Internationalisation of Services Christine Vallaster^^ and ...faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1357370316.304416062992.pdf · During the Internal Brand Building Process ... (1999)

Journal of Marketing Management, 2005,21,181-203

Christine Vallaster^^ andLeslie de Chematony*'

University ofGiefien"

Birmingham University BusinessSchool^

Internationalisation of ServicesBrands: The Role of LeadershipDuring the Internal BrandBuilding ProcessEmployees are a critically importantconstituent of the service brand and beingultimately responsible for delivering itspromise. As such they need a sharedunderstanding of their service brand's values,along with strong commitment andidentification, to encourage brand supportingbehaviour. Viis intemal brand buildingprocess becomes more challenging as senncesbrands expand intemationally, employing stafffrom different global zones. From researchfindings about the role of leadership, we arguethat the success of internal brand buildingdepends on the ability to leverage cognitive,affective, and communicative differencesamongst culturally-diverse employees. Forthis, two behavioural competencies are crucial:a) defining a clear brand vision, and b)facilitating verbal and non-verbal socialinteraction pattems (shozving commitment,trusting employees, and living brand values).This helps build passion, commitment andorganisational identification amongstemployees, ultimately respojisible forsuccessful services brands.

Keywords: services branding, leadership, internal brand buUding, culture

Introduction

Recently authors have recognise the importance of intemal brand building asa process to align staff's behaviour with brand values (e.g. de Chematony2001; Keller 1999; LePla and Parker 1999; Macrae 1996; Tosti and Stotz 2001).

1 Correspondence: Christine Vallaster, Ph.D., Research Fellow Alexander vonHumboldt Foundation, associated with the Marketing Department, University ofGiefien, Licherstrasse 66,35394 Giefien, Germany, Email: [email protected]

ISSN0267-257X/2005/1-2/00181 + 22 £8.00/0 ©Westbum PubUshers Ltd.

182 Christine Vallaster and Leslie de Chematony

This is of particular relevance for services brands where a key challenge is toovercome the variabiUty at the 'moment of truth' (Norman 1984). Staff whounderstand how their service brands' values are best executed can helpovercome this problem. Unlike service quaUty, which is more aboutfunctional issues, services branding is "... more about intemal consistency,places more emphasis on managing the total services brand experience and ismore about social processes" (de Chematony and Segal-Hom 2001, p. 645).

Good employees are vital to service brands' successes, being ultimatelyresponsible for delivering its promise (de Chematony 2001). As such ashared understanding of their service brand's values needs to be anchored intheir minds and hearts to encourage brand supporting behaviour. Thisinternal brand buUding process becomes more challenging as services brandsexpand intemationally (Bruhn 2001) drawing on workers from differentglobal domains. Surprisingly there have been few attempts to consider howthis anchoring process can be successfully managed (Wittke-Kothe 2001).

Leadership has been identified as a crucial mechanism which mediatesbetween people who differ in the way they think and interpret theenvironment and how they feel and communicate with each other Zacarro,Rittman and Marks (2001). One way to ensure that culturally diverseemployees develop a shared understanding of service brand values isthrough leaders orchestrating cognitive, affective and communicativedimensions. Effective leadership is a key factor distinguishing successful andless successful service brands as service brands internationalise. As suchthere is a need to understand the leader's role directing the intemal brandbuilding process in an intemational context.

This paper explores the role of leaders in evolving a more systemicapproach to ensure supportive brand behaviour within global servicesorganisations. It opens by reviewing the literature on the role of staff duringthe intemal service brand building process. Describing how culture mayinfluence the process of shared brand understanding, it then considers theway leadership relates to this process. Based on insights from qualitativeresearch, leaders' roles to ensure brand supporting behaviour withinmulticultural services orgemisation are crystallised. Finally, propositions areformulated for future research.

Intemal Brand Building in Services: The Significant Role of Staff

We start by clarifying the terms service, brands and internal brand building.On the face of it, these seem almost interchangeable but underpinning brandsuccess is the effectiveness of the employment of staff in the intemal brandbuilding process. There are clear boimdaries between services, brands andinternal brand buUding.

Intemationaiisation of Services Brands 183

Respected services bring about a close, almost intimate, relationship betweenservice provider and service recipient. The relational and interactive natureof services challenges an organisation's staff to deliver the expectationsraised by advertising (e.g. Zeithaml and Bitner 1996; Lovelock 1988;Gronroos 1984,1990).

