Internal Branding among SMEs and Employees’ Supporting Behaviours in Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to understand the internal branding process from the employees’ perspective among SMEs in Ghana; and also to assess the relationship between internal branding and employees’ delivery of the brand promise as well as the relationships among their brand identification, brand commitment and brand loyalty. The study sampled SMEs across various industries from the databases of the Association of Ghana Industries and the National Board for Small-Scale Industries. The SMEs are based on the classification according to the Ghana Investment Promotion Council’s industry classification. This study sampled 128 SMEs employees within the cities of Accra and Tema. From the statistical analysis conducted the study found out that internal branding has positive and significant impacts on employees’ brand identification (0.64, p 0.01), brand commitment (0.21, p  0.01), and brand loyalty (0.34, p  0.01). Also, the result of this study indicates that employees’ brand identification has a significant effect on employees’ brand commitment (0.55, p  0.01). This concludes that management can expect their employees’ commitment when they are successful in inducing employees’ brand identification. Similarly, management could influence employees’ brand loyalty when they are successful in securing employees’ brand commitment. All these positive brand attitudes, again, could be influenced partly by effective and successive internal branding programmes.

Keywords: Internal Branding, Employee Behaviour, and SMEs