of 400 delivered questionnaires
Total valid questionnaires were 247, account for 89,5%
3.2.4 Results
3.2.4.1 Scale rating
SPSS software version 20 has used for testing the reliability of measuring scales with
Cronbach alpha analysis and EFA CK7, CK8, CK9, CK10 and NS3, NS7 were deducted in
the research result
3.2.4.2 Examining the influencing factors on the internal brand strength
The result is expressed as following due to the correlation analysis and multivariate
regression analysis: (1) The proposed model can be applied in Vietnamese banking sector
The scale items were basically reliable (2) All factors in the proposed model have positive
impact on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour of the internal brand
strength Relationship Orientation and Organisational Socialization have a positive effect
on Brand Citizenship Behavior (3) The new factor needs – supplies fit has been recognized
to be reasonable and have both influenced on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship
Behaviour (4) Brand Commitment has a strong impact on Brand Citizenship Behaviour
Relationship Orientation has a stronger impact on Brand Commitment than Brand
Citizenship Behaviour Employee Receptiveness has a stronger impact on Brand
Citizenship Behaviour than Brand Commitment The new factor needs – supplies fit has
more impact on Brand Commitment than Brand Citizenship Behaviour The result of the
correlation analysis hasn’t showed clearly the influencing level of two groups including the
individual employee factor group and the working environment factor group toward the
internal brand strength
3.2.5 The research model completion
- The new factor Needs – Supplies Fit (NS) has been added in the proposed model
- Scale items of Burman et all (2009) which is quoted in King & Grace (2012) will be
used in the official quantitative research A variable is added in the scale item of Brand
Commitment In the new factor Needs – Supplies Fit (NS), two variables including NS3
and NS7 are still remained in the officially quantitative research but the word “do not”
is changed into “haven’t done” in these statements
3.3 The official quantitative research
3.3.1 Purpose
This study: (1) examines the reasonability of the research model in Vietnamese banks (2)
evaluates the reliability of measuring scale in the proposed model (3) tests hypothesis of
the proposed model, evaluates the nature and influencing level of influencing factors in the proposed model on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour and compare the influencing level of two groups including the individual employees factor group and the working environment group
3.3.2 Sampling method
The population is staff working in the Vietnamese commercial banks in the geographic area
of Vietnam including state commercial banks and join stock commercial banks and excluding foreign and jont venture banks Sampling frame is the employee list from Vietnamese commercial banks in Hanoi As the quanlitative result, the operational situation
at banks and employees’ perception about bank brand depend on each bank’s credit rating (rated by international credit rating organizations).For rated banks, the ranks have changed over years from low level to medium level and it is not stable over years Thus to ensure the uniformity of the population, non-rating stratified random method has been conducted According to that, banks were divided into two groups including the rated banks group (the first group) and the unrated one (the second group) The rating was done by the Moody's Investors Service The sample size is the same at different groups Bollen (1989) and Hair
et all (1998) pointed out that in a quantitative research, a variable need 5 observes equally
to 5 respondents There are 43 variables in the questionnaire thus the sample needs a minimum 215 respondents
3.3.3 Data collection
Data was collected by the questionnaire survey through face-to-face participation and by email
3.3.4 Sample profile
A sample of 800 is generated, equally divided into two bank groups 622 are in response This resulted in the completion of 512 questionaires and meets the standard Felames represents the majority of the sample with 69.3% and males with 30.7% While front-offce employees reflects 64,1%, back–office ones was only marginal representation of 35.9% The under 30 age group is the largest group with 49.8%, the 31-40 age group follows with 47.7%, the 41 -50 age group accounted for 2.1% and the over 51 age group is only 0.4% The under-5-year experience employees represents of 47.5%, the 5-10 year experience employees accounts for 41.4%, the 11-20 year experience employees is the representation with 10.7% and the last is the smallest of the sample with 0.4% Employees in the rated bank group accounts for 55.3% and employees in the unrated bank group is the representation of 44.7%
3.3.5 Data analyzing method