Brands are clusters of functional and emotional values making promisesabout unique experiences (de Chematony 2001). These clusters of values arenot just communicated through advertisements but also the interactionsbetween staff and consumers (de Chematony and Segal-Hom 2001). Servicebrands exist in the minds and hearts of consumers and are sociallyconstructed through stimuli such as staff behaviour, style of dress and toneof voice (de Chematony 2001). Thus the success of service brands dependscriticaUy on staff reinforcing the desired values through appropriatebehaviour.

To act as 'brand ambassadors' employees do not only need to understandtheir brand values and have the right skills and organisational support, butthey also have to firmly believe in and internalise the brand values. Drawingon research into the forms and consequences of employee attachment toorganisational ideology, successful intemal brand building is Unked toemployee commitment (Meyer et al. 2002; Mowday 1998) and identification(Mael and Ashforth 1992; O'Reilly and Chatman 1986). Consequently,intemal brand building in services is not primarily about functional servicequality issues, but includes creating commitment and identification amongstemployees, with social interactive processes explaining, encouraging andreinforcing appropriate staff behaviour.

Although services doniinate developed economies, few models arededicated to explaining services brand buUding (de Chematony, Drury andSegal-Hom 2003). Considering the crucial role of employees in reducingvariability of services brands, authors have started to recognise theimportance of intemal brand management as a process to align staffbehaviour with desired brand values (LePIa and Parker 1999).

Reinforcing Mitchell's (2002) points about staff understanding andcommitment, Keller (1999) proposed 'brand mantras' to improve staffunderstanding of brand positioning. Brand mantra refers to the intemaltranslation of a brand's extemal positioning, enabling staff to understand itsvalues and the behaviour needed to reinforce this. Building on Berry andParasuraman (1991) this highUghts the importance of sharing withemployees the research and strategy behind the brand. It involves creativeintemal communication of the training employees in brand-strengtheningbehaviours, then rewarding and celebrating exemplar behaviour.

'Brand reality' refers to the opportunity firms have to organise branding"so that employees are uniquely proud of the company's brand leadership


and passionately aligned to branding [...] through activities they work onindividually, and in teams, processes, creativity spaces and knowledgewebs" (Macrae 1999, p.l). Employee behaviour that is aligned to servicebrand values allows for a consistent transfer of the brand's promise across aUcontact points between the company and its stakeholders. However, beforethis becomes a competitive advantage, staff need to deeply beUeve in thebrand's values.

The process for ensuring employee behaviour consistently mirrors servicebrand values requires leaming about the different mindsets of otherorganisational members. Based on research in cognitive consensus (e.g.Mohammed and Ringseis 2001), we believe that only when employees sharesimilar meaning regarding their brand is consistent brand supportingbehaviour possible.

The process of developing a shared brand understanding becomes morecomplex as global organisatior\s increasingly employ 'multicultural'workforces, i.e. showing diversity of race and ethnicity amongst staff. For anintemationally operating service company to succeed with its internal brandbuilding process, it needs to work on communication to ensure its employeesunderstand and believe in the values of the organisation (Ind 2001),regardless of geographical and cultural distance. For this, the processthrough which culturally diverse staff enact brand values need to be fuUyunderstood.

Development of a Shared Service Brand Understanding: The role ofCulture

Creating knowledge and making sense of service brand values are socialprocesses (Weick 1995) represented in, and influenced by, the culturalcontext (Glynn 2000). Culture can be conceived as "a complex, abstract, andpervasive matrix of social elements which functions as an all-encompassingform or pattern for living by laying out a predictable world in which anindividual is firmly oriented. Culture enables us to make sense of oursurroundings" (Porter and Samovar 1994, p.11). FoUowing Geertz (1973),culture is a dynamic concept that consists of a system of shared meaningsand symbols. Culture adds significant complexity to the process ofdeveloping a shared brand understanding. An understanding of howcommunicative, cognitive, and affective processes differ due to culturalinfluence is key for a successful process of shared brand understanding,which we next address.

The acquisition and interpretation of information while building a sharedunderstanding of a service brand's values is vital. Conceptual and empiricalcontributions provide evidence that cognitive activities, such as information

Intemationalisation of Services Brands 185

search and processing, as well as perception and interpretation of stimuU, areinfluenced by culture-specific cognitive structures and value configurations(e.g. Holt and Keats 1992; Maznevski 1994; Maznevski and Peterson 1997).Employees have only a portion of the total brand-related information and asthey approach brand-related tasks differently, diversity may cause cor\flicts,hampering an efficient shared understanding of the service brand.

