Abstract

The aim of this research is to develop and test a measure of integrated retailer brand equity (IRBE) based on frontline fashion retail employees’ internal (i.e., as employee) and external (i.e., as consumer) perceptions of the retailer’s brand. Comparisons are made between two types of frontline employees, patronizing and non-patronizing. Using advanced PLS-SEM techniques, this research introduces a third order reflective-formative hierarchical component model (HCM) into the retailer brand equity domain. The research validates an IRBE model with four consumer dimensions and seven employee dimensions. Both types of employees value all four consumer dimensions; however, they value different employee dimensions. The IRBE model, when operationalized, can encourage closer integration of human resources and marketing functions, and enable practitioners to enhance their brand offerings and build a more cohesive retailer brand.

Introduction

Retailers have evolved from organizations that merely sell products, to multi-sensory brands (Ailawadi and Keller, 2004) that offer customers unique shopping experiences (Liu-Thompkins et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2023). Indeed, retailers have their own multi-dimensional brand equity (Anselmsson et al., 2017) as evidenced by their larger than ever presence on brand ranking lists (Interbrand, 2022) that now includes 38 brands that rely on retail operations to deliver their brand promise (i.e., Amazon, IKEA, Toyota, Apple) of which 14 are fashion, apparel and/or beauty retailer brands (i.e., Zara, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Nike). Retailing is a complex and highly competitive industry, and building a strong retail brand requires an understanding of a variety of stakeholders. However, retailers struggle to find new ways to competitively differentiate and understand what drives value for different stakeholders (Deloitte, 2019). Retailer brands are not only influenced by external (i.e., consumers) perspectives (Biedenbach and Manzhynski, 2016; Swoboda et al., 2016), but also internal (i.e., employees) stakeholders which together represent key drivers of a retailer’s business success (Veloutsou and Guzmán, 2017). Retailers build and invest in their external brand equity to persuade consumers (Gil-Saura et al., 2016), yet they must also invest in their internal brand equity to attract the best employees (Sivertzen et al., 2013).

Frontline workers are said to be the backbone of an organization (McKinsey and Company, 2023). Retailers, in particular, understand the importance of not only creating better customer experiences, but also employee experiences, in order to be relevant and successful. Frontline employees play a crucial role to a retailer’s competitive advantage (King and Grace, 2009). A recent study suggests a strong connection between employee satisfaction (via online reviews on Glassdoor) and customer satisfaction (via the American Customer Satisfaction Index), whereby a 1-star improvement in an employer’s rating (out of 5) was associated with a 1.3-point increase in customer satisfaction (out of 100) (Zhao and Chamberlain, 2019). However, the lines between customers and employees are becoming increasingly blurred. Gelb and Rangarajan (2014) describe frontline retail employees as integral elements of the retailer brand, as well as ambassadors of the brand. In today’s highly competitive environment, retailers are acknowledging the importance and growing empowerment of frontline employees (Gill-Simmen et al., 2018; Li, 2022). Indeed, a recent study found 43% of shoppers are more likely to make a purchase if they have interacted with a frontline employee, and these shoppers were 12% more likely to visit the store again if the interaction was a positive one (Petro, 2019). Frontline employees are no longer merely ‘cashiers’ or ‘sales associates’; they are ‘shopper concierges’ (Petro, 2019). This trend of employee empowerment is particularly relevant in the fashion industry, where employees perform not only traditional retail duties of selling product and delivering customer service, but they are also product experts, and responsible for educating and inspiring their customers and delivering personalized service. In other instances, employees also comfortable expressing their views on the retailer where they work. For example, while customers use social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to review products and services, employees also use online platforms such as glassdoor.com and indeed.com to review their experiences on the job. Furthermore, there is scholarly evidence of consumers who desire to be frontline employees of their preferred retailer (Wang et al., 2017; DeMotta and Sen, 2017). An employee review exemplar on indeed.com demonstrates the dual role of frontline employees as both workers and customers: “If you like fashion and clothing, it is a cool environment to be in and handle all the clothes, learn about them, how they’re made and be able to get first dibs on new products that come in” (Employee review of H&M, Indeed.com, 2023).

Conclusion

۶٫۱٫ Discussion of the findings
The results confirm each of the eleven (four consumer-based and seven employee-based) dimensions examined in this model influence frontline employees’ perceptions of RBE. By integrating frontline employees dual brand perceptions as both consumers and employees, our study begins to address Boukis and Christodoulides (2020) call for future research to move beyond the unidimensional EBBE construct and develop integrated models that combine different stakeholder perspectives. Our study also suggests retailer trust partially mediates the relationship between IRBE and retailer loyalty, suggesting IRBE is a four-step process whereby CB-RBE and EB-RBE lead to IRBE, which leads to retailer trust and retailer loyalty. This aligns with Anselmsson et al.’s (2017) four-stage RBE model; however, their model starts with awareness, then leads to brand associations and consumer responses, and then leads to trust, and finally loyalty. A recent study found brand trust to be a mediator, however, it mediated the relationship between multichannel integration service quality and retailer brand equity (Qi et al., 2020). Earlier studies show RBE as simplified parallel structures (i.e., one stage process) (Aaker, 1991; Arnett et al., 2003; Pappu and Quester, 2006a) or two-stage models (Jinfeng and Zhilong, 2009). More recent studies illustrate RBE as a three-stage process (Troiville et al., 2019) whereby retailer specific dimensions lead to RBE, which lead to attitude, loyalty and word of mouth.