Employer Brand Love: The Key for Attracting and Retaining Talent: An Abstract

Employer brand love originates from two different constructs—employer brand and brand love. When performing a quick search in several databases from mainstream to scientific literature, some attempts to present these two constructs mixed together can be seen but mainly from a relationship standpoint and not as a new concept altogether. The authors’ research purpose is to develop a conceptual model build upon an extensive and systematic literature review. In 2006, Sartain and Schumann defined employer brand as: “how a business builds and packages its identity, from its origins and values, what it promises to deliver to emotionally connect employees so that they in turn deliver what a business promises to customers.” Literature review on brand love has mainly concentrated on its conceptualization. Factors that drive brand love and its outcomes have yet not received the necessary attention (Albert and Merunka 2013; Batra et al. 2012). Nevertheless, literature has shown factors that drive brand love such as hedonic brand, brand image, brand quality, interpersonal antecedents, brand trust, and brand identification (Albert and Merunka 2013; Batra et al. 2012; Carroll and Ahuvia 2006; Ismail and Spinelli 2012; Tolbert and Gammoh 2012).

For this study, we apply the systematic literature review protocol, considering the experience of previous studies (Hjalager 2010; Kofinas and Saur-Amaral 2008; Kusluvan et al. 2010; Law et al. 2010; Irina Saur-Amaral 2011, 2012). Firstly, we build the review protocol, based on keywords previously used by other authors. Descriptive statistics is used to identify main authors, dates, and journals’ names and scopes. A more qualitative analysis is performed for content analysis using RefViz and NVivo using as orientation framework the keywords and the previous knowledge on the concept (Charmaz 2006). The literature map is built upon the data obtained from content analysis, and the explanatory descriptions of key themes and topics are supported by citations and references obtained from NVivo and RefViz analysis. Further work to be undertaken includes interviews and focus groups with key players on the field (marketing professors and HR professionals) to explore the conceptual model.

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