Through dialogue, existing knowledge structures about the brand'spromise become more refined. Good communication leads to theintemalisation of brand values which encourages employees' alignment andthe commitment to behave in a brand supporting manner (Thomson et al.1999). Yet, as research revealed (Gudykunst 1998; Orasanu et al. 1997), thepotential for miscommunications in a multicultural environment issignificant, albeit there are cases of different findings. Culture is a majorvariable tliat determines the communicator's context, content, organisation ofthe message and modes of interpretation. Researchers such as Ting-Toomey(1999, 1988) and HaU (1976) have significantly advanced knowledge as towhen cultural differences are accentuated or attenuated, as well as the typesof communication behaviours (Watson and Michaelsen 1988) that are mostaffected by culture. However, the impact of culture is ambiguous. Forexample, while some studies show that Asians are more indirect than non-Asians (Holtgraves and Yang 1990), others have found that there are littledifferences between Asians and non-Asians (Ambady et al. 1996). Someresearchers have focused on non-verbal communication and found thatAsians and Americans are differentially sensitive to contextual and relationalcues (Ambady et al. 1996), but others have shown that certain relational rulesgoverning communication are universal and do not vary at all across cultures(e.g. Brown and Levinsons 1987). While debate continues about the preciseimpact of cultural differences on communication, there is evidence of aneffect.

Communication triggers cognitive and affective consequences. Thepositive outcome of the affective dimension are increased identification withand commitment to the organisation, leading to satisfaction, loyalty andvaluable social relationships. The negative aspects of affective consequencesencompass role ambiguity/conflict and perceived discrimination. Culturehas been shown to Influence affective consequences (for a review seeMuhlbacher and Vallaster 2002). For instance, Clugston, Howell andDorfman (2000) confirm that culture is a significant predictor of all variantsof commitment, i.e. affective, continuance, and normative commitment,towards the organisation, supervisor, and workgroup.

In summary, the development of shared understandings of a servicebrand's values is based on social interaction. Verbal and non-verbal forms ofintemal commimication are used to exchange thoughts and attitudes which


may result in a shared appreciation. Yet, employees with culturally diversebackgrounds may often approach social situations with divergent mentalmodels. Social and cultural filters determine the degree to which the sharingof values impede or facilitate the social interaction of employees, and hencemay jeopardise the intemal service brand building process.

While there is notable interest in the way employee behaviour can bealigned with the defined brand promise, little attention has been paid toidentify how this process can be managed. We have crystallised leadership asa key driver that supports internal brand building on a global scale. It acts asa 'translator' between people from ethnic cultures, clarifying brand valuesand their implications for brand-adequate behaviour.

The next section is an eclectic attempt to integrate knowledge from thearea of leadership in an intercultural environment, to crystallise the leader'srole during the process of developing a shared service brand understanding.Preliminary results gained from a grounded theory approach support theanchors of a postulated model.

Methodology and Results . ,

To better understand the role of leadership in intemal brand building withinan intemational context, we undertook a research programme based on agrounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967). This was feltappropriate given the emerging nature of the research area identified.

In total, 10 in-depth interviews were carried out with employeesrepresenting middle and senior management in four German companies andone Austrian firm marketing brands globally. The companies differed interms of size (ranging from 400 to 400,000 employees) and operated inservices industries such as telecommunication, sports, tourism,transportation and banking. Interviewees had to define themselves as'experts', holding the highest possible brand management position in orderto provide valuable information about the way in which the intemalbranding process was organised. Although the sample size is small, we are inline with Patton (1987) contending that the insights the Interviews providedare sufficient for developing propositions on the empirical relationshipbetween intemal brand building and leadership in an international context.Additionally, documents provided complementary data.

The development of the topic guide was theory driven, yet kept semi-structured (Lee 1999), and centred around questions about the role of leadersin intemal brand buUding within global settings. Each interview wasrecorded and subsequently subscribed. To enhance validity, transcripts weresent to each respondent who was asked to check statements made. Adoptingan iterative process of sorting and identifying theoretical categories (Mayring1994), leadership issues, processes, and relationships between the constructs

InternationaUsation of Services Brands 187

were identified. These were then 'tested' and refined in the light of fresh datathat emerged from the interviews. This is consistent with the adoption of agrounded theory approach (Marshall and Rossman 1995; Maxwell 1996).

Based on an extensive literature review and the depth interviews, wecrystallised in figure 1 the key explanatory variables showing how leadershipinfluences the process of brand building in an intemational environment.Leaders encourage brand supporting employee behaviour by providing aclear brand vision and by facUitating social interaction. These actions andbehaviours create a framework through which cognitive, affective andcommunicative differences resulting from different cultural backgrounds arebalanced and synthesised. The rest of this paper addresses each of thefactors.

