1. business and industrial
2. advertising and marketing
3. marketing

Employer Branding and Diversity
How to attract talented females into R&D oriented corporations
YAZHUO
LIU
Master of Science Thesis
Stockholm, Sweden 2010
Employer Branding and Diversity
How to attract talented females into R&D oriented corporations
YAZHUO
LIU
Master’s Thesis in Media Technology (30 ECTS credits)
at the Media Management Master Programme
Royal Institute of Technology year 2010
Supervisor was Christopher Rosenqvist, SSE
Examiner was Nils Enlund
TRITA-CSC-E 2010:087
ISRN-KTH/CSC/E--10/087-SE
ISSN-1653-5715
Royal Institute of Technology
School of Computer Science and Communication
KTH CSC
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
URL: www.kth.se/csc
EMPLOYER BRANDING AND DIVERSITY:
-HOW TO ATTRACT TALENTED
ORIENTED CORPORATIONS
FEMALES
INTO
R&D
ABSTRACT
The strategic importance of employer brand has been valued both in business and
academic world. Employer-based brand has become a crucial asset for companies.
Diversity as one of the most important factors which impact the employer brand is
troubling most R&D oriented companies. Ericsson as a market leader within the
telecommunication industry is also facing the same problem and has proposed this thesis
project. The purpose of this thesis is to study how an R&D oriented company could
attract more talented females by leveraging efficient marketing communication. The
investigation focused on existing and potential employees’ brand perception of the
company and also on their preference regarding information content, format and
channels. The empirical data are collected via both qualitative interviews and also
through a quantitative online survey to potential employees.
The finding shows that there is a large brand perception gap between internal and
potential employees and they also identifies important factors in becoming an ideal
employer. In order to narrow this gap and attract more talented females, Ericsson should
first deliver more comprehensive and trustworthy information about the company to
provide more encouragement and assistance for female applicants. Furthermore,
information should be conveyed in a more vivid way such as through video and through
effective channels like the company website. University presence and social media need
to be improved in order to support the suggested strategy.
Keywords: employer brand, employee-based brand equity, diversity, marketing
communication
VARUMÄRKESUPPFATTNING OCH MÅNGFALD:
- HUR SKA FOU-INRIKTADE
BEGÅVADE KVINNOR
FÖ RETAG
ATTRAHERA
SAMMANFATTNING
Den strategiska betydelsen av ”employer brand” värderas högt både inom näringslivet
och i den akademiska världen. ”Employer brand” som varumärke har blivit en viktig
tillgång för företagen. För de flesta FoU-inriktade företagen är det oroande att mångfald
är en av de viktigaste faktorerna som påverkar ”employer brand”. Ericsson som
marknadsledande inom telekommunikationsbranschen brottas med samma problem och
har därför initierat detta examensarbete. Syftet med examensarbetet är att studera hur
ett FoU-inriktat företag skulle kunna attrahera fler kvinnliga talanger genom att utnyttja
en effektiv marknadskommunikation. Undersökningen fokuserade på befintliga och
potentiella medarbetares uppfattning om företagets varumärke och deras preferenser
beträffande informationsinnehåll, format och kanaler. Det empiriska materialet har
samlats in både genom kvalitativa intervjuer men också genom en kvantitativ on-line
enkätundersökning med potentiella medarbetare.
Resultaten visar att det finns en stor skillnad avseende varumärkesuppfattning mellan
befintliga och potentiella medarbetare och identifierar även de viktigaste faktorerna för
en ideal arbetsgivare. För att minska denna skillnad och attrahera fler kvinnliga talanger
är en slutsats att Ericsson bör leverera mer omfattande och tillförlitlig information om
företaget för att ge mer uppmuntran och stöd till kvinnliga sökande. Vidare bör
informationen göras mer levande t. ex. genom video och användning av
effektiva
kanaler som t. ex. bolagets hemsida. Synlighet på universitet och i sociala medier måste
förbättras för att stödja den föreslagna strategin.
Nyckelord: employer brand, anställd-baserade varumärkesvärde, mångfald,
marknadskommunikation
PREFACE
By the time I started working on the study, I was hardly aware of the journey lying ahead
of me. Linda Schang as my supervisor at Ericsson tried to warn us about being
overambitious with our research intention. True, the work has been hard, but we have
been convinced by the synergy effect, which is involved with working in a team. This
ambition enabled us to accomplish both a quantitative and qualitative research approach
within a limited period of time.
I have to admit that I faced some serious challenges during the time I was working on my
master thesis. But every time I overcame an obstacle, new energy was regained, which
motivated me and my team members to continue.
Now, I am proud of and satisfied with the accomplished work. I hope that reading the
thesis will be interesting and pleasant, since either most readers are about to graduate
and will soon be in a situation, where Employer Branding might play an important role or
are dealing with these concepts in a professional setting.
However, I would never have been able to complete this master thesis without the
contributions of many others. Therefore I would like to express our appreciation to all,
who have played a role in the realization of this thesis. In particular I would like to
appreciate my supervisor at Ericsson Linda Schang for her expertise, valuable insights
and support throughout the writing process. I would also like to thank the interviewees
from Ericsson and its collaborative universities. Furthermore, I express my gratefulness
to the respondents of our survey: Master Students at KTH, as well as the other ones from
Chinese universities. I would like to thank my supervisor at SSE, Christopher Rosenqvist
for his feedback, meanwhile, Christer Lie from KTH for his patience and help. In addition,
I would like to express my appreciation for my thesis team members Han Jie and Maral
Kalajian for their inspired and brilliant ideas that motivate me to keep improving.
I would finally like to thank my dear parents and friend Cao Zhe for their caring,
encouragement and support.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.
2.
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1.
Background .................................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2.
Problem discussion and research scope ........................................................................................... 2
1.3.
Purpose and research questions........................................................................................................... 2
1.3.2.
Research questions ..................................................................................................................... 3
Theoretical and Practical Relevance ....................................................................................................... 3
1.5.
Disposition ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.6.
Chapter summary ........................................................................................................................................ 4
Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................................................. 5
2.2.
2.3.
Brand equity .................................................................................................................................................. 5
2.1.1.
Customer- based brand equity ............................................................................................... 5
2.1.2.
Employee-based brand equity ............................................................................................... 6
2.1.3.
Brand Equity and Signalling .................................................................................................... 7
Marketing communication ...................................................................................................................... 8
2.2.1.
Strategic planning process ....................................................................................................... 9
2.2.2.
Brand awareness VS brand attitude .................................................................................. 10
Chapter summary ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Methodology ............................................................................................................................................................... 13
3.1.
Research approaches ............................................................................................................................... 13
3.1.1.
An abductive approach ............................................................................................................ 13
3.1.2.
A case study .................................................................................................................................. 13
3.1.3.
Mixed- methods .......................................................................................................................... 13
3.2.
Case selection .............................................................................................................................................. 14
3.3.
Data collection ............................................................................................................................................ 15
3.4.
3.5.
4.
Purpose and delimitations ....................................................................................................... 2
1.4.
2.1.
3.
1.3.1.
3.3.1.
Preparation ................................................................................................................................... 15
3.3.2.
Stages ............................................................................................................................................... 15
Research quality ......................................................................................................................................... 16
3.4.1.
Reliability ....................................................................................................................................... 16
3.4.2.
Validity ............................................................................................................................................ 16
Chapter summary ...................................................................................................................................... 17
Empirical findings ..................................................................................................................................................... 18
4.1.
In-depth semi-structured interviews with managers ............................................................... 18
4.1.1.
Program introduction and purpose: .................................................................................. 18
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
4.5.
5.
4.1.2.
Recruiting process and time schedule: ............................................................................. 19
4.1.3.
Communication channels: ...................................................................................................... 19
4.1.4.
Current situation: ....................................................................................................................... 19
Focus group .................................................................................................................................................. 20
4.2.1.
Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 20
4.2.2.
Employer branding.................................................................................................................... 21
4.2.3.
Global Graduate Program’s recruiting process ............................................................. 22
One to one interview with external potential employees ....................................................... 23
4.3.1.
Decision making process ........................................................................................................ 24
4.3.2.
ideal working place characheristics .................................................................................. 25
4.3.3.
Favored information ................................................................................................................. 25
4.3.4.
Favored channel ......................................................................................................................... 26
4.3.5.
employer brand perception ................................................................................................... 26
Online survey............................................................................................................................................... 27
4.4.1.
ideal work place characteristics .......................................................................................... 28
4.4.2.
favored information on company’s website ................................................................... 29
4.4.3.
favored information formation ............................................................................................ 29
4.4.4.
favored channel .......................................................................................................................... 30
Chapter summary ...................................................................................................................................... 30
Analysis and Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 31
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.4.
Analysis part 1 ............................................................................................................................................ 31
5.1.1.
Consumer marketing communication VS. Employer branding ............................. 31
5.1.2.
Marketing communication framework in employer branding context ............. 32
Analysis part 2 ............................................................................................................................................ 33
5.2.1.
Target group ................................................................................................................................. 33
5.2.2.
Target audience .......................................................................................................................... 33
5.2.3.
Generation Y ................................................................................................................................. 34
5.2.4.
Conclusion of analysis part 2 ................................................................................................ 34
Analysis part 3 ............................................................................................................................................ 34
5.3.1.
Ericsson’s benefits and positive aspects review .......................................................... 34
5.3.2.
What information attracts Female ..................................................................................... 35
5.3.3.
How to fill the brand perception gap ................................................................................ 37
5.3.4.
Conclusion for analysis part 3 .............................................................................................. 38
Analysis part 4 ............................................................................................................................................ 39
5.4.1.
Media selection strategy ......................................................................................................... 39
5.4.2.
Favored Channel ......................................................................................................................... 40
5.5.
6.
5.4.3.
Media mix ...................................................................................................................................... 41
5.4.4.
Conclusion for analysis part 4 .............................................................................................. 43
Chapter summary ...................................................................................................................................... 43
Discussion & Future research.............................................................................................................................. 46
6.1.
Discussion ..................................................................................................................................................... 46
6.2.
Further research ........................................................................................................................................ 46
6.3.
Chapter summary ...................................................................................................................................... 47
7.
References .................................................................................................................................................................... 48
8.
Appendix ....................................................................................................................................................................... 51
Appendix 1: ................................................................................................................................................................. 51
List of Interviewees for in-depth semi-structured interviews with senior managers ............ 51
Appendix 2: ................................................................................................................................................................. 51
Interview guideline for in-depth semi-structured interviews with senior managers ............ 51
Appendix 3: ................................................................................................................................................................. 52
Interview guideline for focus group ...................................................................................................................... 52
Appendix 4: ................................................................................................................................................................. 53
Interview questions for external target students ......................................................................................... 53
Appendix 5: ................................................................................................................................................................. 54
Online survey questions ............................................................................................................................................... 54
1. INTRODUCTION
In today’s highly competitive market, organizations are increasingly focusing on the
concept of the ‘employer brand’ to underpin their efforts to attract, engage and retain
talents, which is the key to optimum organizational performance and provide an
important competitive edge for organizations.(Mahalingam, 2008) Employer branding
has been gaining popularity in the business community over recent years, and there is
now widespread recognition of its importance as a potential business differentiator.
This thesis is aiming at investigating how to leverage effective communication to solve
the problems at first phase of employer branding: attracting talent, especially the female
ones, which most R&D oriented organizations are facing now. Through comprehensive
research and a case study of Ericsson, the study will try to figure out who the main target
audiences are, what the favored and desired messages are to the target and which
channels are the most effective and efficient to use for marketing communication.
The reason of doing this study is because that it is noticed that there is a strong
correlation between brand leadership and the presence of an unyielding diversity
commitment. Diversity and branding are both highly linked to employee satisfaction,
expanding the talent pool, and increasing market share (Saxon, 2007).
Employer
branding
and
diversity
do pay off
Leading companies are using diversity branding to tap the tremendous growth potential
that diverse markets represent. Consumers make purchase decisions based on their
brand perceptions and expectations of the brand experience. The importance of diversity
issue is not only because that it would enhance and solidify corporate reputation for
fairness, inclusion and opportunity for all, but also because that a diversity environment
will encourage more motivations and productivities in the work, both of which would
hugely benefit employer brand and customer brand.(Tyrer, 2003)
Effective employer branding, however, needs more than simply rebuilding the company’s
image or launching a short term marketing campaign. Building the brand into something
credible begins with identifying actual strengths and weaknesses in the employment
experience. This means involving employees at all levels in the development of the brand
so that it accurately reflects both the realities and aspirations of the business and its
workforce.(Gandhl, 2005) The employer branding process requires an inter-department
collaboration especially between the HR and Communication, which brings the new
challenges for marketing communication under the situation of Fragmentation of
workforce and emerging of new technologies, for example social media.
1.1. BACKGROUND
In the autumn of 2009, a global telecommunication firm Ericsson AB, is going to begin its
new recruitment for the trainee program. Ericsson AB operates in more than 150
countries and is continuously creating new trends and innovations that shape the
telecom industry. To sustain leadership in a dynamic market, Ericsson AB has recognized
1
that it is essential to have a strong intellectual capital, and this is perfect moment for
them to start with these trainee programs by proposing a thesis project about how can
Ericsson attract talents from diverse backgrounds into its company (in general), and into
its four trainee programs (in specific).
The project will be accomplished by a team of three KTH students, while we three will
deliver three independent thesis, so the topic of the thesis will based on this project but
not totally same as the project goal. One of the team members will study on how to
leverage web 2.0 technologies to do employer branding, while the other one will focus on
employer branding & diversity for ICT B2Bs.
Ericsson is in the process of making a leap from a good to a great employer brand by
strengthening its image and encouraging diversity into its corporate environment. In my
study, I decided to study on how to apply effective consumer marketing communication
process into employer branding, in order to increase the diversity and strengthen their
employer brand eventually.
1.2. PROBLEM DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH SCOPE
It is widely recognized that for corporations to be competitive in today's global markets,
they must take advantage of the benefits from the diverse workforce. Further, with
increased innovation being broadly accepted as one of the chief benefits of diversity,
research organizations must learn not to "deal with diversity" but to embrace it, seek it
and turn it into a competitive advantage.
However, the problem is that women are significantly underrepresented in the science
and engineering (S&E) workforce. For example, women represented only about 23
percent of the S&E workforce in 2005. (PUMS, 2005) The under-representation is
particularly acute in R&D where advanced degrees are frequently recruited.
Ericsson has identified this problem within their organization, and been aware of using
employer branding to improve and encourage more diversity. And actually, the best way
companies can attract a diverse and qualified pool of job candidates is to market to them
the same way they do their customers. (Barrow and Richard) Therefore, what becomes
interesting is to investigate the consumer branding approaches to contribute to employer
brand. Seen from the perspective of big R&D oriented organization, how could consumer
marketing methods be integrated in employer branding strategy to attract more female
into the organization?
1.3. PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.3.1. PURPOSE AND DELIMITATIONS
The research
will focus on
the first phase
of employer
branding:
attract talents
from external.
The purpose of this thesis is to study how consumer marketing communication approaches
could be integrated into employer branding strategy to attract more female into a R&D
oriented corporation.
The concept of Employer Branding and Marketing Communication are very broad, and
there are probably numerous ways of commencing an active work regarding Employer
2
Branding. In order to answer our purpose accurately and due to limitations regarding
time and resources, it has been necessary to perform certain delimitations.
The first delimitation concerns a need to narrow-down the field of Employer Branding.
Hence, due to the reasons described in the problem discussion, the author has chosen to
limit the study and solely look at the first phase of Employer Brand: attract talents from
external. As the aim is to obtain a comprehensive study on how marketing
communication strategy could be integrated into Employer Branding communication
area in R&D oriented organization, the time limitation constrained the author only focus
on one company.
And because of the big scope of the company, the study and research will be carried out
based on the specific R&D Global trainee programs at the beginning, and extended a little
to larger scope of the company as whole later.
The third delimitation concerns the marketing communication planning process. Firstly,
as the company is settled as case study unit, all marketing communication strategy
planning would be based on the company’s resources and capabilities. And it is also very
important to adjust the framework of Consumer Marketing Communication Strategy
Planning process to adapt into employer branding context. Moreover, when it comes to
marketing communication, there are three main questions in this area: target audience,
delivered message and media channels. Although the target group’s profile is also
decided according to the company’s requirements, target audience could be a larger
scope than target group that company is willing to recruit. Therefore, it is very important
to make clear whom the target audiences are. After that the study would focus more on
exploring the messages that would attract the target audience, and media channels that
could reach the target audience.
1.3.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Questions mainly
cover
consideration of
marketing
communication:
logical process,
target audience,
main messages
and channels
To fulfill the purpose, the author will focus on the three main areas discussed
previously; resulting in the following four research questions:




Q1 what is framework of implementing a consumer marketing communication
planning process into employer branding context?
Q2 who are the target audiences for employer marketing communication?
Q3 what attract females as an employer when it comes to R&D oriented
organization?
Q4 what are the best channels to reach target females?
1.4. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL RELEVANCE
There are a plethora of theories about marketing and branding, and a large number of
articles discussing corporate image and corporate reputation, however, there are only a
few theories available concerning employer branding, especially the linkage between
employer brand and consumer marketing communication methods. The findings of this
paper would hopefully contribute some inspiring insights into the theoretical
understanding of employer branding, and some useful explorations of bridging practical
experience and the academic world.
3
Research will
base on the
resource and
capability of
Ericsson which
served as case
study unit
This research will also provide a thorough understanding to R&D oriented companies
who face problem with recruiting female. The research results will Improve their
understandings about important factors on female recruitment, and also their
effectiveness of employer branding. Useful guidelines for strategic design and action
plans can then be developed further base on an employer’s particular circumstances
according to this case study.
1.5. DISPOSITION
This section introduces the disposition of this whole thesis as the following description:
1.6. CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter mainly introduced the situation that employer brand has been paid more
and more attention among corporations, which is also supported by the fact that
employer branding activities did create value for corporations in return. And within this
area, diversity is also a popular issue increasingly emphasized by organizations,
especially the R&D oriented ones. Ericsson is one of those who are facing a problem
about diversity issue within employer branding area and specifically against the trainee
programs. And based on the problem, research questions mainly cover three essential
elements of marketing communication: target audience identification, communication
messages and media channels.
4
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The aim of this chapter is to introduce the chosen relevant theories which can enable better
research conduction and the theoretical background understanding. Moreover, the theories
will also build a foundation of further analysis and aid us to better answer the research
questions.
2.1. BRAND EQUITY
A brand was defined as: “A name, term, sign, symbol or design, or combination of them
which is intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and
to differentiate them from those of competitors’. (Schneider, 2003) And with the
emerging of concept brand equity, it means both a good and bad news to marketers. It is
good because brand equity elevated the importance of brand in marketing
communication strategy, while it also brought a little confusion to people due to its too
many versions of definition which are based on various purposes. (Keller,2008)
Fundamentally, branding is all about endowing products and services with the power of
brand equity. Despite the many different views, it is agreed by most observers that brand
equity consists of the marketing effects uniquely attributable to a brand. That is, brand
equity explains why marketing of a branded product or service make difference.
(Keller,2008 )
To better answer the research questions, it is better to look into different perspective of
customer-based and employee-based brand equity firstly and then generalize the
common framework for further study and research.
2.1.1. CUSTOMER- BASED BRAND EQUITY
The definition of brand equity within marketing terms is “a set of brand assets and
liabilities linked to a brand that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or
service to a firm and/or to that firm's customers”(Aaker, 1991). Customer based brand
equity has more to do with the effect of brand knowledge of an customer and his or her
response to the marketing of the product (Keller, 1993).
The standard tool for understanding a brand’s association and the customers’ response is
the brand equity pyramid (see below). The strongest brands exhibit both “duality”
(emotional and functional associations) and richness (a variety of brand associations or
“equity” at every level, from salience to resonance) (Keller 2008).
5
Figure 1: Brand Equity Pyramid. Source: Keller(2003) Strategic Brand Management
And in the pyramid, salience as the foundation of it, perform huge importantly for the
whole brand building process, because it is the first step of establishing relationship
between the customer and brand. Merely good awareness of the brand elements could
lead to the upper level of understanding a brand. And after identifying, it is the phase of
create positive brand attitude towards the brand. Increasing brand awareness and
creating positive brand attitude require almost 70% of the whole investment in building
brand.
2.1.2. EMPLOYEE-BASED BRAND EQUITY
When it comes to employer branding, brand equity applied all the effect and knowledge
of brand on potential and existing employees of the organizations. Employer brand
equity will motivate and impel potential applicants to apply. Moreover, employer brand
equity is also supposed to encourage existing employees’ loyalty to the company in order
to gain more support and reduce the turnover. The ideal and desired outcome of
employer branding activities is to build up employer brand equity . In other words,
“potential or existing employees will react differently to similar recruitment, selection, and
retention efforts from different firms because of the underlying employer brand equity
associated with these firms”. (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004)
It is common for product or service brand marketers to use some form of brand
relationship ladder that starts with basic awareness, and progresses through trial, and
repeat purchase to brand loyalty and active brand advocacy (Barrow& Mosley,2005).
This is an interesting concept to apply to the employer brand, although it involves a
number of additional dimensions. In the context of employment we suggest that it would
be useful to have a viewpoint on the answers to the following questions in relation to
each target group:
6
Figure 2:Employer Brand Relationship Ladder: Source: Barrow, S. and Mosley, R (2005) The
Employer Brand® Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work. .
2.1.3. BRAND EQUITY AND SIGNALLING
It is common that almost all brand definitions focus on customers’ perspective rather
than on other stakeholders such as employees who are also influenced hugely by brand
messages. However, in the context of employer marketing, the employer brand is to be
understood as the set of distinctive images of an employer which are manifest in the
minds of target groups (Meffert, Burmann and Koers 2002; Petkovic 2004).
Marketing scholars studied and researched on concepts which are focused on product or
corporate brands' effects on consumers and the associated brand equity (e.g. Keller 1993;
Swait et al. 1993). Cognitive psychologists focus on the creation of buyer-based brand
equity as the outcome of factors such as performance and personality. And the value of
buyer-based brand equity is measured by the perceptions of buyers (Tsao 2002). Keller
(1993, p. 1) states that “Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect
of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand.” According to
Aaker (1991, p. 15) “brand equity is a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a
brand … that add or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm
and/or to that firm’s customers.” Brand equity provides value to the uninformed party by
facilitating the information process and by increasing confidence. Reductions in
perceived risk and information costs are consequences of brand equity.
7
The approach does not explicitly recognize the aspects of information in markets which
are determined by interactions among market actors (Erdem and Swait 1998, p. 133).
The information economics approach involved strategic interactions among sellers in its
model (Tsao 2002, p. 9) which is important in the employment context as an employment
contract can have long-term implications. This approach used signalling theory which
deals with problems caused by existence of asymmetric information in markets and with
the possibilities to defeat those asymmetries (Spence 1973). Signalling theory can also be
applied into conceptualizing the dealing with adverse selection (Kirmani and Rao 2000).
Signals like guarantees, price, and brands influence quality judgments (e.g. Dawar and
Parker 1994; Koku 1995). According to Kirmani and Rao (2000, p. 69) brands can be
classified as sale-independent or default independent signals since they exist regardless
of a transaction. Brands have been proved that it is capable of communicating
unobservable quality (Erdem and Swait 1998).
Information
asymmetry
needs
consistency,
clarity, and
credibility
and
associated
brand
investments
to fill within
employer
brand
In consumer markets, a wide range of study and research focus on customer-based brand
equity and brands as quality signals. While in Wilden’s research of employee-based
equity, a conceptual framework for employee-based brand equity implies that “the
effectiveness of a brand signal to employees is dependent on its consistency, its clarity, its
credibility, and the associated brand investment. Employee as an additional main
stakeholder companies should account for brand equity. Accordingly, employee-based
brand equity should ultimately be considered as a component of a wider framework of
brand equity complementing existing conceptualizations of customer-based brand equity. ”
(Wilden, Gudergan, and Lings 2006)
2.2. MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Marketing communication are messages and related media used to communicate with
market. “Marketing” implies selling and a goal of economic benefit for the communicator,
while marketing communication techniques can be applied with divers of purpose. One
of the most popular domains for marketing communication is human resource area.
The old Laswelian communication research paradigm of “Who says What to Whom
through which Channels with what Effect.” Generalize the basic elements of marketing
communication, and provide guidelines for communication research. And according to
Micheal L. Ray, the research basically covers three key areas: (1) Communication goals—
goals are set in terms of communication response of clear target group. (2) Message
strategy—given a goal of the communication, how these goals are to be achieved is the
next decision? What to say (appeal) and how to say it (format) are the fundamental
issues (3) Message distribution—once goals and message strategy are established, the
marketing communication manager must decide how the messages will be delivered to
the target audience.(Ray, el. 1973) One of the most popular framework for strategic
marketing communication, which influences both the academic and business area, is
Larry Percy and Richard Elliott’s book Strategic Advertising Management. In this book,
they systematically introduced the framework of marketing communication.
8
2.2.1. STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS
All marketing communication must be consistent with, and in support of, the overall
marketing plan which basically cover the information about products, market size and
also the competitive evaluation. (Percy.L & Elliott.R,2009 p.85)
Larry and Richard suggest that the strategic planning process starts with a review of
marketing plan and analysis of what compose the target market. Although the customer
or consumer is at the heart of any marketing communication program in the end, there
may be more people and actors who are involved in the decision making process, and
they should be considered in the planning phase. After reviewing the marketing plan, a
scientific and practical Five-Step strategic planning process for marketing
communication should be processed during the project. The five stages are shown as
below:
Figure 3: The Five-Step Strategic Planning Process : Source: Percy&Elliott (2009). Strategic
Advertising Management (3rd edn.)
SELECTING THE TARGET AUDIENCE
Once marketing strategy and target market have been selected, it is time identify the
target audience. Here the only correct segmentation variable is attitude. It is people who
hold relatively similar attitude towards category usage and brands within the category
we are looking for. The primary concern is to identify brand loyalty group, but it is also
important to know how the target market segments generally in terms of other relevant
attitudes if we are to optimize communication strategy.
UNDERSTANDING TARGET AUDIENCE DECISION MAKING
After selecting the target audience, it is very important to understand of how the target
audience goes about marking purchase decisions in the category. This involves
establishing who is likely to participate in the decision and the roles they play in the
process, and developing a Behavioural Sequence Model (BSM) (Rossiter & Percy,
1987,1997) that identifies the likely stages the target audience goes through in making a
9
purchase decision. Once constructed, the model provides important insights into
positioning, commutation, and media strategy.
DETERMINING THE BEST POSITIONING
With an understanding of how target audience makes decisions in the category, we can
now address the issue of how best to position the brand within its marketing
communication. The target audience decision-making model helps identify the likely
connection between category need and the brand, along with benefits associated with the
brand. Now it is time to consider positioning the brand, specifically addressing the
question ’What is it?’, in order to drive brand awareness effectively, and then the
question ‘What does it offer’, to select the benefit consistent with the motivation.
Effective positioning will ensure optimum delivery of the two core communication
objectives of brand awareness and brand attitude. Moreover, identifying self advantages
and competitive edge will also make organization serve the target market more
effectively than competitors. (Hooley & Saunders, 1993)
DEVELOPING A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
In developing a communication strategy we must first establish our communication
objectives by selecting the desired communication effects. In effect, understanding
consumer decision making helps answer two fundamental questions which are must
asked in developing a communication strategy: what is the brand awareness and brand
attitude strategy, and what do we want the target audience to do as a result of our
marketing communication?
SETTING A MEDIA STRATEGY
After fixing the brand awareness and brand attitude strategy, the next step is to select the
best communication options to deliver the message to the target audience. The author
would choose appropriate media channels based on the basic principles of the brand
awareness and attitude strategies.
2.2.2. BRAND AWARENESS VS BRAND ATTITUDE
BRAND AWARENESS
Studying on
decision
making
process of
target could
help identify
which type of
brand
awareness
strategy is in
need
When it comes to brand awareness, strategy could be classified into two main patterns
depending on the decision making process. When the target audience recognizes brand
at point of purchase and remembers need, it requires recognition brand awareness
strategy; while when need occurs and target audience must recall brands that satisfy the
need, recall brand awareness strategy is in need. (Percy.L & Elliott.R,2009 p.199-201)
Brand recognition needs advertising must present the brand the same as it will be seen
under purchase occasion, so that brand-category need association is aroused. Being
confronted with the brand will act as a retrieved cue, reminding people the need for the
product or services.( Tulving,1983) So attractiveness and good visual content, not much
time required for processing and even low frequency will do, and therefore television,
magazines, posters, the internet, and direct mail could be considered as media channels.
And based on recall brand awareness, the brand name and visual logo should be
repeated among target audience as often as possible and also inked with the category
10
need. There are no so many limitations when it comes to the media channels. Nearly all
the media could function well to achieve the goal without considering the cost. But one
critical point is that the brand is always linked to the need.
BRAND ATTITUDE
Brand attitude strategy is a function of the two fundamental considerations: (1) whether
there is low or high involvement with the use decision based primarily upon the target
audience’s perceived risk (either in fiscal or psychological terms); (2) whether the
underlying motivation that drives behaviour in the category is positive or negative.
Combining these two considerations produces the four brand attitude strategy quadrants
of the grid: low involvement with negative motivation; low involvement with positive
motives; high involvement with negative motives; and high involvement with positive
motives.
Figure 4: The Rossiter & Percy Grid, Source: Rossiter,J.R. and Percy,L., (1997). Advertising
Communication and Promotion Management. 2nd edn.
Brand attitude
strategy are
made based on
the products’
position in
Rossiter-Percy
grid
The creative tactics that maximize the likelihood of an effective message are directly
linked to the brand attitude strategy that follows from the appropriate quadrant defined
by the Rossiter-Percy grid. (Rossiter & Percy,1997)These tactics differ significantly for
each quadrant. Strategy associated with negative motives require information to help
solve or avoid problem, while those associated with positive motivates must help
transform the customer.
2.3. CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter has introduced the basic theories of customer and employee based brand
equity, and also brought in Signalling concept to elaborate how to deal with asymmetric
information within employer brand context by emphasizing on consistency, clarity,
credibility, and the associated brand investments.
In this chapter, it also presented the five decision steps in strategic planning
process: select the target audience, understanding target audience decision
making, determine the best positioning, develop a communication strategy and
11
set the media strategy. And the following chapters will discuss some stages in
depth. The author has also considered how the Rossiter-Percy grid can be used to
guide brand attitude strategy and creative tactics.
12
3. METHODOLOGY
Methodology is concerning which methods should be used in order to produce a scientific
contribution to a study or research. (Andersen, 1994) The aim of this chapter is to introduce
and present the methodological considerations which are related to the thesis.
3.1. RESEARCH APPROACHES
3.1.1. AN ABDUCTIVE APPROACH
The study will mainly based on the inductive research approach due to it is a process of
deriving a conclusion and theories based on empirical findings. However, it also contains
some deductive features since the study begins with the existing theories which are also
used to test against the empirical data later. Therefore the abductive is considered as the
most appropriate method in this thesis, since the author aims at deriving conclusions
from both empirical data and existing theories. It is not necessary to see the two classical
theoretical approaches as mutually exclusive and most social science research tends to
fall within the continuum between the two (Bryman & Bell 2007). A balance between
inductive and deductive methods, namely abductive method, is consequently an
important aspect in conducting most research (Hyde, 2000)
3.1.2. A CASE STUDY
Moreover, there are three main research strategies; case studies, surveys and
experiments. Case studies should be used to develop detailed and intensive knowledge in
a small number of subjects and the author has thus chosen to base the study on the case
study approach (Saunders et al, 1997; Sekaran, 2003). Case studies can provide new
insights due to the detailed explanations that for example survey methods usually miss
out (Eisenhardt, 1989). The case study approach is suitable when the study’s focus is on
contemporary phenomenon in real-life context and when the purpose of the study is to
answer the question; “How?” (Yin, 1989). Since these criteria correspond to the purpose
of the thesis, the author consequently believes that the case study approach is the most
suitable method for the study.
3.1.3. MIXED- METHODS
In order to attain a deep understanding of the research questions the author has
chosen to use a Mixed- method research, which means using quantitative and
qualitative data collection techniques and analysis procedures either parallel or
sequential, but doesn’t combine them (Sanders M, Lewis P & Thornhill A 2009). The
purpose of the study is to, through an exploratory case study, discover the subject of
employer branding as well as its relationship to consumer marketing communication,
and therefore contribute to a new understanding of how a R&D orientated company
can recruit more talent female through implementing an effective marketing
communication. Thus qualitative approach is often characterized by addressing a
13
phenomenon from the inside (Andersen, 1994). The aim is to create a holistic view by
increasing the understanding of social contexts and processes (Holme & Solvang, 1997).
The approach also gives an inside perspective with a closeness to the individuals which
will help us gain a deeper and more detailed understanding of the research area. To be
able to answer the research questions and with the scope and purpose of the thesis in
mind, the author has hence chosen qualitative research as primary research approach.
Qualitative interviews can create trust, leave room for explanations and open discussion,
and minimize the risk for misinterpretations. The interviews will further give an
opportunity to observe and study the interviewees’ behaviors which will improve the
understanding of the logic behind their answers. The advantages of personal in-depth
interviews are that answers are not forced out of the interviewees and follow-up
questions can be asked and also adjusted accordingly. The disadvantages of the approach
are instead that the process is time consuming regarding administration and requires
more time and effort from the interviewees (Bryman & Bell, 2003). However, An
important way in which quantitative research supports qualitative studies is through
identifying respondents with the required characteristics for attach to actions or
behavior (Bryman, 2004: 457). Due to their greater universality and ‘apparent
objectivity’ (Preece, 1994:44), quantitative approaches can provide background
information for qualitative studies to draw on in identifying broader trends, against
which to locate in-depth analysis. Some quantification may help to uncover the
generality of phenomena (Bryman, 2004: 460). Therefore in order to reach larger
range of the research with less time and labor consumption, a quantitive research
will also be used as complemented element and cross test tool for the qualitative
research.
3.2. CASE SELECTION
Through the prior literature research and theory study about employer branding, the
author found that the diversity issue was more and more valued among academic and
business areas. However, the author also identified a lack of specific research on
diversity issue of R&D oriented corporations which face the most severe problem
comparing with other industries. Moreover, the corporate and global branding is no
longer only a marketing tool to attract customers but also to attract competences in large
companies. Business-to-Business companies are challenged to create awareness of their
employer-bility to potential talents.
A selection of respondents in a qualitative study should be systematically based on
certain criteria (Holme&Solvan, 1997). To answer the research questions and keep the
purpose and delimitations in mind, the case company should therefore have the
following features:



An international organization within R&D oriented industry
A Business- to-Business company
A company that recently identify the diversity issue and have advantages for further
improvement
The thesis project will explore the influence of employer branding on prospects in the
information and communication technology industry, by analyzing and evaluating a
global telecommunication leader, Ericsson AB.
14
3.3. DATA COLLECTION
3.3.1. PREPARATION
Prior to the interviews, the research team sent e-mail to the targeted interviewees to
introduce ourselves and the purpose of the thesis project and also what they could make
contribution to this project, in order to build trust and made them better prepared.
The interview guide is of crucial importance for the quality of the study (Lundahl &
Skärvad 1992). One of the most important qualities of an investigator is to have a
thorough understanding of the research topic (Yin 1989). So before designing the
questions for the interview guide, the research team did an extensive reading and review
of relevant theories and reports to perceive a better understanding of the topic and
structure the interviews. Several informal interviews with the current employees
provided more comprehensive understanding of the company’s environment. Since the
targeted interviewees are various in terms of role, so it is important that the questions
are relevant for research questions, but it also should not be irrelevant for the
interviewees (Bryman & Bell, 2003). Thus, the research team made adjustments to the
interview questions in accordance with the interviewee’s position and role within or
outside the organization. Meanwhile, in order to create a atmosphere of trust which is a
prerequisite for an in-depth qualitative interview (Holme &Solvang, 1997), the research
team made sure that the interviewee were anonymous and the purpose were clear. It
was also possible to choose the language they felt comfortable with and record the
interview content if it was approved.
3.3.2. STAGES
To answer the research questions, there are four stages of primary data collection in this
research:




In-depth semi-structured interviews with senior managers of Ericsson are analyzed
qualitatively. The objective of these interviews is to get essential contextual data for
the research. The target interviewees (see appendix 1) are mainly from HR and
communication divisions of the company. It normally took 30-40 minutes for a
single interview. And the questions follow the interview guideline (see appendix 2)
covering their roles, main responsibilities and the their perceptions of employer
branding and diversity issue.
Focus groups with former and current trainees are analyzed qualitatively. It aims for
knowing the issues that are important to employees especially the female ones, and
also getting to know the brand perception gap between external and internal (see
appendix 3). As they are the group of people who are newly employed, they are able
to compare different experience from external and internal, thus they have more say
in this employer branding matter.
One to one interview with external target students is to gain deeper understanding
of their decision making process and determinant factors in choosing employees
(see appendix 4).
An online survey is structured based on the input of primary qualitative data
collection and is analyzed quantitively to obtain and examine conclusions drawn
from primary qualitive research. The survey is conducted anonymously and among
15
the students of collaborating universities with Ericsson. It is a general survey among
both male and female in order to get more comprehensive understanding of
determinants for being an ideal employer. The survey questions (see appendix 5) are
finalized after discussion with the thesis supervisor and several experts within this
area. A little pilot survey is also conducted among KTH students before the formal
one is sent out. In that case, the author could notice possible problems and make
necessary adjustments accordingly.
3.4. RESEARCH QUALITY
To determine the research quality, reliability and validity are important aspect to
consider. Validity can further be divided into construct, internal and external validity.
Below these aspects are discussed.
3.4.1.
RELIABILITY
The reliability of a research study is concerned with the “absence of stochastic errors” in
the data (Lundahl & Skärvad, 1992). The objective is to assure that if another investigator
later followed the same procedures, he would arrive at the same findings and conclusions
(Yin, 2003). The characteristic of good reliability could be described as several
independent measurements all producing the same result (Holme & Solvang, 1997).
Reliability can hence be achieved through a standardization of the data collection process.
Since our study is of qualitative nature, the reliability could therefore be negatively
affected (Bryman, 2006). To be able to still obtain a high level of reliability, the author
has taken several steps, precautions and measures in the study to prevent and avoid
occurrences of biases and errors. All the interviews are recorded and further transcribed.
Notes are also taken for each interview to prevent the misinterpretations, which serves
as complement to record and transcripts. To avoid misunderstandings due to languages,
interviewees would choose their preferred languages. In addition, all the interviews in
each stages of study are followed the same interview guide even there are open-end
questions asked, which assure all interviews to reach a higher level of standardization in
the data collection process. The research team also studied a large range of secondary
data and conducted one-on-one interviews with current employees at multiple levels of
the organization to improve the reliability of the study.
3.4.2. VALIDITY
Internal validity is instead defined as the extent the results from the study correspond
with reality (Merriam, 1994). When performing research with qualitative method, the
interviewee’s mental construct of reality is studied. Hence, the results do not have to
reflect the objective view of reality, but instead it is the perspective that is more
interesting than the truth itself. The researcher’s duty is then to present this mental
construct in an honest manner (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984). Therefore, one of the strengths
with qualitative method is the high level of internal validity (Merriam, 1994). Moreover,
several measures are also taken to assure high internal validity. All interviews are
guaranteed full anonymity. And in order to create an atmosphere of trust, the research
team also introduce ourselves and purpose of this study beforehand in an e-mail. Prior to
all interviews , it is further reminded to interviewee of the full anonymity, and recording
16
is only possible if it is approved by the interviewee. These measures are intended to
eliminate individuals’ fear of providing real thought (Yin, 2003). All interviews are
recorded and noted to assure the validation. Finally, the company has read and approved
the empirical findings. They have hence assured that the empirical findings correspond
with reality and we would therefore argue that our internal validity is high.
Finally, external validity is concerned with to what extent the study could be generalized
(Yin, 1989). It is argued that studies with qualitative research method tend to have
somewhat weaker external validity (Bryman, 2006). The external validity in this study is
hence a matter of case context. Since the study only focuses on one organization and a
specific case of employer branding’s diversity issue, the relevance of making
generalizations can be questioned. Nevertheless, it is no longer obvious that a limited
number of observations cannot lead to meaningful generalizations in the end
(Gummesson, 1988). The author believes that the studied case could offer interesting
contributions to the research area of increasing diversity, by effective employer branding
communication across borders within R&D oriented companies. Moreover, the research
ends up with an international survey which intends to check the output conclusions of all
the qualitative researches. The respondents imply a larger range of people which could
be used to draw more comprehensive and generalized conclusion. And therefore, the
author argues that the validation of the research is also high.
3.5. CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter presented the research approaches that the thesis will use. Abductive was
considered as the most appropriate method for the thesis, since the author aimed at
deriving conclusions from both empirical data and existing theories. And case study was
chosen as research strategies. In order to attain a deep understanding of the research
questions, the author chose to make a Mixed- method research, which means using
quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques and analysis procedures,
either parallel or sequential, but doesn’t combine them. And the data collection could
be divided into four stages: In-depth semi-structured interviews with senior managers,
focus group with former and current trainees, One to one interview with external target
students and an online survey. In the following chapter, the results of the data collection
will be presented each by each.
17
4. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
In this chapter, empirical findings will be presented according to four research stages
mentioned before in two perspectives: internal and external. In interviews with managers
and focus group with trainees, it reveals the current situation and brand perception of
Ericsson, which are focused on finding out the merits and problems within the organization
regarding the marketing communication. While the one on one interview and online survey
with target students will give an external view of Ericsson, which emphasize on significant
factors that can determine their decision making process of choosing employer.
4.1. IN-DEPTH SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS WITH MANAGERS
The interviewees are at manager level, and most of whom are from trainee program
project, Global HR and Communication divisions.

Linda Schang: Global trainee program director, in charge of three global trainee
programs: R&D, multimedia and Finance.

Rajan.Nichani: Global trainee program director, in charge of Exellerate trainee
program.

Sussane Samuelsson: R&D Global trainee program project manager

Monica: Global HR manager who is responsible for global recruiting and transaction
work of eJob system’s integrating.

Anna & Johan: Global communication manager who is in charge of the
communication job among different divisions, especially between HR and Marketing
departments.

Cecilia Bladh: Employer branding Manager of Sweden
4.1.1. PROGRAM INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE:
To secure the future supply of leadership candidates within the R&D organization,
Ericsson decided to launch this graduate program for cultivating future managers,
project managers and technical leaders within the R&D organization.
It has been held four times (GGP2005, GGP2006, GGP2007, GGP2008) since the first
launch. 50 (33 male vs. 17 female) people got accepted into this program, and 38 of them
already graduated and began working in Ericsson
The R&D Global Graduate Program is not only a management provisioning activity, but
also an employer branding initiative. The program purpose is to attract students, and to
keep the image of Ericsson as the first choice employer, further more to secure the future
supply of leadership candidates (managers, project managers and technical leaders)
within R&D.
18
4.1.2. RECRUITING PROCESS AND TIME SCHEDULE:
Figure 5: Program Recruiting Process and Time Schedule
4.1.3. COMMUNICATION CHANNELS:
The program is advertised on the Ericsson Career Site and locally (web, daily press, job
fares etc) in the countries where program positions are available at the time. Ericsson
also use relationship marketing to propaganda the program by cooperating with local
major technical universities and joining job fairs there.
Basically speaking, Ericsson‘s marketing activities are conducted through three channel:



Advertising in printing
Advertising on line
Relationship marketing
The printing channel may enjoy a broader coverage but might have shortcoming with
efficiency. (Sussane) On the other hand, online would be more cost-efficiency but
couldn’t be able to attract people’s attention like blockbuster. Job fair at universities is
good chance to attract Ericsson’s target group, but the selection of the universities must
be conducted very carefully and taking different locally culture into consideration.
(Cecilia)
4.1.4. CURRENT SITUATION:
In Sweden, Ericsson has a great reputation, and it is in the top 3 list as an employer. In a
survey conducted by Universum communications, Ericsson was perceived as a large
traditional company. Ericsson was also perceived as a safe place to work with, however
19
lack of entrepreneurship culture was seen as a negative point. (Cecilia) The survey was
conducted by Universum communications in a focus group of students from 7
universities.
And based on interviews and survey conducted by Universum, a SWOT analysis which
was against the competitors among talents market was made, where the strengths and
weakness are collected from students and young professionals’ opinions, while the
opportunities and threats are concluded based on the internal interviews with managers.
Low awareness of
brand is the main
weakness of
Ericsson.
The positive
brand attitude
associated with
Ericsson is not
enough
Recruiting process
is an effective way
of both increase
brand awareness
and create
positive brand
attitude to the
potential
employees among
students
Figure 6: SWOT Analysis on Ericsson’s Trainee Program
“Although there is no research particularly against female students and young
professionals, we could also feel obviously difficulty in attracting female comparing with
male into our organization.” (Linda) “The brand image and the messages that were sent
out may need some change to re-build Ericsson’s image.”(Cicelia)
4.2. FOCUS GROUP
In this section, the report will present the data that was found in the research.
4.2.1. INTRODUCTION
From March of 2009, a series of focus groups with formal and current trainees were
conducted. GGP4 and GGP3 were chosen as participants to these focus groups. The
purpose of focus groups, on one hand, is to investigate the Ericsson’s brand perceptions
among trainees. On the other hand, it is to gather some in-depth feedbacks of GGP’s
recruiting process which could be used to improve recruiting process in general, no
matter concerning to male or female.
20
The format of focus group is just making all participants respond to a series of questions
related to their experiences, needs, and perceptions. The participant’s profile is as below:
Table 1: Focus group interviewees’ profile
Degree
Master in Engineering or Science
Age
Gender
25-28
Female ; Male
The following summary of the focus group findings is based upon two main parts which
are Employer Branding and Graduate Program. And there will be seven detailed themes
under these two big parts: (1) brand perception gap, (2) core values feedback, (3)
motivation for applying, (4) advertising for the program, (5) hiring process, (6)
assessment center, (7) satisfied degree.
4.2.2. EMPLOYER BRANDING
BRAND PERCEPTION GAP
Almost all of them had awareness of Ericsson’s brand because of their education
background, but only half of them knew what exactly Ericsson’s business was about. But
still, there were two cases that people ‘didn’t know Ericsson before really entering the
company’, letting alone Ericsson’s business and brand attitude. And for those who knew
Ericsson pretty good, even some Swedish people didn’t have positive brand attitude
about Ericsson. What they thought about Ericsson was just a ‘traditional and Swedish
company’.
Good
university
collaborations
promote brand
awareness
Brand attitude
transformed
from neutral
or negative to
positive after
becoming an
insider
Those who are from Sweden or universities that have good collaborations with Ericsson
have narrower perception gap about Ericsson. “Ericsson presents a lot in my university
and its office lies beside our campus; there are intensive collaborations between my
university and Ericsson. And we also have a lot of classmates who already worked for
Ericsson. In that case, we could know the company’s environment and culture more
according to our classmates”. There was another statement about this situation. “I studied
in Kista, as you know, Kista is Ericsson Valley. They do presentations and job fairs all the
time, so I knew Ericsson’s story and was kind of loyal to Ericsson already. ”
On the other hand, those who are not from Nordic culture’s country, or even from the
Nordic country but used to work at the Ericsson’s branch far away from headquarter of
Sweden, experiences a huge brand perception transformation.
The good news is that all of perceptions’ changes about Ericsson are in a good way, which
means people valued Ericsson more, after really getting to know and coming inside of it.
Usually, people use words like ’telecom, traditional, Swedish,’ to describe Ericsson before
they entering the company, but after becoming an insider, there are more positive
responses, such as ’innovative, human oriented, professional, new opportunity ’.
21
CORE VALUES FEEDBACK
All of them mentioned the values and culture of the company would vary according to
different cultures and personality. People tend to do the business in a more local or their
own ways rather than simply copying the headquarter way, which means that the same
professionalism would be expressed differently in different culture or even not be
followed. To make sure the core values don’t become an empty shell, they have to be
adaptable to local culture and the job rotation is necessary so as to enhance the
collaboration and core values within Ericsson globally.
When it comes to recruiting process, people don’t care that much of core values. Those to
them are just the information that needs to be known for the interview. However, these
values issues became more and more important for them after they began to work at
Ericsson. And most of the people mentioned the core values which Ericsson uses now are
a little broad for people to follow in daily work. But if they are break down a little, people
can find their values that they appreciate more and use them to motivate their daily work.
For GGP3, they use innovation, collaboration, motivation and challenge as their values
which are more specific and motivated for them.
MOTIVATION FOR APPLYING
Due to the educational background of participants, they all knew that Ericsson could be
their employer, because Ericsson was the market leader within the Industry, thus most of
them applied for this program but with no more preference than other companies. Only
two people mention that they preferred Ericsson more when they chose employer. One
said according to the description of Nokia from her friends and her own experience with
Ericsson, she felt Ericsson is really interested in people and willing to invest in people’s
developing, which made her very impressive and determine to work for such a company.
The other one’s preference was also because of the words of his friends who worked for
Ericsson and the familiarity which was created by high presentence of the campus’s
campaigns and lectures.
4.2.3. GLOBAL GRADUATE PROGRAM’S RECRUITING PROCESS
ADVERTISING
Lacking of
effective
marketing led
to loss of
applicants
There are lots of HAPPY ACCIDENTS heard when they were asked how the participant
knew this gradate program. Two of them applied only one day ahead of the deadline. And
one of them was even from the university which had good relationships with Ericsson,
but she had no idea about this program at all. Some of them have applied for this
program before, so they know the program. But still they admitted that it lacked of
enough efforts on advertising for the program, especially in the countries other than
Sweden.
HIRING PROCESS
The schedules for students’ beginning to apply jobs vary in different courtiers. Taking
Beijing University of China for example, it normally starts from first week of October and
the first round begins with consulting companies and followed by all the top companies like
Google, IBM and Microsoft. Ericsson may enter the university during the third round, which
means it is too late to get touch with the talent at the best opportunity.
22
And the relatively longer recruiting was the issue mostly mentioned. For locations like
UK, students start searching for job a year ahead of graduation and get contract by
December, but Ericsson’s recruiting process lasts until April, which means many of students
have already picked up decisions. Comparing with other companies’ recruiting process,
Ericson has a long duration, which makes applicants go to other offers during the wait time
for Ericsson’s results.
ASSESSMENT CENTER
All of the participants responded that it was the experiences at assessment center that
made them fully determine to enter this program and Ericsson. At the assessment center,
meeting with other young competitive and motivated candidates and the high quality of
the professional assessments impressed them a lot, and made them have a very good
team spirit.
However, before getting into the assessment phase, there were some bad experiences
about contacting issue. The girl who applied from Finland almost missed this program
due to the bad performance and cooperation within Adecco which served as third party
for recruiting. Meanwhile, there were also some good feedbacks of the third party
performance. It mentioned that close contact and fluent informing to the candidates
made them stay with Ericsson’s program while leaving other offers along.
SATISFACTION DEGREE
The satisfaction of the programs was fairly high in terms of program’s content and
quality. All of the participants would like to recommend this program to their friends.
And they also thought that the inspiring and successful stories from formal trainees
would be helpful to the new applicants.
4.3. ONE TO ONE
EMPLOYEES
INTERVIEW
WITH
EXTERNAL
POTENTIAL
According to the profile of the potential employee whom Ericsson is interested in, 20
interviewees are chosen from Ericsson’s target 10 universities all over the world.
The interview time ranged between 25 to 45 minutes. The data that was collected in the
interviews were aggregated and represented based on the most repeated, vital and
relevant information. It is important to notice that the interviewees did not know that the
research was done for Ericsson, to be able to keep the answers as objective as possible.
Table 2: Criteria of selecting 20 interviewees.
Interviewee Criteria
Characteristics
Age
Young: 25-32
Gender
Female & Male
Engineering background
Engineer & non-engineer
Country
China, India, Sweden, USA, Spain, Italy,
UK
23
Universities
All the universities that collaborate
with Ericsson local branches
The objective of having this set of criteria aimed to match the generation Y’s perception
of an ideal working place, because it is the target that Ericsson recruit now and in the
future. Identifying the thoughts, interests and the needs of this target group can help
Ericsson to reach out to this talent pool, and be able to successfully recruit them. The
reason why we do it among both genders is because that a comparison research has
more value in helping Ericsson better understanding the differences between male and
female ‘s interests.
4.3.1. DECISION MAKING PROCESS
Normally, the decision making process compose of five-stage components, which needs
recognition, search, alternative evaluation, action (purchasing), and outgoings. Such
‘flow’ of thought and action is at the heart of any consumer purchase behavior, and this is
what the author wants to capture with a target audience decision making model.
After knowing the making decision process, it is helpful to identify the likely connection
between category need and the brand, along with benefits associated to the brand.
Table 3: target audience behavior sequence model for a job searching.
Decision roles
Where stages
likely to occur
Self friends, family,
teachers as initiators
and influences
Company’s recruiter
as initiator
Home,
university,
company
presentation
Stage 2 :
Identify possible
job opening
Self, friends, teachers,
family as influences
Company’s recruiter,
reports and medias
as influences
Home,
university,
Company
presentation
campaign
Stage 3 :
Self as decider
Company or teacher,
family as influences
Stage 1 :
Need arousal
More people
rather than
self are
involved in
this decision
making
process
Evaluation options
and companies
People tend
to recall the
company
before they
begin to
search
information
Stage 4 :
Timing of stage
How stage is likely to
occur
1-6 months before
graduation
holidays
between
semesters
Friends, teacher talk,
See adverts,
At web or campus
campaign
Immediately
need arousal
after
Friends, teacher talk,
See adverts,
At web or campus
campaign
Home,
university,
company
over
4
weeks
following
need
arousal and may keep
going on until get
hired
Self as decider
Home,
university,
company’s
presentation
Depend on individual
case.
Self as actor
Home
Immediately after the
decision is made
Search online about the
information,
visit
the
company’s
websites,
visit
the
company
directly,
talk with friends, teacher
or family who are familiar
with the company
Compare
requirement
offering, also company’s
reputation and work
environment, and so on
(which
would
be
presented in the next
section)
Apply
on
internet
normally
Self
The
company
which offers the
job
Depending on the
deadline of applying
Choose company
Stage 5 :
Apply for
openings
Stage 6 :
Take the job
the
is
‘s
or
24
Start
working
experiencing the
environment
and
new
Stage 7 :
Post job evaluation
Self
Almost everywhere
After
beginning
work’s
Tell friends, family of
experience via different
possible media channels
And what needs to be highlighted here is that female relies on third party’s objective
information more than male. They turn to friends, teacher by using social media for job
information. They also collect information about the company by using company’s
website and job agency website.
4.3.2. IDEAL WORKING PLACE CHARACHERISTICS
Figure 7: What makes an ideal working place. Source: one to one external interviews
4.3.3. FAVORED INFORMATION

What attracts you most when the job is offered by an employer?
The replies by the interviewees resulted as follows, with some repetitions listed on the
top
1234567-
The job position – type of work
The advice of a friend from the company
Corporate culture
Personal development
Salary & benefits
Location
Inspiring company that contributes to society
25

What kind of information you wish to know from company’s career website?
1234567-
Working environment
Real employee stories ( through videos, blogs & Facebook)
Career path
Salary & benefits
Recruitment process
Tips on getting accepted
Job description
4.3.4. FAVORED CHANNEL
Figure 8: favored channels for job hunting, Source: one to one external interviews
4.3.5. EMPLOYER BRAND PERCEPTION
POSITIVE VIEWS & PERSPECTIVES
“Sweden” some said and wrote. The target group thinks of Sweden when they were asked
about Ericsson. Sweden has good reputation in the world. It is one a country that
provides great social benefits regardless of the high income taxes, and others mention
about Sweden as a great country and a great place to live in many times throughout the
years. Therefore, Ericsson is associated to Sweden and its humanitarian culture which it
brings in to the corporate culture.
“Research” is another term associated with Ericsson. Sweden is known as one of the
world leaders in R&D investments according to Statistics shown by “Invest in Sweden
Association”. Ericsson invests heavily on R&D as part of their core business value, and
that is a key attraction to the target audience, in other terms, to be part of the innovation
and the future technologies.
“Giant Telecom Leader”, Ericsson is a world leader of the telecommunication industry.
Regardless of the different European and Asian competitions that Ericsson has, it
26
remains solid and constant when it comes to its lead in the industry. Being an industry
leader is an attraction for the target audience.
NEGATIVE VIEWS & PERSPECTIVES
More negative
feedback of
Ericsson’s
brand
perception
from external
perspective
than internal
Despite the positive attributes that the target group is associated with, Ericsson as a
company in general and in employer branding in specific, has some challenges in its
presence in the market.
“Old and traditional” was among the major repetitions by the target group. Ericsson is
viewed to be a traditional corporation where things happen slowly and change does not
come too often. The target group views Ericsson as it lacks the entrepreneurial
environment and the creative atmosphere in its culture.
“Unemployment”, many of the target group associates Ericsson with Lay-offs. Ericsson is
not the only company that has done lay-offs during economical crisis. Yet, many of the
target group thinks that Ericsson is not a very stable company and unemployment could
hit any time during a recession.
“Who” - I have No idea!” The worst perspective is not having any perspective. Many of the
interviewees and the survey responders did not know who and what Ericsson was.
Ericsson lacks presence on the global market as a brand. Meanwhile it is weak in its
corporate branding.
“Phones & Sony Ericsson”- This section is related to the previous point, many of the
respondents assumed that Ericsson and Sony Ericsson were the same. Although Ericsson
has 50% of Sony Ericsson’s share, it is yet considered a cooler place to work for when it
comes to working in Sony Ericsson.
“Racing Boat Constructors” – although Ericsson is a proud sponsor of the Racing boats,
some youngsters think that Ericsson produces the racing boats. The idea behind this
sponsorship could be boosted up highly once Ericsson first spreads the awareness of its
existence as a telecom leader company and shows clearly the effects of its services and
products on society, then it could reach out to consumers through sponsorship of such
events.
4.4. ONLINE SURVEY
The online survey was conducted from April 6, 2009 till June 3, 2009 as a complement of
formal qualitive research. And objective of this online survey was to know both Ericsson
and trainee program’s target group more comprehensively, so that the target group
would be more aware of Ericsson and attracted by Ericsson as an employer, which is the
vital factor for Ericsson’s future competition and sustainable development.
Based on Ericsson’s current recruiting criteria for potential employees and the
universities that Ericsson collaborates with locally, the research team identified the
students who are from Ericsson’s collaborated universities over 6 countries as main
target group for this online survey. And the countries are chosen because they are the
places of either Ericsson’s current important markets or the markets with huge potential
in the future. They are: Sweden, China, India, US, Canada and UK. And the research team
27
reached the target group both through contacting their universities officially and via
personal relationships or leveraging the social networks.
The online survey was conducted in English and consisted of 13 questions, covering the
following issue:





