One size does not fit all: How construal fit determines the effectiveness of organizational brand communication

Abstract

While increasing the organizational identification of employees has been described as the ultimate goal of internal marketing and internal branding, one of its most common practices is to communicate organizational values both internally and externally. However, very little is known about the relative effectiveness of different types of organizational brand communication. Drawing from construal level theory, this research investigates whether the degree of construal fit, defined as the extent to which the construal of communication matches an employee’s construal of headquarters, determines the relative impact of organizational brand communication. A series of studies consisting of two cross-industrial multilevel field studies and a lab experiment provide evidence that organizational brand communication with low-level (high-level) construal is more effective to target employees with low (high) social distance to headquarters. These findings suggest that construal fit qualifies the effectiveness of organizational communication. JEL CLASSIFICATION: M3 Marketing and Advertising