Internal Brand Building

Use of an InlsgrsledcommunliraUon approach

Shiow commllmBni

Uve brand promtsa

Figure 1. Model of Leadership Based Brand Building

Has a Clear Brand VisionThe process of intemal brand building advances when a clear brand

vision creates tension between the actual and ideal work setting, forcingpeople to work together to reduce this gap. As several researchers haveasserted (e.g. Berson et al. 2001; Conger and Kanungo 1998; Awamleh andGardner 1999; Sashkin 1988; Morden 1997), successful leaders are typicallydescribed as being inspirational and visionary. Kirkpatrick and Locke (1996)reported that vision was ranked as most important in terms of its direct andindirect effects on follower performance and attitudes. A unique brandvision is embodied by answers to the foUowing questions (de Chematony2001):


• What core values does our brand stand for?• What is the purpose of our brand?• What desired future does the brand wish to bring about?

Following Baum et al. (1998), we posit that inspiring brand vision elementsare associated with higher employee commitment. No matter whether abrand vision is developed from the top or is considered a shared process inwhich the employees are the co-authors, the brand vision needs to be onethat people in the organisation can identify with. Berinis and Nanus (1985)write that for an organisation to be successful, the brand vision "mustoutgrow the needs of the entire organisation and must be 'claimed' or'owned' by all important actors" (p.lO9). However, the extent to which thebrand vision must be 'owned' or 'shared' amongst employees is unclear. Inall the companies investigated, the corporate policy tells employeesworldwide to draw upon the same brand vision in the same way. As theperson responsible for branding in a tourism firm stated "The brand defines theroom for manoeuvre and stipulates the form of behaviour across the entire globalvalue chain. This means that our Greek hotel staff should ideally behave the same orat least in a similar way as a tour guide in Mallorca who is on our payroU". On theother hand, managers reported that within the defined brand-relatedboundaries, some room for individuality and interpretation exists. "Trying toeliminate the factor 'chaos' to ensure same brand behaviour means also to eliminatehuman behaviour. However, intemal branding is about the empiloyee and his/herunique behavioural characteristics", said the Senior Vice President of atelecommunication company. However, the question where the boundariesfor brand-adequate behaviour start and where they end caused uneasinessamongst most of the interviewees. A typical comment came from themarketing manager in a sports firm: "We don't want to be perceived as a sect...we don't want to control our people ... we don't want them to lose their personality...". Although interviewed managers were aware that not having anexplicitly defined brand may cause confusion amongst employees in amulticultural context, the extent to which the brand vision needs to be sharedamongst employees to ensure brand-adequate behaviour was ambiguous.

To ensure these values become meaningful for employees, leaders need toformulate the means of getting to those futures, especially actions that can betaken in the short term which can boost morale. A Marketing Manager in atravel firm reported: "Together with the human resource department a range ofworkshops were designed to develop behavioural standards with and for our staffworldwide...". The workshops were designed such that employees' ideas andopinions were incorporated. Successful service brand leaders work with theirstaff to make them more aware of the contribution of their tasks to the overallintemal brand building efforts. This encourages employee 'buy-in' (Thomsonet al. 1999) which may have a positive impact on brand performance.


Facilitates Social InteractionWe postulate that leaders play an active role during the brand building

process when it comes to translating the brand's promise into action. Weconcur with Hutchins (1996) that the role of leadership is to mediate betweenindividuals. For this, leaders need to be attentive to organisationalcommunication (Grant, Keenoy and Oswick 2001) in a multiculturalenvirorunent, and its effects on information processing and affects. Theorganisational communication can be through verbal and non verbalmechanisms, as our model shows, and which we next consider.

(i) Verbal communicationThe driving force to coherently transfer service brand values to employees

is through verbal and non-verbal communication and interaction. ACorporate Brand and Design Manager of a company that operates in thefields of transportation amongst others, passionately called for moreprofessional communication within the company: "In our case we called thisthe 'evangelising phase'. We soon recogiiised that intemal branding does not workvia paper but only through personal contacts. Consequently, we organised more than200 workshops and presentations worldwide during the past one and a half years...".