Respondent’s background
Attitudes towards trainee programs
Types of channels used for searching jobs
Expected and favored type of information on company’s websites
Key expectations of an ideal employer
To ensure the results’ objectivity, Ericsson is not mentioned as survey conductor.
A total of 210 respondents completed the survey during its opening.
4.4.1. IDEAL WORK PLACE CHARACTERISTICS
Figure 9: What makes an ideal working place. Source: online survey
28
4.4.2. FAVORED INFORMATION ON COMPANY’S WEBSITE
Figure 10: Information that job seekers want to find on the company’s career site, Source:
online survey
Besides what listed in the questions, five people also mentioned payments, salary and
benefits, while there were people wanting to know more details about recruiting process,
like when and how to apply, as well as the information about student relations.
4.4.3. FAVORED INFORMATION FORMATION
Figure 11: favored information formation to know about the company and its environment,
Source: online survey
Pictures and statistical data are also mentioned as other options here.
29
4.4.4. FAVORED CHANNEL
Company's website
71.40%
Job agency websites
65.70%
Friends & family
59.90%
University campaigns
57.10%
Magazines & newspapers
31.50%
Posters&brucher
19.50%
Other
Tv ads
4.70%
2.80%
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
Figure 12: favored channels for job hunting, Source: online survey
To the answers for “other”, school’s BBS, search engine, head hunter and university’s
alumni network are mentioned here.
4.5. CHAPTER SUMMARY
Based on the results of research, internal perspective was focused more on reality of
Ericsson’s merits and problems. On the bright side, it revels Ericsson enjoys the good
reputation among customers and actually offers plenty of great career opportunities for
employees. People also mention that Ericsson is really human oriented and had good
work-life balance plan for employees. All of what mentioned above are the competitive
advantages for Ericsson as an employer. However, as a B2B Corporation, Ericsson has
disadvantages in reaching out its end users and thus has difficulties to increase brand
awareness among some potential employees.
Based on the views of external potential target and in accordance with decision making
process, it shows that employment is a kind of product whose brand awareness strategy
should base on recall pattern. In addition, the research results reflect that comprehensive
and trustworthy information are crucial in job hunting for the target, meanwhile a sense
of engagement of the environment is also an important factor to consider. Hence, a high –
involvement and transformational brand attitude strategy should be implemented here.
By comparing internal and external perspectives, there is a huge brand perception gap
between internal and external, which lead to lots of misunderstandings of Ericsson’s
performance as an employer, for example, Ericsson may not have so many opportunities
for young people, Ericsson is an organization full of seiner engineers and not a
challenging environment, all of which are actually the opposite. Moreover, Ericsson
encounters a severe problem in brand awareness, which means most of interviewees
confuse Ericsson with Sony Ericsson, and they have little knowledge of Ericsson’s real
business and working environment. The solutions for changing and solving these will be
presented in the next chapter in details.
30
5. ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION
The following chapter aims at answering the four research questions, which answers the
purpose of this thesis in turn. Every part of the analysis is constructed to answer each one of
the research questions and provides the basis for the final conclusions and discussion. The
analysis is built on the empirical findings as well as the theoretical framework presented.
5.1. ANALYSIS PART 1
This section of the analysis is aimed to answer the following research question:

What is framework of implementing a consumer marketing communication planning
process into employer branding context?
5.1.1. CONSUMER MARKETING COMMUNICATION VS. EMPLOYER BRANDING
Employer branding is a loop task including attract, recruit, on boarding, train, develop
and retain talents. (Barrow & Mosley, 2005)
Figure 13: Employer Branding Processes
And each phase in this loop needs the assistant of effective communication. What would
be highlighted here is the first step, attract. Any communication can be generalized into
three main domains: target, message and channel,( Ray, el.1973) and employer branding
is no exception. Therefore the classic five step strategic marketing communication
processes could also be used as a guideline for implementing an employer branding
strategy, since the basic workflow follows the same logics and steps. However, the
emphasis might be shifted a little from consumer marketing communication to employer
branding area.
31
Unlike consumer marketing focuses a lot on positioning and differentiating themselves,
employer branding requires more on trust and credibility, which means the provided
information needs to be trustworthy and consistency with the company. Thus the
attraction of the message to the target group is no long simply being creative and
interesting, but to provide more valuable and relevance information and the feeling of
involvement and engagement. To obtain this goal, firstly, the company needs to
investigate what are the valuable information for the target, and then by leveraging
different channels and types of formation to deliver those information to the target
audience. Along the process of doing marketing research, the ways of conducting
research, analyzing communication objective and concluding final communication
strategy in consumer marketing could also be used within employer branding area.
5.1.2. MARKETING COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK IN EMPLOYER BRANDING
CONTEXT
Combining the consumer marketing methods and employer branding theory, a
communication model for employer branding comes out as below:
Figure 14: communication model for employer branding
Instead of focusing on the differences between oneself and its competitor, the employer
branding’s positioning should emphasize more on the gap between the offering from the
company and expectations of the target. Therefore, filling the perception gap and
balancing the information asymmetry become more important, which roots from the
Signalling Theory (Spence, 1973). The following analysis will also base on this
framework and follow the steps to approach to the final conclusion.
32
5.2. ANALYSIS PART 2
This section of the analysis is aimed to answer the following research question:

Who are the target audiences for employer marketing communication?
5.2.1. TARGET GROUP
What Ericsson wants to target is more against the external newly graduate students or
young professionals who have never joined Ericsson. So the objective is both to generate
brand awareness and encourage a more favorable brand attitude.
When it comes to the target group, Ericsson is very clear about what kind of people they
want to bring into Ericsson. The managers have very specific requirements for each
position accordingly. For this project, each trainee program has very clear requirements
for its target group. Hence, there is no need to redefine the profile of the target group.
Although each program has its own specific demanding, there is one thing in common,
which is that they all aim and prefer to recruit the newly graduate students who belong
to Generation Y. Therefore, the target group that Ericsson is looking for is highly likely to
have characteristics and attitudes that the generation Y has in general when it comes to
career. Moreover, female, as a special group within the general target group, needs to be
paid more attention to their behavioral habits which reveled through the behavior
sequence model.
5.2.2. TARGET AUDIENCE
Target
audience
should be a
larger group
involving the
people who
can influence
target’s
decision
making.
Normally, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking only about the specific target group
which use the “products or services” when considering a target audience. But a
comprehensive strategic planning requires a broader view of the whole marketing
communication task. Only communicating with the target is far from enough. On one
hand, it is because communication effects will shrink down during its way to the target.
Only less than 3% messages would successfully be processed by a target audience as
what marketers expect On the other hand, there are more people involved in the decision
making process, which means communication should also reach the people who
probably not be needed by Ericsson but definitely should be taken into consideration as
the target audience, if they could influence the decision making process.
The roles that could be involved in the decision making process in this case are initiator,
influencer, decider, applicants and employee. The initiator and influencer could be self,
family, friends, while the decider and final applicants is more likely to be the self.
So the target audiences are the individuals, groups, communities and bodies of
decision-makers who can influence the target. Aimed at different target groups, the
profile of the family and friends would also change accordingly. For the target group
Generation Y, their parents and teachers who are mainly Generation X have influence
over them. Also, their friends who are also Generation Y have impact on them. Taking
GGP as an example, the main target is newly graduate students, then their friends are
also the students in the university, and teachers are another important channel for
spreading the news especially the major coordinators. Better understanding of these
33
target audience including demographic info and motivation is of great value of creating
comprehensive marketing strategy.
5.2.3. GENERATION Y
Generation Y is a generation who concern with their own careers rather than the
organization According to a research program ‘Generation Y: unblocking the talents of
young managers’, Generation Y are concerned with their own career path rather than the
organization. They care about their own interests and are not so loyal to the corporation
(Sometimes they are more likely to be loyal to individuals such as their bosses). They are
individualists rather than team players and they change jobs frequently in search of new
challenges. Generation Y is willing to blend their work and personal lives. They are
willing to consider work as part of their personal lives. They like to socialize with work
colleagues on unofficial time such as large intervention and social media. Also, they like
to work on flexible time. According the research program, Generation Y is regarded as a
group who want to work hard and play hard
5.2.4. CONCLUSION OF ANALYSIS PART 2
The target profile in this case study is the newly graduate female students who have a
master degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology or a similar
subject. Also it requires the candidates to have leadership potential and genuine interest
in Ericsson and R&D.
According to the research of target group’s decision making process, the initiator and
influencer could be self, family, friends, while the decider and final applicants is more
likely to be the self, which implied that the target audience should be a larger group than
the target group for the program, due to the fact that it involves more people than self in
decision making process. Thus the finding suggests the company that family, friends and
teachers are important roles that need to be better understood and taken into
consideration while making communication strategy.
Moreover, the target group belongs to the generation Y which is a group of people who
pursue challenges in their own career and long for more flexible work life. Actively
participating in social media is the other significant characteristic among generation Y. A
good leverage of all of these is crucial to a successful communication strategy.
5.3. ANALYSIS PART 3
This section of analysis is aimed to answer the following research question:

What attract females as an employer when it comes to R&D oriented organization?
5.3.1. ERICSSON’S BENEFITS AND POSITIVE ASPECTS REVIEW
The external interview results shows that Ericsson’s brand image is perceived as more
negative.. Although internal feedbacks are more positive comparing with the external
ones, there are still lots of misunderstandings and blur visions of the brand. It is
therefore necessary to rebuild the communication between potential and current
34
employees with Ericsson. And the first step is to review and clarify what kind of values
and benefits that Ericsson offers.
Based on the focus group and interviews with managers, the benefits and positive
aspects of Ericsson offers are listed as below:
The core values of Ericsson, “Professionalism, Perseverance and Respect” were repeated
by almost all the employees who have been interviewed. The employees have made it
clear that there is unconditional respect towards their colleagues, managers and the
company, and it is truly practiced in Ericsson.
One of the main points that were constantly repeated by the employees was “flexibility &
work life balance”. This is a real value that Ericsson provides to its employees across all
its branches in the world. There is a flexibility to work from home. Work is more like a
valuable part of life rather than a whole life. It is important to mention that Ericsson
employees are hard working people, yet they still have the power to balance their lives
and work.
Other important values that Ericsson provides are “Self-development” and “I learn new
things”. According to Ericsson employees, they consider themselves fortunate because all
the great trainings that they get for free as part of the work. Ericsson provides individual
plan for self-development. Each employee has a unique way to progress and develop
his/her skills. And an employee can always choose to have his/her individual career path
within Ericsson.
“My colleagues” is another term that the employees mentioned. It is without doubt that
there are a lot of inspirational people in Ericsson, and they are inspired by one another.
What makes Ericsson special according to its employees is working and being around
with colleagues who are competent, knowledgeable and helpful. Ericsson employees
learn from one another and also learn from their managers.
“Global Opportunities” is one of the equally important values that Ericsson provides to its
employees. Whether it is the Long Term or Short Term Assignments or whether it is the
general internal mobility, the truth remains that Ericsson truly provides global
opportunities to its employees. Many of the employees are interested in Ericsson because
they can travel to different regions, get to know different cultures and learn a lot from
their heterogeneity.
“My job position & description” is another value according to Ericsson employees.
Ericsson employees like what they do and enjoy their work. They have high interest in
their job description and the position they held. The majority of them have said that it is
clear on what is expected from them and what should they provide.
“Human-oriented – “I” matters”, although many companies say that they are
human-oriented, yet in Ericsson, its employees have stated undoubtedly that Ericsson
cares for its employees through good and bad times. At Ericsson, employees are not
simply employees who get paid, they are considered as part of the main assets of the
company and they are very well valued.
5.3.2. WHAT INFORMATION ATTRACTS FEMALE
35
According to the target universities list Ericsson provided, two thirds of them are mainly
in science and engineering area, which is reflected from respondents’ gender profile that
only 41% of all 210 respondents are female.
And to increase the diversity, the proportion of female employees is an important issue.
Only 30% female engineer response to the online survey also corresponds with the fact
that female engineers account for merely 30% of the entire staffs. To attract this specific
group, Percy’s Communication Strategy Making Process is also suitable here. But the
target group’s profile is changed. And all the strategy should be made based on this target.
Here the author will just highlight some important differences of ideal employer’s
characteristics and favored media comparing with the male.
FAVORED INFORMATION
Figure 15: favored information about employment
Career path is the No.1 interested information and even demanded by female than male
job seekers. And what need to be mention here is the big differences about how much
female eager to know the inspirational and success stories comparing with male.
It also shows that female need more clear vision about future work, such as a visible
career path and working environment, which could eliminate the uncertainty about the
company. And in order to provide more security to female, more encouragements are
advocated as well. Some inspired successful stories would definitely be helpful, which is
not only mentioned by most of the interviewees, but also shown in the survey results.
Since female are more prudent during the job hunting period based on the research, thus
the more detailed information a company delivers to the target, the more applicants it is
likely to receive.
36
IDEAL WORK PLACE CHARACTERISTICS
Figure 16: Preferences for choosing an employer
The comparison results are shown in an order based on the female choice, and it is
obvious that male and female have totally different interests here. Sense of belonging is
the most important thing to female to choose an employer while male consider a good
relationship with boss and colleagues as the top one. Although these two seem to be the
same thing, feeling of fit in actually requires more factors to realize, and good
relationship with fellows is one of those. The interviewees also mentioned the
corporation values which they hope to be consistent with their own values. For example,
almost every female interviewee mentioned the pursuing of self-identity, self-realization
and so on. They are more eager to prove themselves’ valuable to the society, which made
them more strict with the quality of the products or services and also the corporation’s
social responsibility. All of these would meet the demand of being meaningful person to
the female.
Besides, they also want to have a happy and easier life experience with the work that
they are doing. So the message of fun and work-life balance should be delivered to the
target, and also let them know other merits of Ericsson like providing mentorship will
also become a plus for female to select an employer.
5.3.3. HOW TO FILL THE BRAND PERCEPTION GAP
Benefits and
offering meet
the
demanding of
target while
the
perception
dose not
According to the results collected from the interviews and focus group, the biggest
problem for Ericsson is not that it does not have what target demand, but that it fails to
let the target know how good it actually is. The messages with valuable information are
not reaching out the target.
Brand image to the external is not consistent with the real values Ericsson has. The grid
chart below visualizes the situation and points out a direction of changing. On horizontal
37
coordinates, in the line with the internal interviews, it shows Ericsson’s brand’s current
performance on the characteristics of being an ideal employer. While on the vertical
coordinates, it lists the characteristics which are based on the importance degree
sourced from external interview and online survey. The higher characteristics are listed,
the more important they are to the target group. Therefore, it suggests that Ericsson
should make efforts on moving the up-left grid towards up-right grid by leveraging
effective communications. On one hand, it should emphasize on the strengths that
Ericsson already had, especially the ones that people have misunderstandings with, such
as lacking of career path, not challenging environment, low salary and benefits. On the
other hand, it requires some rebuilding work of the brand image on fun place to work.
Figure 17: Communication message rebuild
The key of
formulating the
communication
message is
firstly
emphasizing on
the benefits
that Ericsson
already had
honestly.
In order to achieve the communication goal, High-involvement transformational
strategies (Percy.L & Elliott.R,2009 p.217) should be implemented. It is used to deal with
final decisions that involve risk and are made to satisfy an underlying positive motivation.
The basic idea of this strategy is to deliver the messages as trustworthy as possible to the
target group, so as to reduce the uncertainty and risk for the target. In addition, it is
necessary for a brand to be liked to some extent by the target; otherwise the final
“buying” likelihood would be reduced hugely. And it is the same as Ericsson’s case. The
employment offer from Ericsson, as products to the target, requires being fond of and
presented with enough information to reduce the risk.
5.3.4. CONCLUSION FOR ANALYSIS PART 3
In conclusion, since the negative associations with Ericsson from the outside world are
higher than the positive ones, a reconstruction of brand image is therefore in an urgent
need, so as to create positive brand attitude and encourage more diversity.
38
Firstly, in the light of the internal interview results, especially the opinions from female,
Ericsson does have a good employment offer for female, such as flexible schedule which
contributes to better work-life balance, rich opportunities for self-development through
different career paths and locations, challenging and inspired colleagues and also the
human oriented principles.
Secondly, the empirical findings demonstrate that females are more interested in the
information of career path, working environment and corporate responsibility etc. This
information could enhance the sense of security and belonging of females. They also have
more demanding on work-life balance and fun place to work for.
Actually, most of the offers of Ericsson and demands of target are consistent with each
other, however, this is not well known by the public. It is mainly because that Ericsson’s
unclear public information and poor marketing communication. In order to change the
situation, the analysis suggests delivering enough valuable and trustworthy information
to the target audience by leveraging High-involvement transformational strategies to
implement the communication. Furthermore, the communication should focus on
restructuring the message by re-emphasizing on the merits that Ericsson already had,
such as career path, challenging environment and salary benefits, meanwhile, re-building
the image of high demanding characteristics, for instance fun place to work for, to change
all the misunderstandings of Ericsson’s brand.
5.4. ANALYSIS PART 4
This section of the analysis is aimed to answer the following research question:

What are the best channels to reach target females?
5.4.1. MEDIA SELECTION STRATEGY
Before choosing specific media channels, a clear communication objective and basic
principles based on this objective should be taken into consideration and presented.
BRAND RECALL MEDIA STRATEGY
Brand
awareness
communication
objective focus
more on
frequency
Employment is a kind of product that requires potential buyers to recall the brand at the
beginning of the decision making process. And when it comes to brand recall, the
communication objective focuses more on frequency (Percy.L & Elliott.R,2009 p.233).
Good repetition of the linkage between category need and brand name is necessary, and
this requires high frequency. Since it is different with consumer marketing after all, thus
the frequency here is not expected as such high as most consumer products have. The
frequency here emphasizes more on the presentence in front of target group, so as to
remind them now and then that Ericsson is one of the best employers all over the world,
even when it is not the period of mass recruiting season. To achieve the goal, television,
radio, newspaper, and the Internet offer the potential for high frequency,(Percy.L &
Elliott.R,2009 p.233)and the social media is the most cost efficient option.
39
HIGH-INVOLVEMENT AND TRANSFORMATIONAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Well
designed
visual
content help
create more
trust and
favorable
attitude of
the brand
To make sure the correct selection of medias, brand attitude strategy should focus on the
following: (1) the message’s visual content; (2) the message’s processing time; (3) the
message’s frequency. (Percy.L & Elliott.R,2009 p.234)
For the media that makes sense for high-involvement, transformational brand attitude
objective, visual content is very critical. It is not only because of arousing more emotional
favorable feeling, but also because that seeing is believing. That is why people still tend to
know and get basic impression of a corporation’s environment by videos or pictures even
after reviewing all the text introduction of the company. In addition, processing time is
suppose to be sufficient for the target audience to get through all messages, thus the print
media enjoys more advantages in this perspective.
5.4.2. FAVORED CHANNEL
Figure 18: favored channel comparison between female and male
According to the survey and the interviews to the target group, it shows that the biggest
difference between male and female is that female is more interested in job agency
website and friends & family’s words. But still, the company’s website is also the first
choice for female to do job hunting.
The interview results show that female has more rational decision making process when
it comes to job hunting. They tend to look into different channels for information
collecting, and make comparison. And the survey shows the similar results, which serves
as complement to prove the findings in the interviews. It also shows that female is
longing for more reference information no matter through the job agency website or the
words from family and friends. Moreover, what needs to be mentioned here is that
although female needs more objective comparisons and comprehensive information,
company’s website is still the vital place to present and deliver the messages to the
potential target. Last but not least, friends and family also represent the social media and
word of mouth channel to some extent. Based on the interview, female spends more time
on social media checking out new events and communicating with friends. It also turns
40
out people tend to believe the words which are even from strangers through social media
channels, which because that the sense of belonging to the same community creates the
trust among the members. (Thomas, 2010)
5.4.3. MEDIA MIX
Based on the communication objective and the research results, the selection of media
mix is recommended both with reasoning analysis and improvement suggestions.
UNIVERSITY RELATIONSHIP
The university relationships are the most cost efficient way to achieve the frequency
objective. University is the place where raw talents are, and also the significant
battlefield for talent market competition.
Organizations either have the talent or lose it. Besides job fairs, there are still many ways
to increase brand awareness, such as, guest lectures and presentation, the case study
materials, sponsorships for events and campaigns. It is a perfect way to deliver the
message directly to the talent and shape the brand image. However, according to the
external interviews with students of KTH, especially the international ones, they prefer to
work for Google, Microsoft, whose headquarters are far from Sweden, rather than
Ericsson. Ericsson should have been alert to its university collaborations and
relationships, and make more efforts to improve it.
COMPANY’S WEBSITE
Company’s
website is
the most
important
portal among
all channels
Company’s website, is the first place where the potential employee and Ericsson meet up
and shake hands. It is definitely the best way to introduce and marketing for the
company. Moreover, it is a perfect medium for establishing trust with potential
employees. That trust, should based on shared values, shared vision, assumed
responsibility and always delivering on promise, must be built creatively, intentionally,
transparently and with integrity. (Thomas, 2010) Company’s website has all the
capability to create the trust, thus should be valued most.
Job-seekers will judge a company at least as much by its ‘employer brand’ as by its
‘customer brand.’ The Careers site harmonizes with the customer brand—but it
communicates the employer brand. (CNN,2009)
Ideally, people could leave the website without any questions and have a positive
attitude to the brand. But unfortunately, Ericsson’s website doesn’t provide much basic
information, and if Ericsson is not hiring, the website is idle. Comparing with the
companies that the team has benchmarked, it is necessary for Ericsson’s website to make
tremendous change and improvements. To increase the transparency and attraction of
the company, Ericsson should provide more detailed information about the company to
job seekers, and deliver the messages in more attractive formation such as video or
picture.
There is huge room for improvements. The idea is just to let visitors know that how it is
like working in Ericsson and what the possible opportunities are within Ericsson.
- Have possible Career paths presented which could introduce different main working
areas, and also typical job titles and roles with responsibility descriptions. It is also
41
-
-
-
better to have testimonials from current employees, which could take P&G and
Microsoft’s websites as reference.
Describe and classify the target segmentation clearly, for example: students, newly
graduated, professionals, so that the target could identify him/herself, and know
where to click on the site.
Provide more assistance on applications section of the job post, such as the links of
how to apply, recruitment process, tips & hints and FAQs.
Show more encouragements on applications by presenting successful stories and
testimonials, which are more convincing than the benefits in text, because the
female needs to feel that they fit into an organization more than men.
Presenting work environment by visual formation, such as pictures and videos.
Try to use friendly user interface, for instance, nice looking pictures, flash, videos,
because they are excellent forms in drawing attentions. However, in order to
generate a positive experience and resonation, the content and information must be
clear and meaningful to the audience as well.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Generation Y
especially the
female target
spend more
time on social
media not just
for fun but for
valuable and
trustworthy
information.
One of the basic principles of this brand attitude strategy is to be convincing to the target
audience, and it requires trustworthy relationship. Therefore, before becoming an
employer, it is better to build a friendship with potential employees, which social media
is really good at. Moreover, it is also where the target group is actively presented.
Additionally, 3 in 4 online women are active Social Media users, they turn to Social Media
to share opinions, seek recommendations before making purchase (BlogHer-iVillage,
2010)
But unfortunately, Ericsson is far behind when it comes to social media usage. Through
the benchmarking, it shows that all competitors of Ericsson are active in social media not
because of the trends, but because that social media does provide values to the
companies; IBM already started to have formal business meeting with its partners on
second life. It is not for show any more, social media plays more and more important role
in business area. Social media is the most cost efficient way to reach the largest user base.
However, it is also hard to control sometime. Still, it is not an excuse for not being there,
thus a well planed communication strategy for social media should be implemented as
soon as possible.
WORD OF MOUTH
Word of mouth
is the most
difficult yet
effective
marketing
channel
Being trustworthy is vital in the job market for an employer. (Collins et al 2002) Now it
comes to the biggest untapped treasure of Ericsson, the 80,000 employees. A word of
praise from the people you trust is more convincing than thousands words that you read
from other sources. Hence, employees are not only able to increase the brand awareness,
but also to effectively create positive brand attitudes of Ericsson. Of course, it requires a
lot of efforts before employees actually are willing to speak highly about the company.
But the sooner it begins, the better it is for Ericsson brand image. Ericsson employees
need to bring the brand to life, and to live the brand. Thus, it is necessary to have internal
marketing to motivate employees becoming brand ambassadors.
42
5.4.4. CONCLUSION FOR ANALYSIS PART 4
Based on the recall pattern of catalog need, the primary communication objective of
brand awareness should be set as frequency, which make sure that the target have
Ericsson in their minds when the job hunting process begins.
In accordance with the Rossiter-Percy grid, an employment is actually a kind of
high-involvement and transformational product. For generating a positive brand attitude
of the target, Ericsson should not only deliver high credible and trustworthy information,
but also create emotional favorable feeling of the company. Comprehensive text
introductions and attractive visual pictures and videos are the best combination as
message carriers.
Based on the research, company’s website is the most important channel both for men
and women, which deserve to be valued and improved with big efforts. Moreover, social
media and word of mouth, as female’s favored channels for searching recommendation,
are the channels with biggest improvement potential. In addition, job agency website
serves as an important tool for female to make comparisons among employers, thus
shouldn’t be neglected. At last, university relationships are the most efficient way to
reach potential employees face to face, and therefore require careful maintenance. In
short, Ericsson should leverage these channels to communicate with the target by
delivering more detailed and attractive information of the company.
5.5. CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter gave analysis based on the empirical findings and answered research
questions as below:
1.
What is framework of implementing a consumer marketing communication
planning process into employer branding context?


