Journal of Technology Management in China

Employer-brand equity, organizational attractiveness and talent management in the

Zhejiang private sector, China
TingTing Jiang, Paul Iles,
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TingTing Jiang, Paul Iles, (2011) "Employer‐brand equity, organizational attractiveness and talent
management in the Zhejiang private sector, China", Journal of Technology Management in China, Vol. 6
Issue: 1, pp.97-110, https://doi.org/10.1108/17468771111105686
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Employer-brand
Employer-brand equity, equity
organizational attractiveness
and talent management in the
97
Zhejiang private sector, China
TingTing Jiang
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China, and
Paul Iles
University of Salford, Salford, UK
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Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to clarify the process that leads employees and prospective applicants to
be attracted to remain with the organization or apply for a job offer in private companies in Zhejiang,
China.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies concepts from marketing to people
management, particularly the concept of brand equity. It proposes, on the basis of a literature review
and preliminary interview data in three private companies in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, that prospective
applicants and employees evaluate job offers or organizational positions based both on organizational
attractiveness (OA) and on employee-based brand equity (EBBE) perceptions. It then presents a model
of the relationship between OA and EBBE for future research in China, proposing the particular
importance of the dimensions “economic value”, “development value” and “social value” for Chinese
employees. It then suggests implications for future research and practice, especially the relationship
between OA and EBBE for both Chinese employees, job seekers and applicants.
Findings – The private economy is significant to China, accounting for 65 per cent of gross domestic
product (GDP) and 56 per cent of total tax revenue. For Zhejiang, a private economy-dominated province,
talent recruitment and turnover are problems that hinder future development. OA and EBE may play a
key role in intentions to accept a job offer, and as a mediator and a key variable in the initial recruitment.
Research limitations/implications – The paper draws on preliminary interview studies in China
to propose a framework for future research to clarify the role of OA and EBBE in Chinese job choice
intentions and behaviours.
Practical implications – Recruitment messages and internal branding communications should
focus on EBBE so as to influence OA perceptions and job intentions in China. Social, economic and
development value are suggested as particularly important dimensions of EBBE in China.
Originality/value – The study clarifies the role of OA and EBBE in the process that leads to the
intention to apply, respond to job offers, and remain with the organization, and discusses implications
for further research and practice in China.
Keywords Corporate image, Brand equity, Employee behaviour, Employee turnover, China
Paper type Research paper

Journal of Technology Management

Introduction in China
Vol. 6 No. 1, 2011
There is growing interest in corporate as well as product branding, including corporate pp. 97-110
brand equity (BE) (Ahonen, 2008). Internal branding and employees’ roles in corporate q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1746-8779
branding are also of growing interest, as is interest in employer and employee branding DOI 10.1108/17468771111105686
 JTMC (Chun and Davies, 2006; Edwards, 2005; Martin and Beaumont, 2003; Barrow and
6,1 Moseley, 2005).
Employer branding (EB) is a term often used to describe how organizations market
their offerings to potential and existing employees, communicate with them and
maintain their loyalty, “promoting, both within and outside the firm, a clear view of what
makes a firm different and desirable as an employer” (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004, p. 120).
98 An employer brand is:
[. . .] a set of attributes and qualities-often intangible-that makes an organization distinctive,
promises a particular kind of employment experience, and appeals to those people who will
thrive and perform best in its culture (CIPD, 2009).
EB thus represents a further extension of branding theory and research, involving
efforts to communicate to existing and prospective staff that the organization is a
desirable place to work, creating compelling, distinctive employee value propositions
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(EVPs).
For Jenner and Taylor (2009), human resource management (HRM) interest in EB
is due to the contemporary power of brands, HR’s continuing search for credibility and
increasing interest in employee engagement has coincided with tight labour market
conditions, leading to the “war for talent” and a growing interest in talent management
(TM) (Iles, 2007). Ambler and Barrow (1996, p. 187) first applied the concept of brand
to HRM, viewing the employer as the brand and the employee as the consumer/customer.
They define EB as “the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits
provided by employment, and identified with the employing company”; EB therefore
provides both instrumental (economic) and symbolic (psychological) benefits to
employees.
This paper extends the concept of EB to an analysis of employee-based brand equity
(EBBE) in China. It explores the relationship between EBBE and organizational
attractiveness (OA). It draws on preliminary interviews in three private-sector
companies in Zhejiang to develop a framework for further empirical research into EBBE
and OA in China.
The paper has the following objectives:
(1) to review the literature on EB, BE, EBBE;
(2) to review the literature on OA and EB, especially in relation to China;
(3) to review preliminary interview studies conducted in three private sector
companies in Hangzhou in order to identify dimensions of EBBE and OA in
Zhejiang, China;
(4) to develop a framework for analyzing the relationships between EBBE and OA
in China, based on the interview studies and the literature review; and
(5) to develop an agenda for future research and discuss practical implications for
private sector companies in China.