On a continuum between the top-down and bottom-up approach this ismore about being top-down driven. Interviewees foUowing a bottom-upcommunication strategy mentioned that this helped to broaden and elevatethe interests of staff relatively easUy. For example, the Senior Vice Presidentof a telecommunication company stated that each employee transfers a pieceof the corporate brand. "But internal brand building requires change ... change ofindividual behavioural hut also organisational change in order to support employeeswith resources (knoioledge, budget) they can draw upon in order to behave brand-adequately. However, changes cause anxieties. It is important to listen to what theyhave to say. I therefore spend a lot of time talking to my employees". By gettinginvolved in argument and discourse, awareness is generated as well asacceptance of the vision of the organisation. Furthermore, staff may bemotivated to go beyond their self-interest for the good of the group (Bass1985, Tichy and Devanna 1986).

No matter whether a top down or bottom-up communication approach isfollowed, the potential for miscommunications in a multiculturalenvironment is significant due to different languages or different styles ofcommurucation (Gudykunst 1998, Orasanu, Fischer and Davison 1997). Weposit three elements to be important for successfully developing the definedservice brand vision despite cultural influences, i.e. clear and passionatedelivery, Ustening to people's different views, and the use of an integratedcommunication approach.

Research offers a rationale for the finding that strong delivery is essentialfor speech content to have its intended effects (e.g. Hartog and Verburg


1997). Communication has to perfectly convey the service brand values withpassion and creativity, because within an organisation one is dealing with aknowledgeable, and understandably self-central and opinionated audience.In fact, the messages need to be directed at all employee 'touchpoints'(Macrae 1999). Tlie style of communication should clearly signal how theservice brand vision should be interpreted. This may help resolve culturally-related perceptual problems. Also, by seeking to understand the differentperceptions of staff, their needs, their concerns (Pielstick 1999), andencouraging them to recognise there may be differences in intendedmeanings, leaders may succeed in Unking brand values to employees' values,thereby stimulating identification and commitment with the brand.

Furthermore, the communication has to be synchronised with otherorganisational initiatives, showing that what has being said is also beingacted upon (Snyder, Dowd and Houghton 1994). There are a variety ofcommunication channels to convey the leadership's message to theworkforce, such as internet platforms, e-maU, face-to-face, meetings, andwritten memos. The ideal is an integrated approach that allows connectionsto everyone in the globally-operating company.

(ii) Non-verbal communicationLeaders do not only influence the intemal brand building process via

formal communication flows, but also non-verbally through their socialinteractive actions. From our research we are able to present three leadershipactions that have emerged, i.e. a) showing commitment, b) living brandvalues, and c) trusting and 'enabling' employees. We next explore these threeleadership actions.

(a) Shozo commitment by being part of the intemal brand building processDuring the early stages of intemal brand buUding leaders often show

support and commitment, but time pressures result in leavingimplementation to others (Tosti and Stotz 2001). This minimal involvementand delegation is the first sign that a brand initiative may be heading forfailure, particularly when the brand promise represents a substantialbehavioural change. With a new branding initiative, junior managers andfrontUne personnel are unUkely to change until there is a visible change inleadership behaviour. For this reason, company executives need to becommitted from an early stage. They have to release a surge of energythroughout the organisation and create an emotional connection to the brandto stimulate company wide commitment and loyalty.

Commitment throughout the entire intemal brand buUding processreflects the faith leaders have in their brand vision. Leaders must thoroughlyunderstand, support, and actively demonstrate commitment to the intemal


branding process (Snyder, Dowd and Houghton 1994). The Senior VicePresident in a telecommunication company reported: "One day a shopemployee called me up and said: 'Gerhard, we have a problem. Viere was a looman inmy shop and she wanted to buy the chair which a famous sportsmen sat on in ouradvertisement... And we managed to organise this chair for her - just as we promisewith our slogan '02 can do". This demonstrates that leaders have to be 'handson' and attentive to employees which creates respect and trust.

Trying to anchor brand values in the minds of employees and initiatebehavioural change programmes may be challenged by ambiguity,particularly in a global corporation. In stressful situations, the leader'sinformation search and structuring activities provide the basis for meaningmaking and sense-giving to team members (Zaccaro, Rittman and Marks2001) as they develop a comprehensive shared brand understanding. Leadersneed to embark on change programmes with a clear awareness of theexisting employee 'reaUty', including potential hurdles and areas ofopportunity that support the new direction.

Zander (1994) writes that affective processes among culturally-diversegroup members are eased if they agree on one goal and employees acceptand adhere to the group's standards. Furthermore, harmony is encouraged ifa strong desire for achieving the group's success is developed among groupmembers. Hence, leaders should work to make each employee feel they havea stake in the brand vision, which may lead to a higher level of identificationand ultimately performance (Bass 1985). Our research indicates that a clearservice brand vision, clear specification of roles, unambiguous performancestrategies and institutionalised feedback loops that embed the intemalbranding process support the identification and removal of inhibitors of theinternal branding process.