Data is processed by the software SPSS 20 and Amos 20 with Cronbach alpha analysis, EFA, CFA and SEM to evaluate the scale measuring, the reasonability of the research model and theoritical framework and test the hypotheses
Trang 9CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS 4.1 Scale Rating
4.1.1 Evaluating reliability of measuring scales by Cronbach’ alpha analysis
As the result of evaluating reliability of scales items by Cronbach alpha analysis,two
observing variables including NS3 and NS7 should be deducted from the scales items
before conducting the factor analysis
4.1.2 Evaluating by EFA
Results showed that from 28 independent variables 4 factor groups can be extracted in
corresponding of 4 independent factors Extraction sums of squared loadings (or total
variance explained) is 63,698% (>50%), KMO = 0,937 (>0,5) and Bartlett testing has a sig
smaller than 0.05 thus EFA can be applied EFA for the definition of the internal brand
strength can extract 2 factors in corresponding of Brand Commitment and Brand
Citizenship Behaviour Extraction sums of squared loadings (or total variance explained) is
54,373% (>50%), KMO = 0,905 (>0,5) Bartlett testing has a sig smaller than 0,05 thus EFA
can be applied
4.1.3 Evaluating by CFA
CFA for the definition “The internal brand strength” has Chi-square/df = 4,654 <5 which is
acceptable for the sample with more than 500 observes GFI =0,902 , TLI = 0,903 , CFI =
0,923 , RMSEA = 0.79 <0,08 prove that the proposed model is reasonable for the research
data The standardized regression weights are all higher than 0.5 and regression weights all
have statistical significance thus all definitions can achieve the convergent validity
Howerver, the errors of some observing variables in the scale items for the definition
“Brand Citizenship Behaviour”are correlated thus the scale items do not reach the
unidimensionality But it is rarely perceived that a model meets all standards In many
studies, it is hard to achieve both p value and the unidimensionality in the scale items for all
definitions in the model (Thọ & Trang, 2008) The scale items for the definition “The
internal brand strength” reach the discriminant validity because the correlation between the
definition of Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour is lower than 0,9 The
composite reliability of the scale items for the definition “The internal brand strength” are
all higher than 0.5 and extraction sums of squared loadings are higher than 50% and
qualified
CFA for the whole model provided Chi-square/df =4.641 < 5 with the sample size N = 512 is
acceptable The result of GFI =0.869 , TLI =0.903, CFI =0 917 , RMSEA = 0.76 <0.08 shows
that the research data proves the proposed model However GFI is not satisfied The
standardized regression weights are all higher than 0.5 and regression weights all have
statistical significance thus all definitions can achieve convergent validity The errors of
observing variables are not correlated thus the scale items reach the unidimensionality and
the scale items for the definition “The internal brand strength” reach the discriminant validity because the correlation between the definition of Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour is lower than 0,9 The composite reliability of the scale items for the definition “The internal brand strength” ishigher than 0.5 and extraction sums of squared loadings are higher than 50% and qualified After hooking the errors with high MI, the model has the result as following Chi-square/df = 3,943, GFI =0,904 , TLI =0,945, CFI
=0,958 , RMSEA = 0,68 and it is acceptable
4.2 Model and hypotheses testing
Although the results for model testing from the official quantitative research did not meet the demand, the model adjusting by MI hooking shows Chi-square =3.909 <5 (with the sample size N= 512), GFI =0.905, TLI = 0.947, CFI = 0.959, RMSEA = 0.067<0.08 All hypothesized relationships in the research model are all proved by SEM The result of regression weights of the default model is showed in fingure 4.15 in which the causal relationships reach the statistical significance because of all Pvalue < 0.05 It proves that all four definitions including Relationship Orientation, Organisational Socialization, Employee Receptiveness and Need – Supplies fit have direct and positive effect on Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour and new factor addition to the King & Grace model (2012) is acceptable in Vietnamese banking sector All hypotheses are
accepted with the collected data
Fingure 4.15: Regression weights of the default model
H4 camket < - XHH 0.237 0.080 2.956 0.003 H6 camket < - tiepnhan 0.264 0.071 3.723 *** H8 camket < - nhucaudapung 0.285 0.080 3.573 *** H2 camket < - DHQH 0.269 0.092 1.848 0.035 H3 hanhdong < - DHQH 0.299 0.070 2.857 0.004 H5 hanhdong < - XHH 0.233 0.061 2.174 0.030 H7 hanhdong < - tiepnhan 0.279 0.057 4.867 *** H9 hanhdong < - nhucaudapung 0.271 0.064 4.266 *** H1 hanhdong < - camket 0.343 0.063 2.283 0.022
Source: the official quantitative research