EB and BE
It is often claimed that EB can help an organization compete effectively for talent and
enhance employee engagement, recruitment and retention so that it is perceived
positively by existing, potential and former employees as a good place to work.
For example, a company might seek to develop an EB which complements its customer
 brand proposition, devising credible, compelling and differentiated EVPs. These Employer-brand
describe what the organization stands for and requires, a perspective linked to earlier equity
work in HR on the “psychological contract” and the “employer of choice” agendas. For
Lassar et al. (1995):
[. . .] brand equity stems from the greater confidence that consumers place in a brand then
they do in its competitors. This confidence translates into consumers’ loyalty and willingness
to pay a premium price for the brand. 99
This kind of confidence is usually termed “brand trust”.
For Feldwick (1996), conceptual confusion surrounds BE as a measure of brand worth
or value. BE evolved from concepts of “brand image” in the 1980s when “brand value”
became apparent in financial terms. Different people mean different things by BE,
and propose measuring it in different ways. BE can be seen as the total value of a
brand as a separable asset, i.e. brand value; or as a measure of the strength of consumers’
attachment to a brand, i.e. brand loyalty or brand strength; or as a description of
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the associations and beliefs a customer has about the brand, or brand image/brand
description. “Brand strength” perhaps comes closest to its central meaning, measuring
relative consumer demand for the brand; behavioural measures (e.g. buying behaviour)
and attitudinal measures of loyalty to capture “affective feelings” or attachments can be
used to measure it. BE in the sense of brand description, or “brand image” may then lead
to brand strength or loyalty. BE may not however be captured fully by any one measure,
being a general measure of the health, quality or effects of the brand.
From organizational and personnel psychology, Lievens et al. (2001, p. 581) claim that:
[. . .] a new and promising direction consists of applying marketing principles to the labour
market shortage problems [. . .] attracting and training employees have a lot of parallels with
attracting and keeping customers to buy products or brands.
Brand image seems particularly important to job applicants; Cable and Turban (2003,
p. 581) found that applicants remembered more from advertisements from companies
with a good brand image, and were willing to earn a little less with such a company.
However:
[. . .] future studies are needed to test and validate further the marketing logic in recruitment.
It is especially important that these studies borrow well-researched theoretical concepts from
the field of marketing. Examples of such concepts are “brand image”, “brand awareness” or
“brand equity”.

