Vol.:(0123456789) Journal of Brand Management https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-020-00219-1 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Internal branding: conceptualization from a literature review and opportunities for future research David Barros‑Arrieta 1  · Ernesto García‑Cali 2 Revised: 31 January 2020 / Accepted: 4 November 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020 Abstract Recently, internal branding has gained relevance in the marketing literature because researchers recognize that corporate brand management not only implicates external actions but also an internal approach that involves employees. Despite the growing interest, there is no consensus among authors about antecedents, dimensions, and outcomes of internal branding. In this sense, this paper aims to explore the conceptualization of internal branding and to ofer opportunities for future research. The study is a systematic literature review that uses a specifc database. The contributions of each article were extracted, organized, and processed following systematic procedures. This review defnes internal branding as a cross-functional pro- cess that involves both marketing and human resource departments. It focuses on managing the brand internally through brand-centered human resource management, internal brand communications, and brand leadership, with the aim of achiev- ing brand outcomes among employees (brand understanding, brand identifcation, brand commitment, brand loyalty, brand citizenship behaviors) so they can build brand equity in front of external stakeholders. Although a lack of consensus had been established, the literature evidenced similarities that gave rise to the conceptualization proposed in this study. Nevertheless, the discussion about internal branding is still open because there are several issues to investigate in this feld. Keywords Internal branding · Brand management · Corporate brand · Brand equity · Literature review Introduction In the business context of the twenty-frst century, human resources can represent a source of competitive advantage for organizations. Several authors (Iyer et al. 2018; King 2010; Poulis and Wisker 2016; Ragheb et al. 2018) highlight the importance of employees to generate diferentiation in an increasingly competitive environment. The importance of employees for organizational success was recognized more than 40 years ago when Berry highlighted the need to see employees as internal customers (Du Preez and Bendixen 2015). Nowadays, employees are considered key actors within organizations who contribute to achieving corporate objectives and, in turn, to build brand equity (Punjaisri and Wilson 2011). Employees are the visible face of the organization, espe- cially in service companies (Piehler et al. 2016; Schlager et al. 2011). Therefore, their behaviors largely determine brand experience for customers (Erkmen and Hancer 2015; Karanges et al. 2018). It has been recognized that interac- tions between employees and customers impact customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and fnally, corporate brand equity (Saleem and Iglesias 2016). In this sense, brand management can not only focus on external stakeholders, but also an internal orientation to make employees brand promoters through their actions (Anisimova and Mavondo 2010). In other words, an efective corporate brand manage- ment must balance both external and internal eforts (Aydon 2009; Foster et al. 2010; Hytti et al. 2015; Kang 2016). From this internal orientation of brand management emerges the concept of internal branding, which is defned as “a management tool for ensuring that employees have a Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-020-00219-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * David Barros-Arrieta dbarros4@cuc.edu.co; davidbarros7@hotmail.com Ernesto García-Cali egarciacali@gmail.com 1 Department of Business Sciences, Universidad de la Costa, 080002 Barranquilla, Colombia 2 Barranquilla, Colombia Author's personal copy