The Mechanisms Of How Employer Brand Impacts On Work Outcomes

In this knowledge economy era, the talents play a more important role in thecorporations, and how to improve employee’s outcomes has been the key content thatwhether the company can achieve competition advantage, which is one of importantproblems in corporation management theory research and practice. The researchesabout the factor effecting work outcomes are very abundant, and we even can thinkthat the research on antecedents of work outcomes has become a “bottleneck” in someextent. The concept of employer brand realizes a theoretical breakthrough on workoutcomes in a new perspective. In these years, there are some selection activities inour domestic, such as Hewitt’s “best employers in China”, and Chinahr.com’s “bestemployers” award activities, which indicating that shaping and keeping employerbrand means very important purport and values for many corporations. Employerbrand means the benefits the company as a employer provides, including functionalbenefit, economic benefit and psychological benefit. Some researches indicate thatthere is correlation between employer brand and work outcomes, and it is an effectiveway to shape excellent employer brand image. But there is little research whichdiscusses the mechanisms of them, and this is a key way to understand the relationbetween the two variables. So we try to open out this content more deeply.Labor relations climate is a sub-climate of organizational climate, which generatesin work place, and is a typical climate perceived by organization members, and in thelabor relations of the organization. The corporation should take some measures toshape excellent employer brand, and this is an effective method to improve the laborrelations of company and form harmonious labor relations climate. At the same time,labor relations climate can significant influence a series of work outcomes indexes,such as organization commitment, job performance, job satisfaction, turnover intention and so on. Psychological contract is based on the employee’s subjectiveunderstanding about the commitment. For employees in the company, employer brandis a “commitment” which corporation provides to employees, and it can reflect in therelation between corporation and employee, also can reflect in the unique workexperience that corporation offers to the employees. At the same time, the fulfillmentdegree of psychological contract can influence employee’s attitude and behavior.Therefore, this study introduce two media variables, they are labor relations climateand psychological contract, in order to establish two interaction paths, they are“employer brand--labor relations climate--work outcomes” and “employer brand--psychological contract--work outcomes”, so that we can open the “theory black box”between employer brand and work outcomes in some degree and discuss deeply themechanisms between them, and builds the mechanism model between employer brandand work outcomes. This study not only enrich the theory about work outcomes andemployer brand which fills the theory gap and improve the relevant theory system, butalso provides valuable suggestions for the actual operation in companies.This study modifies the employer brand measurement model of employees basedon the correlative theory in existing literatures and the content of deep interview, andthen advance a model how employer band impacts work outcomes. At the same time,we use questionnaires to collect data, and make use of regression model to accomplishempirical test, so that we can receive these conclusions as following:(1) Revising theemployer brand scale of corporation employee in Chinese organizational context. Thisstudy revises the content of employee’s employer brand scale based on the existingtheory and combined with the deep interview, and confirms the five factormeasurement model of employer brand by examining each index using a certainamount of empirical data, including compensation and benefit, job arrangement,personal development, company strength, and company culture. There are twenty-fouritems in total.(2) Confirming again that employer brand can influence work outcomessignificantly and positively. This study chooses organization commitment, jobperformance, job satisfaction and turnover intention as main measure indexes ofemployer brand, and tests further the direct causal relation between employer brand and work outcomes by employee sample in Chinese organizational context.(3)Confirming the part mediating effect of labor relations climate between employerbrand and work outcomes. Specifically, a good perception of employer brand canpromote the forming of labor and capital win-win climate and employee participationclimate, and take precautions against the forming of labor and capital conflict climate,so that it can be conducive to improve the job performance, organization commitmentand job satisfaction degree of employees, and reduce turnover intention level.(4)Confirming the part mediating effect of psychological contract between employerbrand and work outcomes. Specifically, a good perception of employer brand canpromote the forming of psychological contract fulfillment perception, so that it can beadvance to improve the organization commitment, job performance, and jobsatisfaction degree of employees, and reduce employee’s turnover intention.The theoretical contributions of this study are mainly reflected in below:(1)Perfecting employer brand measurement tool. The employer brand scale raised in thisstudy in Chinese organizational context, not only make up the defects of westernemployer brand scale because of cultural differences, but also measure pertinentlyemployee’s perception of employer brand, at the same time, it can provide a referenceabout operational definition and measurement of this concept for the empiricalresearch of employer brand in future. Furthermore, it also provides scientificmeasurement tool for the future deep study in the field which is relation withemployer brand.(2) This study confirms that employer brand has the significantinfluence on work outcomes in Chinese organizational context again. It offers a newexplaining view for the research relating with work outcomes, which not only enrichthe theory relating with work outcomes, but also provides guidance for future research.And the rationality of this core path’s existence also can provide a major premise forthe future study about the mechanism in this path.(3) This study opens themechanism “black box” about how employer brand impacts on work outcomes insome degree. This study builds successfully two important interaction paths, they are“employer brand--labor relations climate--work outcomes” and “employerbrand--psychological contract--work outcomes”, so that we can open the mechanism “black box” about how employer brand impacts on work outcomes in some degree. Itcan not only enrich the theory research conclusions which are relation with workoutcomes and employer brand, but also offer empirical evidences for the research infuture.The management implications of this study are mainly reflected in following:(1)The company should strengthen employer branding. For the corporation, successfulemployer brand can not only attract more talents to work in the company, moreimportantly, it can motivate and retain the existing valuable talents in the company. Atthe same time, it can improve employee’s job satisfaction, so then advance workefficiency and the quality of product and service. So employer branding is aninevitable and important content for companies.(2) The company should strengthento take the bridge function of labor relations climate seriously, when pays attention toemployer branding. Because labor relations climate is a variable which can influencework outcomes directly and effectively. The company should enhance to buildharmonious labor relations climate, and provide employment guarantee, welfareguarantee, and health guarantee, also can perfect the channel of employeeparticipation to encourage the employees to participate in the operation andmanagement activity positively. So then we can make labor relations climate bringinginto play its bridge function in order to improve work outcomes effectively.(3) Thecompany should pay attention to the fulfillment and maintenance of psychologicalcontract. Generally, intrinsic factor, especially psychological and emotional factor, canoften influence employee’s attitude and behavior more strongly and stably. If weenhance the fulfillment level of psychological contract by perfecting employer brand,the emotional connection between employee and employer will be strengthened, andthen can influence employee’s attitude and behavior more lastingly.