Measurement of EBBE
Jobs/positions can be seen as products, so we can borrow from definitions of perceived
quality/strength of a customer-based brand in an HR setting to develop a concept of
employer-brand equity or EBE. For Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000, p. 17) BE is:
[. . .] a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand that add to or subtract from the
value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm’s customers.
By analogy, EBE refers to the value provided by employment to existing or potential
employees.
Collins and Stevens (2002) explicitly use BE in analyzing early recruitment practices;
publicity, word of mouth endorsements, and advertising were all related to applicant
intentions and decisions through two dimensions: general attitudes towards the company,
 JTMC and perceived job attributes. EB is seen in terms of applicants’ knowledge of, and feelings
for the brand; EB image was measured by attitudes to the organization and items about
6,1 job attributes. Applicant intentions and subsequent decisions were also related to EB.
Collins (2006) showed that the beliefs of job seekers about the company as a potential
employer, “employer knowledge” (including familiarity, reputation and image) strongly
predicted both interest in applying for a job and actual application behaviours. Student
100 applicants were most affected by awareness of the company as an employer, perceptions
of how other students/faculty perceived its reputation and beliefs regarding aspects of the
job such as pay, chances for development and interesting work. These studies suggest
that both job attributes and organizational characteristics influence applicant behaviour;
as Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) point out, EBE “influences potential applicants to apply
or not, and is the desired outcome of EB activities”.
In this study, we use the concept of EBBE, as EBE as perceived by employees,
analogous to the concept of “customer-based brand equity” in marketing. EBE might
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be assessed in different ways (Feldwick, 1996). Wilden et al. (2006) argue that the
effectiveness of brand signals to employees depends on their consistency, clarity,
credibility and associated brand investments; EB activities are therefore designed to
enhance both EBE and EBBE.
Most research interest in BE/EBBE has been on how applicants are attracted,
as branding influences the understandings applicants form about companies.
For Wilden et al. (2006), EB is a signal to overcome information asymmetry in
judging “employment quality”; employment opportunities can be seen as products, and
evaluations of them are based on such characteristics as salary, location and other
job/organizational attributes which cannot be directly observed, but need to be inferred
through EB signals. Firms overcome such uncertainties through purposive branding
aimed at targeted job seekers; EB, thus helps establish the identity of the firm as an
employer, including its values, systems and policies.
For Allen et al. (2007, p. 1704), “future research may be able to draw more from the
marketing literature on branding to explore the dynamics underlying the perception of
organizational image”. In this study, applicant attraction and intention to pursue
employment in response to an organizational web site depended directly on job
information and indirectly on organizational information. Attitudes about recruitment
sources also influenced applicant attraction, and partly mediated the effects of
organizational information:
[. . .] just as branding provides incremental preferences for an organization’s products or
services beyond the attributes of these products or services, organization branding may also
provide incremental preferences for an organization’s employment opportunities beyond job
and organizational attributes (p. 1697).
Much research on EBBE is based on Aaker (1991); researchers may take two or three
dimensions from his five dimensions, or may revise his dimensions. For example,
Peng (2008) uses three dimensions of EBBE: brand popularity, perceived quality of the
brand, and brand loyalty. Many measurement scales of EBBE are pragmatic, derived
largely from “Top 10 best employers” surveys of organizations, lacking theoretical
power to explain and analyze EBBE. Here, we propose combining existing literature and
pragmatic surveys to identify five dimensions of EBBE: economic value, social value,
development value, interest value and brand trust. We also propose to explore its
relationship to OA, especially in China.
 OA and its components Employer-brand
Whereas EBBE has been studied primarily from a marketing perspective, OA has mostly equity
been studied by organizational and personnel psychologists. OA refers to the degree to
which potential applicants/current employees favorably perceive organizations as places
to work (Rynes et al., 1991); for Aiman-Smith et al. (2001), it is “an attitude or expressed
general positive affect toward an organization and toward viewing the organization as a
desirable entity with which to initiate some relationship”. OA appears to give employers 101
competitive advantage (Cable and Turban, 2001) as employers try to attract job
applicants to join applicant pools with the requisite skills and knowledge to match
organizational requirements. Attracting high-performing applicants of the right type
and in the right numbers is crucial to organizational success. A meta-analysis by
Chapman et al. (2005) suggests a strong relationship between OA perceptions and
applicant decisions such as job pursuit, acceptance and choice intentions (Turban et al.,
2001). Intention may then lead to applicant action, such as making an actual application
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or accepting a job offer. Robertson et al. (2005) propose that OA mediates the relationship
between recruitment message and intentions to accept a job offer.
Here, we define OA as “The power that draws applicants’ attention to focus on an
employer brand and encourages existing employees to stay”. We propose that it has two
dimensions: internal attractiveness (for existing employees) and external attractiveness
(for external applicants). Both dimensions should be measured separately, along with
intentions to choose the workplace and intentions to stay in the workplace, rather than
bundling “intentions” into the definition of OA; for example, Highhouse et al. (2003)
combined items assessing general company attractiveness with items assessing potential
employee intentions. Other OA measures have also included items assessing both potential
employee general attitudes and their specific intentions (Williams and Bauer, 1994).
Turban et al. (1998) found that organizational image, job characteristics (especially pay)
and organizational characteristics all related to OA; recruiter characteristics such as
friendliness and competence had an indirect effect on applicant intentions, serving
as signals of organizational characteristics. Chapman et al. (2005) showed that OA was
predicted by both job and organization characteristics, especially type of work and
perceived environment, recruiter behaviour, and applicant perceptions of the recruitment
process job, organizational and recruiter characteristics may directly affect “job and
organizational attraction”, which then predicts both job choice and acceptance intentions
(though acceptance intentions also affected job choice in this study). Hiring expectancies
and perceived person-organization/P-O fit also predicted OA. Lievens et al. (2001) found
several personality characteristics that moderated the effects of job/organization
attributes on OA (e.g. subjects high on conscientiousness preferred larger companies,
subjects high on openness were more attracted to multinationals). As applicants were
attracted to organizations whose perceived traits were similar to their own, the impact of
organizational and job characteristics is not the same for all applicants; thus the “issue of
OA has also been framed into the broader framework of person-organization fit”
(Lievens et al., 2001, p. 581). Schneider’s (1987) “attraction-selection-attrition” model
has often been used in such research, as people are attracted to different types of
organizations, depending on interests, personality and needs (e.g. for achievement,
affiliation, power or stability).
Most research on OA and EB has looked at potential or actual applicants, rather than
existing employees. Lievens (2007, p. 62) found that instrumental attributes such as
 JTMC pay and benefits, job security and task diversity, explained a greater variance in OA
6,1 among actual applicants, as opposed to potential applicants or existing employees. For all
groups, symbolic trait inferences such as prestige, excitement and ruggedness explained
a similar portion of the variance over and above instrumental attributes. This research
“builds on conceptualizations of the employer brand as a package of instrumental and
symbolic attributes [. . .] confirms the usefulness of the instrumental-symbolic framework
102 as a conceptualization of employer brands”. Lievens et al. (2005) have also conceptualized
EB as a package of “instrumental-symbolic” attributes, exploring factors making the
Belgian Armed Forces attractive to potential applicants. Gender, familiarity with military
organizations, perceptions of both job and organizational attributes (task diversity and
social/team activities) and trait inferences (excitement, prestige and cheerfulness) here
explained potential applicants’ attraction to military organizations). Davies (2008) has
explored the role of EB, or “brand personality” in influencing employees’ perceived
differentiation, affinity, satisfaction and loyalty with regard to firms. Managers
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“satisfaction” with their company was predicted by feelings of company “agreeableness”,