(b) Live the brand promiseWhile some leaders engender staff participation, others go a step further

and make public demonstrations of their dedication. "My key for success is thecontinuous living of the brand's promise", proclaimed the Senior Vice Presidentof a telecommunication company. We contend that it is the leader who mustfirst deliver the brand's promise in an honest rather than in a forced orartificial way. By not just talking about these values but rather Uving them,"employees appreciate how genuine these values are and they are morelikely to be committed to delivering them" (de Chematony 2001, p.6). Livingthe brand encourages the development of trust and respect amongstemployees (Pielstick 1998; Boal and Hooijberg 2000). The senior manager ofa telecommunication company reported that for an intemal brand buildingprocess to be successful, it is not the office design that is relevant but thatemployees know the values a leaders stands for. de Chematony (2001)


proposes that "...powerful brands are characterised by enthusiastic leaderswho have a passionate belief in a few values" (p.6). This affective componentmakes a direct appeal to personal values, underlies both motivation andcommitment, and consequently implementation (Boal and Hooijberg 2000).This, we argue, will ultimately inspire trust and respect in some subordinates(Popper, Mayseless and Castelnovo 2000).

Employees may be motivated by such role models and becomecommitted, transcending their self-interests (Chanoch and House 2001). Thisis similar to Stem's assertion (as cited in Mael and Ashforth 1992) thatidentification with an organisational member who is seen as exemplifyingthe organisation may promote identification with the organisation as awhole. The importance of role modelling was emphasised by severalinterviewees. For instance, the General Manager of a sports company reports:"One of our brand values is 'openness'. Hence, my office door is open for most of thetime - a closed-door policy would be implausible. Viis does not mean that peopleapproach me to solve every little thing that bugs them. Viis rule is understood andaccepted by everybody." Living the brand promise is both a magnet andmotivator for employees.

(c) Trust and 'enable' their employeesAll respondents consider their staff as talented individuals who can

valuably contribute to the Intemal branding process. It was also reported thatparticipation can be facilitated through recruiting people with values sinularto the brand by training and having a fair reward system. This ensuresemployees have the necessary skills to implement the brand vision, theyunderstand the external enviroriment, and are able to judge when there is amatch between the intemal and external campaign. This empowerment isconsidered as the driving force for successful process management (Dess andPicken 2000). For services brands, this is particularly relevant as the valuedelivery system is externally visible, involves consumers as activeparticipants and is subject to quaUty variabUity (de Chematony and Segal-Horn 2001).

Commitment and identification with the brand's values and practices maybe enhanced through the active involvement and participation of employeeswho deliver the brand promise. Staff should be encouraged to developpersonal motives that are relevant to the service brand vision. As Tosti andStotz (2001) posit: "Direct enrolment of the employees through the brandexperience, ongoing feedback and planning activities is ... critical ..." (p. 33).Ultimately, this implies giving up control. However, this shift does not implythe adoption of a passive approach towards leading. The MarketingManager of a company, that operates in banking as part of their globalactivities, explained, "/ can't control my employees so I don't even try. I see my


role more as a faciUtator throughout the intemal brand building process ...nevertheless you have to evaluate your employees' performance". Re-orientingaway from a central environment does not imply that employee performancebe ignored. However, brand leaders trust that everybody in the organisationis determined to Uve their brand values and knows how to turn challengesinto opportunities.

In summary, our model clarifies that the leader plays a central role increating a shared service brand understanding by encouraging employees toreach consensus concerning appropriate styles of brand supportingbehaviour (cognitive dimension). This fosters identification and commitmentof group members with their team, eliminates role ambiguity through theprovision of clear guidelines, and facilitates formal working relationshipsbetween group members (affective dimension). Good knowledge of cultureand its impact for cognition, affect, and communication is required toultimately enable brand supporting behaviour.

Leaders need to be active on at least two levels, i.e. regarding the brandvision and faciUtating social interaction. As regards the brand vision, thisshould be the task of top management (Davis and Dunn 2002). Leaving thisto employees would, according to Locke (2003), result in chaos. The visionshould initially be communicated in a top-down marmer, thereby increasingthe likeUhood of similar shared perceptions.

