article · Sustainability
Internal branding within the hospitality sector relies on several interpersonal and organisational factors. An investigation into five-star chain hotels examined how employee engagement, workplace friendship, and organisational citizenship behaviour interact with internal branding efforts. Findings reveal that organisational citizenship behaviour and workplace friendship both significantly relate to employee engagement. Furthermore, employee engagement serves as a mediator between organisational citizenship behaviour and internal branding, whilst workplace friendship moderates the connection between citizenship behaviour and engagement. Although workplace friendship supports employee engagement, the direct relationship between workplace friendship and internal branding proved insignificant. Understanding these dynamics offers practical value for hotel enterprises seeking to build and maintain effective internal branding initiatives. By focusing on engagement and supportive workplace behaviours, hospitality businesses can strengthen internal operations and improve the connection between staff and external hotel guests.
Hotels depend on staff delivering brand values directly to guests. Understanding how staff relationships, proactive citizenship behaviours, and engagement interact helps hotel managers design better workplace environments. When internal branding is effectively supported by engaged personnel, hotels can create stronger and more cohesive connections between internal staff performance and external customer experiences.
This research provides applied insights for hotel operators, human resource leaders, and hospitality management consultants. Because the findings are drawn from operational five-star chain hotels, the insights are ready to be integrated into existing workforce training, employee engagement initiatives, and internal communications programmes. Applying these principles could enable hotel enterprises to refine management strategies that link staff citizenship behaviours directly to brand delivery for external customers.
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This study aimed to investigate three variables that may interact with internal branding (IB) in the hotel context: employee engagement (EE), workplace friendship (WF), and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). This study adopted a survey methodology. 385 valid responses were collected from employees of 20 five-star chain hotels located in the Greater Cairo region of Egypt. The data were analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results demonstrated that there is a significant relationship between OCB and WF with EE, in addition to OCB, EE, and WF with IB. The mediating role of EE between OCB and IB, besides the moderating role of WF on the relationship between OCB and EE, was also determined. Contrary to the hypothesized model, results showed an insignificant relationship between WF and IB. This study provides a theoretical contribution to deepen the understanding of the internal branding concept in the context of the hotel industry. Practically, this research may be helpful for hotel enterprises in engendering and sustaining effective internal branding practices, which, in turn, could establish new links between internal and external hotel customers. Study limitations and potential directions for further research were also presented.
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DOI: 10.3390/su15054530
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