“affinity” by agreeableness and ruthlessness, perceived differentiation and loyalty by
enterprise and chic. Competence surprisingly lacked efficacy as a predictor. Davies (2008,
p. 678) suggests that “people associate with brands that allow them to sustain or develop
their own self-image”, once again confirming the importance of P-O fit.
Most research in OA on existing employees defines OA as perceived benefits, or value
to employees. Berthon et al. (2005, p. 151) define OA as “the envisioned benefits that
a potential employee, or ‘internal customer’, sees in working for a specific organization”,
mirroring the emphasis on benefits in many definitions of EB. OA is here again seen as
“an antecedent of the more general concept of employer brand equity” (p. 153); the more
attractive an employer is perceived, the stronger its EBE. Drawing on Ambler and
Barrow (1996)’s distinction between to:
[. . .] psychological and economic benefits, they developed a 5-factor scale for the
measurement of OA (termed “Employer Attractiveness”). This included interest value,
development value, social value, economic value and application value.
The relationships between EBBE and OA; are not fully clarified; for Wilden et al. (2006),
the extent to which the brand contributes to attracting and retaining employees affects
its BE. Perceived job quality, perceived risk of joining the company, and employee
information costs create expected utility or “employer attractiveness” or OA (OA is seen
by Wilden et al. (2006) as an antecedent of EBBE, not a consequence).
Supornpraditchai et al. (2007) show that where employees perceive EB as having
high equity (EBBE), they are more able to deliver the company’s brand promise to
customers, and are more likely to stay with the company (internal OA).
Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) have developed a model (Figure 1) proposing that EB
creates two principal assets – brand associations and brand loyalty. Employer-brand
associations are seen as affecting OA (employer attraction); employer-brand loyalty then
contributes to employee productivity. Here, we follow Backhaus and Tikoo by seeing
OA not as an antecedent, but as a consequence of EB processes.

