The Dynamics of an Employer Brand. How culture can be used as a Managerial Control Mechanism

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this article is to provide an understanding of how management can work strategically to improve an employer brand. This study is conducted at a municipally owned company in Sweden, which operates in the entertainment and experience industry. By studying the cultural ambiguities in this organization, we can understand how the dynamics of culture continuously shape and reshape the organizational identity through organizational actors. This study shows the tensions between how employees influence cultural processes through their social interactions, while management attempts to steer the organizational culture and identity through the use of normative control. This study contributes to managerial implications of how managers can take strategic actions to influence organizational culture and identity, and thereby influence the employer brand. Based on this study, we have developed the figure “The Pendulum Dynamics of an Employer Brand”, which illustrates our findings in relation to relevant theories. This figure can be used as an analytic tool for future research within employer branding, in order to find out how managers can affect and improve an employer brand.