Contributions of Internal Branding Practices to Corporate Brand Success

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to investigate how internal branding practices can contribute to successful corporate brand building. The thesis is based on a case study of the successful Swedish brands Saab AB, SAS Sverige and Skanska. The results show that core values are a main building block of internal branding practices and that core values are united with cultural values with a dual purpose of adding value to customers and guiding employee behavior. Furthermore, the results point out that core values internally indicate how the vision is to be achieved and that the vision may be more useful as a management tool than internal branding tool. Subcultures appear to be present in all three cases and the results suggest that corporate brands are strengthened by internalizing a main corporate culture which allows cultural interpretations within subcultures and by assuring that subcultures co-exist in harmony. Internal communication seems to support corporate and internal branding by applying a pull-principle in communications, creating forums for personal interaction and facilitating employees’ information search and processing. In terms of human resource contributions to brand building, practices such as recruitment, phasing in of new employees, internalization of core values among current employees and internal brand evaluations are put forward. Moreover, two additional concepts of importance in corporate and internal branding were found: acknowledgment and involvement. A total of 14 propositions of how internal branding practices contribute to corporate brand success, summarized in a holistic model, are presented.