EB and TM in China
China’s economy has recently suffered as the economic crisis has spread; rising prices
of energy, raw materials and labour has affected the operation of many businesses,
 particularly in export-oriented private manufacturing enterprises in Zhejiang, hit hard Employer-brand
during “The Winter” of 2009/2010. equity
This crisis has challenged China’s industrial transformation; restructuring and
upgrading private enterprises is crucial for China and for the entire global economy.
Talent is particularly required to shift production from low-value added to high-value
added, and from extensive to intensive production. With deepening globalization, the
war for talent has become fiercer. As graduates are the main sources of talent pools, 103
attracting graduates has become an important TM strategy for many Chinese
enterprises (Iles et al., 2010; Preece et al., 2010; Hartmann et al., 2010). Research needs to
assess what attracts Chinese applicants to job opportunities, and what encourages
Chinese employees to stay, which may differ from the west. Peppas et al. (1999) found that
US recruiters emphasized interpersonal attributes, whereas Chinese ones emphasized
those that could directly benefit the organization, such as company knowledge, school
reputation, family status and work experience. Chow and Ngo (2002) found gender
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similarities in Chinese student job preferences for advancement, compensation, learning,

overseas opportunities, but gender differences over job security, firm size and nationality
of company/supervisor. Women were more likely to prefer foreign-invested enterprises
(FIEs), offering more rewarding, challenging but less secure careers than state-owned
enterprise (SOEs), but gender differences seem quite small in modern China.
Young professionals in general rate personal interest, opportunities for applying
knowledge and starting salary as the top three attractive job attributes (Fung et al.,
1996), with a preference for extrinsic rewards (Ding, 1999). Companies offering generous
compensation, training and development and career opportunities are likely to be
attractive to talented graduates; Turban et al. (2001) found elite Chinese college
students were more attracted to FIEs than SOEs, to Western firms, and to familiar firms.
However, individual differences moderated these effects, supporting P-O fit (e.g. more
risk-averse participants with a lower need for pay were more attracted to SOEs
than FIEs).
Some research has also explored internal attractiveness, i.e. what attributes make
organizations attractive to existing employees. Hartmann et al. (2010) found
Shanghai-based Western MNCs focused on building organizational cultures
supporting the development of personal relationships, team spirit and commitment
through joint sports activities, welfare and donation programmes and other group
events. Companies claimed it was very important to build belonging and pride to reduce
employee turnover, a point also made earlier by Bjorkman and Lu (1999). Wang (2008)

Employer brand Employer Employer

associations image attraction

Employer Organization
branding identity
Employer brand Employee
loyalty productivity
Organizational
culture
Figure 1.
Model: EB and OA
Source: Backhaus and Tikoo (2004)
 JTMC found that emotional bonds with supervisors and co-workers were important
6,1 determinants of organizational commitment in Chinese FIEs, showing the importance
of personal relationships and pleasant, healthy and harmonious working climates for
Chinese employees, perhaps promoted through informal social events. Gamble and
Huang (2008) also found that the organizational commitment of Chinese employees in an
FIE (a British MNC retailer) was related to willingness to stay with the employer, but
104 that, unlike in the west, this was not determined by a belief in company values and
loyalty. Feelings of pride in working for the company were associated with a willingness
to stay, perhaps because personal networks and relationships rather than “company”
values were more significant for Chinese employees. Job security and relationships with
managers and co-workers were however significantly related to willingness to stay,
again showing the importance of “social values” to Chinese employees.

Exploratory investigation of EBE in China

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As part of a British-Council funded study (Prime Minister’s Initiative 2) into

entrepreneurship and employability in Zhejiang (Shutt and Cheng, 2009; Iles et al.,
2010), HR executives in three companies in Hangzhou were interviewed to help us to
develop a research framework to study OA and EBBE in China, asking:
.
Where do you resource graduates from, and how satisfied are you with your
graduate recruitment?
. How do you attract applicants and retain existing employees?
.
What factors do employees value about you as an employer?
.
What TM strategies do you employ in your company?
Table I presents a summary of the sector, main business and TM strategy of each of
the three companies, drawn from the interviews.
Company A, established 1994, is among the top 500 companies in China. In total,
4,700 workers are employed at the headquarters and 5,700 in the whole group. With the
international economic crisis, exports have decreased, reducing group sales.
It recruits through schools, the internet and newspaper advertisements; for high-level
workers, it uses internet search and poaching from competitors. It has specific problems

