Correspondence: Debra Grace, Department of Marketing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, PMB 50, Gold Coast Mail Centre 9726, Queensland, Australia. Tel: 617 55528027; Fax: 617 55528085; E-mail: d.grace@griffith.edu.au

¹is a lecturer at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. She holds a Masters of Marketing Management with Honours and has had several years of strategic brand management experience in a range of industries. As an early career researcher, Ceridwyn has successfully published several papers in the area of internal brand management and continues to pursue this area of research in line with both academic and practitioner interest.

²is a senior lecturer in marketing at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Business with Honours in Marketing and Management and a PhD in Marketing. Her research and teaching interests lie within the services marketing, branding and consumer behaviour areas. As such, she has a number of publications within journals that have their focus in these areas such as Journal of Service Research, Journal of Services Marketing, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services.

Received 12 November 2007; Revised 12 November 2007; Published online 7 December 2007.

Abstract

The creation of a strong brand and the deliverance of perceived service quality are premised by employees' ability to deliver on customer expectations. No consideration has been given, however, to understanding the 'added value' encapsulated in an organisation's brand as a result of the operant resources (skills and knowledge) supplied by the organisation's human capital. This paper, therefore, explores the differential effect that internally oriented initiatives have on an organisation's human capital and its subsequent impact on the organisation's brand, from the employee's perspective. In-depth interviews were conducted with employees across a range of service industries and the results provide an insight into the creation of employee brand commitment. Furthermore, this exploratory study provides a solid platform for future research in this area.