Brand Commitment has the strongest positive effect on Brand Citizenship Behaviour with the standardized regression weight of 0.346 Thus as the result of the qualitative research, bank staff’ Brand Commitment is an important factor in the conception of the internal brand strength and directly forms bank staff’ Brand Citizenship Behaviour
The individual employee factors and working environment factors have a direct effort on Brand Commitment with small vibrated fluctuation: Relationship Orientation with 0.266,
Trang 10Organizational Socialization with 0.259, Employee Receptiveness with 0.268 and the Need
– Supplies fit with 0.266 It shows that: (1) The results of the qualitative and quantitative
research all confirmed the Organizational Socialization make the direct and positive impact
on Brand Commitment (2) It is not stated that the working environment factors or the
individual employee factors make a stronger impact in the quantitative research though the
quanliative research showed that it is the working environment factors which make more
impact on the internal brand strength
The influencing factors to Brand Citizenship Behaviour with more vibrated fluctuation:
relationship orientation with the regression rate of 0.298, employee receptiveness with
0.288, the need – supplies fit with 0.257 and organizational socialization with 0.248 It
shows that: (1) The results of the qualitative and quantitative research all confirmed the
relationship orientation make the direct and positive impact on Brand Citizenship
Behaviour (2) The influencing level of contextual factors in the model on Brand
Citizenship Behaviour is different with small fluctuation (from 0.25 to 0.3) thus the
working environment factors is not said to make stronger impact on the internal brand
strength than the individual employee factors
The new factor added in the model, the Need –Supplies Fit, makes the impact on both
Brand Commitment and Brand Citizenship Behaviour with the regression weights of 0.266
and 0.257, which are the same as the left contextual factors in the model It stated the
qualitative result about the influences and the importance of the need – supplies fit in
Vietnamese commercial banks
4.3 SEM model specification
4.3.1 SEM model specification based on front-office employees and back-office
employees
Pvalue = 0.845 (>0.05) so H0 is accepted and H1 could not be accepted Thus there is no
differences in the impact of the working environment factors and individual employee
factors on the internal brand strength between the front-office and back-office employees
4.3.2 SEM model specification based on the banking groups
Pvalue = 0.009 (<0.05) so H0 could not be accepted, H1 is accepted Thus there is the
difference in the impact of Relationship Orientation, Organizational Socialization,
Employee Receptiveness, Need – Supplies Fit on the internal brand strength between
rated and unrated banking groups This result is well matched to the qualitative results
in which the big influences of banking activities and each bank’s financial situation on
the internal brand strength are recognized
Fingure 4.17: Regression weights of the free-prameter model and fixed-parameter
model
The rated group The unrated group Regression
weights P value
Regression weights P value
Source: the offical quantitative research
Figure 4.17 shows that: (1) In the unrated banks, Organizational Socialization does not make the impact on Brand Commitment Thus, the working environment at unrated banks
do not make the impact on the internalization of the brand identity and do not form the employees’ Brand Commitment The reason indicated in the qualitative research lies on the bank staff’ belief in the banking brands as well as each bank’s operational and financial situation (2) In the unrated banks, Relationship Orientation makes the great impact on employees’ internalization of the brand identity but makes little support for employees’ Brand Citizenship Behaviour (3) In the unrated banking group, employees’ Brand Commitment make a little impact on Brand Citizenship Behaviour with the regression weight of 0.179 compared to the regression weight of the rated bank group of 0.366 Thus,
in unrated banks, employees with high Brand Commitment do not mean that they will make their action for theỉ banking brand because of many obstacles to converting Brand Commitment into Brand Citizenship Behaviour such as the operational and financial situation (4) The Employee Receptiveness does not make the impact on Brand Commitment (P-value = 0.248 > 0.05) and makes the little impact on Brand Citizenship Behaviour in the unrated banks (5) The Need – Supplies Fit makes the greater impact on the internal brand strength in the rated banks than in the unrated banks
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 5.1 Major conclusion
5.1.1 New contribution
(1) The research stated that the working environment factors make the equivalent impact on the internal brand strength as the individual employee factors It means that (a) the working