A B C
Advanced manufacturing
Company/sector sector Service sector Service sector

Name Company A Company B Company C

Main business Main products: basic Specializing in functional Professional agency
fabric materials for fabrics engaged legal affairs
exporting factories relating to IP
Talent strategy to High salary, housing Training opportunities, In-house training, job
enhance OA/ benefits/loans and career/ performance-related pay, rotation and coaching,
EBBE professional development relationships with extra rewards, e.g. bonus
universities and building and housing funds and
teamwork team building via
Table I. personal development
Company case studies department
 in recruiting technicians; skills shortages exist in some professional specialisms; these Employer-brand
staff are usually recruited from competitors. A retains talented workers through high equity
salaries, encouraging younger workers to buy homes with low-interest loans. It tries to
provide career development and professional development opportunities. Before 2003,
most senior management came from internal labour markets; after 2003, except for the
chairman and general manager, most were recruited from the external labour market.
About 40 per cent of middle managers have been recruited from outside the company. 105
Before 2003, quality was lower, and the factory was labour intensive; now, especially
in the Ningbo factory, the supply of existing workers is insufficient to meet demand
for talent.
New workers have a pre-work briefing to change their status from student to worker;
work leaders are responsible for helping workers find answers to problems, enhance
quality and help promote the ability of workers and the right attitudes. For the excellent
20 per cent, B will offer opportunities to develop skills for future higher-level positions
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through a training plan. Training is carried out externally and internally.

For Company B, how to find talented graduates, and how to persuade them to stay, is
a real challenge; the current downturn has significantly affected employment prospects
and training budgets. Several years ago, it recruited graduates from across China, but
now it mainly recruits local graduates, who make up 90 per cent of recruits. Turnover is
high; 30 per cent leave after one year, either for promotion or because they do not suit the
work. B seeks opportunities to give information and introduce new graduates to class
mates; it sees a need to bridge the company/university gap through greater use of work
experience, part-time jobs and better communication.
Over ten years ago, B began to attract people from other industries, including
professors; supply was greater than demand. Excellent and talented employees are
encouraged to stay, and receive performance-related pay as well as their salary. B tries to
make new recruits fell that they are part of the team, with training plans for new recruits
focused initially on company policies, commodities and trade practices; trainees also do
practical work in other factories, and it encourages people to take courses. If the company
arranges the course, it will pay, but not if the individual arranges it, though it will part fund
if the student gains honours.
Company C, developing rapidly, now faces skills/talent challenges, including recruiting
international human resources as it dealt with international intellectual property (IP) and
was a global business. It has 60 employees, recruiting ten in two months. Locally educated
recruits were not seen as useful, as employees needed language as well as legal skills,
especially in international law and trademarks. Most graduates came in at low levels,
requiring training; it was hard to find experienced IP attorneys, and they usually recruited
new graduates from many different universities, but not usually from Hangzhou (seen as
very demanding in terms of salaries and lacking skills and professional knowledge). They
used employer recommendations, HR consultancies, job fairs, recommendations by
employees’ friends and the Hangzhou overseas returnees club. Graduates, most with
bachelors’ degrees, a few with masters’ degrees, were trained in house for two weeks to one
month. With growing internationalization, it will employ some Western-educated
graduates, however, they may ask for more money. When employees achieve
their department objectives, they receive a salary. If they have shown excellent
performance, they can also receive a bonus. If they are loyal to the company and have
worked for five years in it, they may get extra rewards (housing funds). A personal
 JTMC development department of volunteers organizes many activities (how to dress, how to
6,1 communicate and how to make presentations) lacking in Chinese education.
Staff development was mainly through job rotation and coaching; conferences were
used but not training courses.
All three cases show the importance of attracting and retaining graduates to meet skill
needs; future studies should investigate how graduates assess “developmental value”, and
106 how training strengthens OA and EBBE. The cases also suggests the importance of
salaries and benefits (“economic value”), such as housing benefits and bonuses, in
attracting and retaining graduates in Zhejiang, and social relationships, such as putting
graduates in touch with classmates, using the Hangzhou overseas returnees club, and
making employees feel part of a team, in talent recruitment and retention.