After communicating the vision to staff, to encourage employees togenuinely live the brand requires a change in tone. A uni-directionalcommunication approach would be doomed to fail, and the dialogue needsto be changed to one which is non-verbal and participative by showingcommitment, rewarding cases where the brand promise is delivered andtrusting employees. "Consider a conference with four German native speakers andonly one person who speaks English. It is obligatory that we all switch into English,including me", said the General Manager of a sports company. Whileorganisational communication research (Grant, Keenoy and Oswick 2001),and the intemal marketing literature (Piercy and Morgan 1991; Greene et al.1994) support this assumption, there remains a comparatively low level ofinterest in intemal communication. Historically, organisations have tendedto employ unidirectional 'cascade' systems of conununications, i.e. seniormanagement disseminates information which filters through anorganisational structure to front-line employees (Asif and Sargeant 2000).Passive forms of communication such as notice boards have been overtlyemphasised. In recent times, some organisations have extended the'empowerment' or 'bottom-up' approach, recognising that communicationshould be more cooperative (McCarthy 1994). Here, the leader is as much alistener as an information giver (Locke 2003). Only then, we posit, willinfluences from culture, detrimental to the brand buUding process, diminish.


This, we argue, contributes to enhance the level of identification andcommitment amongst culturally-diverse employees as we show in figure 2.

Figure 2. Participative Communication to Enhance Level of Identificationand Commitment (based on integrated model of leadership - Locke (2003))

Applying this model in a circular manner will leverage cognitive, affectiveand communicative differences due to cultural influences, resulting in asuccessful process of intemal brand buUding on a global scale.

Measuring Processes and Outcomes Using the ModelThe preceding discussion suggests three substantial propositions.

Proposition 1:Intemal brand building in an intemational context is related to thefollowing leadership behaviours: a) developing a clearly defined brandvision, and b) facilitating social interaction via verbal and non-verbalcommunica tion.From this we postulate that

Proposition 1 a:Through adequate verbal communication, comprising a) clear andpassionate delivery of the brand's promise, b) listening to culturally-related differences in perception, and c) the use of an integratedcommunication approach, a shared brand understanding develops.

Proposition 1 b:Through adequate non-verbal behaviour, comprising a) showingcommitment, b) Uving the brand promise, and c) trusting in employees,leaders can increase employees commitment and identification with theservice brand's values.


Proposition 2:The negative influence of culture on the process of intemal brand buildingwill diminish if leadership behaviour leverages cognitive, affective andcommunicative differences.

Proposition 3:Leveraging cognitive, affective, and communicative differences shouldencourage brand supporting behaviour.

MeasurementBrand metrics help to monitor the suitability of the intemal brand

building process along with the extemal favourabiUty of the service brand'svalues and the satisfaction generated by the service offer (de Chematony2001). We suggest the following tools to analyse processes and outcomes ofthe model:

Cognitive dimension - "meaning" measurementThe proposed model suggests that employees worldwide use meanings

stored in individual or group knowledge structures to guide theirbehaviours. The first step is thus to operationalise "meanings". Corner,Kinickl, and Keats (1994) draw on Walsh and Fahey (1986) who measurebeUefs as indicators for units of knowledge representing an associationbetween two things, most often a cause and effect association (Ajzen andFishbein 1980). In the case of intemal brand building for example, anemployee might believe that the future market development will influencebrand values, and consequently brand-adequate behaviour. Beliefs are thenidentified by asking employees to identify the three most important brandcharacteristics, prompting answers to questions such as "Wliat are the mostbrand-adequate behaviours?" or "What are the do's and don'ts in brandbehaviour?"

Affective dimensionResearch on commitment (Mowday 1999; Meyer et al. 2002) and

identification (Mael and Ashforth 1992) in a work-related setting hasdeveloped robust scales for measurement. To measure organisationalcommitment in the context of intemal brand building, we suggest the use ofMeyer and AUen's (1991) three-component commitment modelquestionnaire. Also surrogate measures, for example employee retention,may provide further insight.

Comtnunicative dimensionThose interested in researching verbal and non-verbal communication in a

multicultural context as the driver for developing a shared brand


understanding can draw on, among others, methodologies involvingnarrative analysis, rhetorical analysis, or conversation analysis (for a reviewsee Grant, Keenoy, and Oswick 2001). Using a model of internalcommunication in financial services developed by Asif and Sargeant (2000),they encourage researchers to quantify the nature of relationships betweenthe identified variables such as volume of communication, style ofcommunication, or informal vs. formal communication.