The employer branding’s positioning emphasize more on understanding the gap
between the offers of the company and expectations of the target, and balance this
information asymmetry.
43
2.
Who are the target audiences for employer marketing communication?

Under this case study, according to the in-depth interview internally, the target
profile for this research is newly graduate female students who have a master
degree of Science in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology or a
similar subject. Also it requires the candidates to have leadership potential and
genuine interest in Ericsson and R&D.
Target audiences are the individuals, groups, communities and bodies of
decision-makers who can influence the target.
In this case study, based on the results of decision making process, it showed the
target audience should include the target group who are mostly from generation Y
and also their family, friends and teachers.
Generation Y, both as main body of the target group and influential role of decision
making process, should be studied carefully.
Generation Y which is a group of people who pursue challenges in their own career
and long for more flexible work life. Actively participating in social media is the
other significant characteristic among generation Y.




3.
What attract females as an employer when it comes to R&D oriented
organization?

By making comparison of internal and external perspective, the negative
associations with Ericsson from the outside world are higher than the positive ones,
a reconstruction of brand image is therefore in urgent need so as to create positive
brand attitude and encourage more diversity
In the light of the internal interview results, especially the opinions from female,
Ericsson does have a good employment offer for female, such as flexible schedule
which contributes to better work-life balance, rich opportunities for
self-development through different career paths and locations, challenging and
inspired colleagues and also the human oriented principles.
The empirical findings demonstrate that females are more interested in the
information of career path, working environment and corporate responsibility etc.
These information could enhance the sense of security and belonging of females.
They also have more demanding on work-life balance and fun place to work for.
In order to change the situation, the analysis suggests delivering enough valuable
and trustworthy information to the target audience by leveraging High-involvement
transformational strategies to implement the communication.
The communication should focus on restructuring the message by re-emphasizing
on the merits that Ericsson already had, such as career path, challenging environment
and salary benefits, meanwhile, re-building the image of high demanding
characteristics, for instance fun place to work for, to change all the
misunderstandings of Ericsson’s brand.




4.
What are the best channels to reach target females?

Based on the recall pattern of catalog need, the primary communication objective of
brand awareness should be set as frequency
For generating a positive brand attitude of the target, Ericsson should not only
deliver high credible and trustworthy information, but also create emotional
favorable feeling of the company.

44





Comprehensive text introductions and attractive visual pictures and videos are the
best combination as message carriers
Based on the research, company’s website is the most important channel both for
men and women, which deserve to be valued and improved with big efforts.
Company’s website should have more detailed information about career path,
applying and recruitment process, successful story and testimonial from current
employees and FQAs section to provide assistance and show encouragement.
Social media is the channel that Ericsson hasn’t stepped in yet, and also the female
target actively present. Hence, a well planed communication strategy for social
media is in urgent need.
Ericsson’s employees are the biggest advantages and resources of word of mouth
campaign. It would a huge project but also the one that is worthy enough to carry
out.
University relationship is the most cost efficient way to achieve the frequency
objective. Job fairs, guest lectures and presentation, the case study materials,
sponsorships for events and campaigns are all the good ways to increase brand
awareness and shape brand attitude.
45
6. DISCUSSION & FUTURE RESEARCH
The chapter begins with further discussion about the conclusions and the thesis ends with
recommendations for further research.
6.1. DISCUSSION
In order to encourage more diversity into the organization, the analysis concludes a
recommended framework which indicates a course of actions for a company to
implement in terms of employer branding. However, the specific results are more against
R&D oriented organizations and the target is aiming at female. It may be not possible to
apply the same implementation approach to small companies. This is mainly due to the
fact that the research is based upon Ericsson’s trainee program. A communication
strategy should always base on company’s own recourse and capabilities, which means
specific strategy needs differentiating. Hence, the author suggests that the analysis and
results have more relevance to big corporations; especially the R&D oriented ones that
share the similar problems of diversity issue as Ericsson.
Although limited by the research scope, this communication framework for employer
branding still has a general value for all company’s employer branding implementation,
because the theories of marketing communication and the basic process of marketing
research methods can be applied to all communication occasions. Moreover, due to the
absence of research focused on female preferences of ideal employer, the results have
more values for showing factors that are most influential, relatively influential and less
influential for being an ideal employer. In practical, a company could ask itself: “do I have
all these characteristics? How should I communicate with potential employees?”
Strategic decision and action plan can be made through analysis of situation on a case by
case basis.
Another issue needs to be mentioned is that the research was conducted without
introducing Ericsson’s proposal of this project so as to ensure the objectivity of the
results.
6.2. FURTHER RESEARCH
Due to the time and resource limitation, the paper only proposed recommendations for
communication strategy. The further test of recommended framework of employer
branding communication therefore will be interesting to know. Comparison and
benchmarking among different companies’ employer branding communication
implementation would complement the study of this paper. Moreover, variables or
factors that are significant for being an ideal employer could be further investigated
within a larger target group for logical explanations, in order to get more comprehensive
insights of building ideal employer image. In addition, researches on the usages of
different channels for employer branding communication will be very interesting and
valuable to know, especially the new media domain. “How to leverage web 2.0 to conduct
46
effective employer branding” has already become trendy topic in both business and
academic areas.
On the other hand, diversity issue demands more efforts in studying from behavioral and
psychological perspective to get deeper understanding on female’s thinking and
behavioral pattern. Besides attracting female to apply, how to successfully retain female
talent and encourage more productivity is even more crucial and has more practical
value for organizations as well.
6.3. CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, it briefly discussed the limitations of the research due to the time and
resources restricts. The general applicability was also discussed in this chapter. Finally,
the interests of further researches will be open to the direction of web2.0 technology’s
applying in employer branding area. Meanwhile, studying of diversity issue from
behavioral and psychological perspective would also be valuable to organizations.
47
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50
8. APPENDIX
APPENDIX 1:
List of Interviewees for in-depth semi-structured interviews with senior managers
Name
Role
Responsibility
Linda Schang
Global trainee program
director
In charge of three global trainee programs:
R&D, multimedia and Finance.
Rajan.Nichani
Global trainee program
director
In charge of Exellerate trainee program
Sussane
Samuelsson
R&D Global trainee
program project manager
for 2007 and 2008
Responsible for coordinating between
different counties’ stakeholders and global
recruiting work.
Monica
Global HR manager
Responsible for global recruiting and
transaction work of eJob system’s
integrating
Anna & Johan:
Global communication
manager
In charge of the communication job among
different divisions, especially between HR
and Marketing departments.
Cecilia Bladh
Employer branding
Manager of Sweden
Mainly in charge of Sweden’s employer
branding related campaigns.
APPENDIX 2:
Interview guideline for in-depth semi-structured interviews with senior managers









What are your role & your main responsibilities?
What’s the basic process for the trainee program’s global recruiting?
Is it centralized globally and locally (they do the same) for all the job levels
(managers, thesis worker, trainees…)
Is there any third party suppliers involved in this process?
How do they position themselves within this system.(responsibility scope – do they
have special access and what is their role really )
What kind of employer brand image dose Ericsson would like to build during this
recruiting process?
What kind of activities or measures has been taken to reach the goal?
Which channels did Ericsson use to reach the target group?
What are satisfactions and dissatisfactions of the recruiting process?
51
APPENDIX 3:
Interview guideline for focus group

What was your role (backgrounds) before entering Ericsson? How do you identify
yourself as personal characteristics?
a. Ambitious
b. Creative
c. Responsible
d. Flexible
e. Curious
f. Team player
g. Leader
h. Entrepreneurial

What were the leading reasons for applying for Ericsson? And R&D specifically –is
there any expectations of this program? What made you finally decide to work for
Ericsson? What (Especially when you have other options) – what was the key point
in joining the program

Where did you know about this program? What was your impression of the
recruitment process? How do you describe it - What impression of Ericsson is given
by recruitment materials and activities for the R&D trainee program? What was your
impression of Ericsson’s people – how did you hear about it

What did you think of Ericsson before you start working here? What do you think of
Ericsson now? How does your image of the organization change as you become more
of insider? Do you think there is a gap between what is inside and what is outside?

Would you recommend or advise a friend of a colleague from your university, your
network to apply for the program and what would you tell them about the program,
how do you present it?

What are the top 5 characteristics that an Ericsson’s R&D trainee candidate should
have to qualify for the program?

How do you define leadership? What is a leader? What traits does a leader have?
(according for you)

What is your opinion on Ericsson’s core values? And how do you see them used or
implemented within the company. Since you have been into different Ericsson
branches, is the culture the same everywhere? Besides what you’ve been educated
about the core value of Ericsson, is there anything else you feel that could be
Ericsson’s core value also? – Do you think it is time to re-define the core values?

What makes Ericsson an ideal place to work for?

In an economical crisis like this, how would you act as a leader? How do you identify
who are the right people to stay and how do you feel as a leader, do you feel
de-motivated? Do you work harder to save the company?
52
APPENDIX 4:
Interview questions for external target students
1. Country:
2. Gender:
3. Engineer - Non engineer
4. Work-experience:
5. Education:
6. How do you describe yourself as a person? What are your hobbies in free time?
7. In which industries do you wish to work most?
8. How do you describe yourself as an employee?
9. How do you perceive yourself as a leader?
10. What are your career goals? (Female and male) What is your ideal career path?
11. What attracts you most when the job is offered by an employer?
12. What are your main decision factors when receiving several offers? Would you
choose a big company that have good reputation or a small company with great
opportunities? Why?
13. Please name top 5 ideal employers
14. How much do you expect to earn and how long is your ideal working hours per
week?
15. Have you considered applying for any training programs? Do you know that you
get paid from the first day of training programs?
16. What kind of media channels do you usually use when looking for jobs?
17. What kind of information you wish to know from career websites?
18. What makes an ideal working place? How important of these points to choose a
place to work?
Important
Work-Life balance
International opportunities
Contribute to the society
Inspiring colleagues
Good manager
Competitive salary and benefits
Innovative environment
Rapid career advancement
Flexible working time
Secure employment
Fun & Cool
53
Not important
APPENDIX 5:
Online survey questions
1. I am a:
a. Male
b. Female
2. I come from ___________ country
3. I am:
a. Engineer
b. Non-engineer
4. Where do you look for jobs?
a. TV ads
e. Job agency website
b. Posters
f.
University campaigns
c. Magazines & newspapers
g. Friends and family
d. Company’s site
h. Other:
5. Are you interested in & considering applying to trainee programs or graduate
programs?
a. Yes
b. No
6. Did you know that trainee programs offer full time work contracts from day one?
a. Yes
b. No
7. What sort of information do you want to find on the company’s career site?
a. A typical work day
d. Why you should work
b. Inspirational/success
there
stories
e. What is expected from
c. Career path
you?
54
f.
Its values, culture and
g. Corporate responsibility
environment
h. Other
8. How do you prefer to know about the company and its environment?
a. Videos
d. Groups in Facebook,
b. Texts
MySpace or other
c. Blogs
e. YouTube channel
9. Please write in ONE word what is the first thing that pops in your mind when you
think of these companies
a. Cisco
e. Intel
b. Google
f.
c. Ericsson
g. P&G
d. IBM
h. Sony Ericsson
McKinsey
10. What do you think of these companies as place to work for?
Company
A dream
Great
Google
Sony Ericsson
IBM
Microsoft
Cisco
Intel
Ericsson
55
Good
Boring
Who?
China Mobile
Accenture
GE
P&G
L’Oreal
HSBC
56
11. What do you think are the most important characteristics of an ideal work place?
Very
Impor
tant
Statements
Having a good relationship with my
colleagues and supervisors
A company that provides a career path
A company that has a challenging
environment
Fun and happy working environment
Working for a company that produces high
quality of products and services
Working for a company that I feel I could
belong to and fit in
A company that contributes to society and
changes people’s lives
A company that has an entrepreneurial
environment
Salary and benefits – a great compensation
package
International career opportunities
Work life balance
Other
57
Impor
tant
Not
impor
tant
I am
neutra
l
It does
not
matter
TRITA-CSC-E 2010:087
ISRN-KTH/CSC/E--10/087--SE
ISSN-1653-5715
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