Towards a research agenda: developing a model of EBBE and OA

EBBE is here proposed as the desired outcome of specific EB activities, encouraging
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applicants to apply and existing employees to stay with the company (Backhaus and
Tikoo, 2004). OA is defined as the power that draws applicants’ attention to focus on an
employer brand, encouraging existing employees to stay in the company. EBBE and OA
are positively related; the more attractive an employer is perceived to be, the stronger the
EBBE (Berthon et al., 2005, p. 156). Here, we propose that EBBE is an antecedent of OA;
high EBBE can make the organization more attractive to applicants and employees.
Figure 2 shows our proposed research framework, and Table II the variables employed.

Conclusions and implications for further research and practice

The private economy is significant to China, accounting for 65 per cent of GDP and
56 per cent of total tax revenue. For Zhejiang, a private economy-dominated province,
talent recruitment and turnover are problems that hinder future development. OA and
EBE may play a key role in intentions to accept a job offer, and as a mediator and a key
variable in the initial recruitment. Our framework extends theoretical and empirical
knowledge in understanding OA; intention to accept a job offer and intention to stay in
the organization are consequences of OA, itself a consequence of EBBE. Future studies
should investigate how graduates value company image as an employer in university

Internal employee-based
brand equity (IEBBE)

Economic value Internal organizational

Interest value attractiveness (IOA)
Social value
Developmental value
External organizational
Brand trust attractiveness (EOA)

Figure 2.
Model: EBBE and External employee-based
OA in China brand equity (EEBBE)
 Employer-brand
Variables Statement of variables
equity
Dimensions of EBBE Economic value People’s evaluation of their economic needs
Developmental value People’s demands for professional development
Social value People’s social needs, such as sense of belonging
Interest value People’s need for self-realization and interesting
challenges 107
Brand trust Employer’s perceived honesty, credibility and ability to
satisfy applicant/employee demands
Independent Employee-based Envisioned benefits that potential/existing employees
variables brand equity see in working for a specific organization; the higher
benefits perceived, the higher the EBBE
Dependent variables Organizational Power that draws applicants’ attention to focus on an Table II.
attractiveness employer brand and encourages existing employees to Variables used
stay and work hard in the company in the model
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recruitment, and how a stronger relationship between company and universities could
strengthen the attractiveness of the EB to attract graduates in particular.
In order to improve applicant attraction, organizations should note that applicants
will give importance to OA and in particular to the components of EBBE such as brand
trust, development value, economic value, social value and interest value. Economic,
development and social value seem particularly significant for Chinese employees. This
study offers implications for TM, as in practice the dimensions most valued by graduates
will need to be strengthened, contributing to higher OA and the attraction and retention
of graduates. The importance of the various dimensions in making a contribution to
internal employee-based brand equity and EBBE needs further analysis. Besides
official data, other sources of statistical data produced by the state administration for
industry and commerce of China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce
and the National Bureau of Statistics of China should be used to assess information
about the talent supply, demand and stability of private companies in Zhejiang.
Finally, the relationships between corporate identity, profile, reputation, and brand
also need clarifying (Edwards, 2005; Martin, 2007), and there are few studies of the
impact of EB strategies on organizational performance.

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Further reading
Iles, P.A., Xhu, X. and Shutt, J. (2010), “Skills, employability and talent management in Zhejiang”,
paper presented to CAMOT Conference, Shanghai, October.
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organizational attractiveness dimensions in the employer branding concept”, Journal of

Academic Research in Economics, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 46-61.

About the authors

TingTing Jiang, is originally from Ningbo, Zhejiang. She majored in Social Work and
also finished a Law degree before becoming a Graduate Student of Business Management in
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou.
Paul Iles is a Professor of Leadership and HRM at Salford Business School, the University of
Salford, and was previously at Leeds Business School. Paul Iles is a Chartered Psychologist,
Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and Chartered Fellow of the CIPD. He has
a particular interest in leadership development, coaching and TM, and has published a number
of articles in recent years, including several recent articles on TM in China. Paul Iles is the
corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

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