Brand building behaviourTo evaluate behaviours that match those implied by brand values, the

critical incident technique (CIT) as developed by Flanagan (1954) may beemployed (Zeithaml and Bitner 1996). Consumers may be asked what theyparticularly liked or disUked about the service staff behaviour. This toolidentifies only a few, but very important behavioural aspects. Extendingblueprinting (Shostack 1984), SOPI (sequence-oriented problemidentification) systematically visualises all service-related activities orbehaviours and their linkages. SOPI not only allows the capture of all critical(positive and negative) behavioural incidents at each contact point, but alsothose that are perceived as unpleasant but not causing consumerdissatisfaction.

Successful service brands: brand equityThe systematic measurement of exposure and reactions to company

operations and communications helps to determine the relative impact of aconsistent transfer of brand values on brand equity. To measure brandassociations, projective techniques or in-depth interviews are recommended(Keller 1993). Attitudes towards a service brand may be captured byemploying multi-attribute scales such as those developed by Francois andMacLachlan (1995). Top-of-mind associations (Aaker 1991) may be a usefultool to measure brand awareness, brand image, customer loyalty, or servicequaUty.

Conclusion

When aUgning employees' behaviour to brand values as the route to buildingstrong service brands, internationally operating service organisations need toconcentrate on how this can be achieved. This paper has sought to provideinsights about the behavioural characteristics of leaders and their role insuccessfully aligning culturally-diverse employee behaviour with servicebrand values. Key factors when leading the intemal brand building processin an intemational envirorunent have been explained.

To ensure consistent service brand behaviour a prime responsibility ofleaders is aUgning employees' behaviour with brand values. To achieve this.


staff first need to have a shared understanding of the brand's values. Theprocess of developing a con\mon framework to clarify what the brand standsfor is complicated by the culturally-diverse background of employees. Inorder to minimise detrimental cultural effects, leaders need to adopt a topdown approach irutially to communicate the brand vision, but then move toamalgamating this with a bottom up approach as they seek to facilitate socialinteractions to encourage common shared brand understanding.

Through their behaviours leaders can enhance awareness and gainacceptance of the vision for the service brand. This is firstly from their verbalcommunication which needs to be strong, convincing and synchronised withthe brand vision. Their non-verbal communication includes showingcommitment to the defined brand vision, living the brand promise andtrusting employees. Leaders should define the need for change and mobilisecommitment to these changes. One way of doing this is through rolemodelling, overtly Uving the brand values. Furthermore, leaders can inspireemployees by believing in their capabilities.

We have developed propositions for future resecu-ch which we encourageresearchers to test. By focusing on behavioural leadership issues, andinvestigating the process aspects of intemal brand building in anintemational environment, we hope researchers will address the holisticstrategic service brand building process rather than narrowly looking at onlythe functional characteristic of service quaUty.

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About the Authors

Christine Vallaster received her Ph.D. in 2000 from Leopold-FranzensUniversity of Innsbruck, Department of Value ProcessManagement/Marketing Group where she worked as a researcher andlecturer. The topic for her doctoral research was "Strategy-making byMulticultural Workgroups" with the empirical research carried out in HongKong (China). She then accepted a research and teaching fellowship at theMarketing Department of IAE, Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires(Argentina). Supported by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, she iscurrently researching the role of the leaders and organisational structures inaligning multicultural employee behaviour along brand values. For herresearch, she has been awarded the Best Doctoral Paper by the Australia-New Zealand Marketing Academy in 1998 and received a doctoraldissertation award provided by the Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) in2001 (San Diego, USA). Additionally, she works as a consultant on a project-base in both national and intemational fields.

Leslie de Chematony is Professor of Brand Marketing and Director of theCentre for Research in Brand Marketing at Birmingham University BusinessSchool. With a doctorate in brand marketing, he has a substantial number ofpublications in American and European journals and is a regular presenter atintemational conferences. He has several books on brand marketing, the twomost recent being Creating Powerful Brands and From Brand Vision to BrandEvaluation. A winner of several research grants, his two most recent grantshave supported research into factors associated with high performancebrands and research into services branding. He was Visiting Professor atMadrid Business School and is currently Visiting Professor at ThammasatUniversity, Bangkok and University of Lugano, Switzerland. Leslie is aFellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Fellow of the MarketResearch Society. He acts as an intemational consultant to organisationsseeking more effective brand strategies and has run acclaimed brandingseminars throughout Europe, Asia, America and the Far East.

Documents

Internationalisation of Services Christine Vallaster^^ and ...faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1357370316.304416062992.pdf · During the Internal Brand Building Process ... (1999)