The Effect of Employer Branding on Employees Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

The present study aims to investigate how employer brand affects organizational citizenship behaviors of employees. The study sample included 281 participants. The data collection was performed using a set of questionnaires consisting of 49 questions related to employer attractiveness and organizational citizenship. The study results were analyzed using SPSS v23.0. The results demonstrate that the behavioral values of employer branding have a positive impact on employees' organizational citizenship behaviors, and there is a positive relationship between overall employer brand and organizational citizenship.  Since the transformation from the industrial era to knowledge, human resources have been one of the significant advantages in order to gain a competitive edge for major economies. Today, the role of employees is recognized as highly important in developing and achieving an organizational brand. In this sense, the term brand is "a recognizable and trustworthy badge of origin and also a promise of performance" (Feldwick, 1991) To attract and retain the most talented individuals, organizations apply brand management principles to human resources, which has led the introduction of employer branding concept to the organizational literature. The term "employer brand" was first introduced by Ambler and Barrow (1996) who identified three basic values as psychological, functional and economic values, to define employer brand. Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) described employer branding as "the differentiation of a firm's characteristics as an employer from those of its competitors. The employment brand highlights the unique aspects of the firm's employment offerings or environment" More specifically, ".the need for companies to differentiate themselves and to market is the unique employment proposition they can offer" (Ewing et. al. 2002) An employer brand affects what new employees expect from an organization. To the degree that an employer brand is correct, the expectations of a new employee is likely to be fulfilled by the organization. This psychological fulfillment is in turn likely to result in improved employee attitudes such as organizational citizenship behaviors (Turnley et al. 2003) Organizational citizenship behaviors reflect discretionary behaviors that are not required by the work role in contractual terms, but that are expected by an organization (Organ, 1988) Such behaviors include completing an assignment on time, helping other coworkers, introducing creative suggestions for improvement and offering to do things that are not included in one's role (Bateman Organ, 1983) The literature on organizational citizenship behavior typically includes a five dimension model consisting of altruism, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, civic virtue and courtesy. Altruism is a positive attitude related to concern for the others' well being with no self interest. In organizational context, this concept includes " voluntary actions that help another person with a work problem (Organ, 1990) Sportsmanship is also a positive attitude related to tolerance of inconveniences with no complaints (Organ, 1990) Conscientious employees are defined by Podsakoff et al. (2000) as ".an employee who religiously obeys all rules and regulations, even when no one is watching" Conscientiousness is considered general in nature as it ISSN:22296247 Yzlem Gozukara et al International Journal of Business Management and Economic Research(IJBMER) Vol 7(1),2016, 477 485