The Contribution of Employer Branding to the Success of Place Branding : How Generation Y and Young Professionals Make Choices in a Branded Society

• Purpose – This study contributes to prior research by investigating the contribution of attractiveemployers, i.e. strong employer brands, to the attractivity of places, i.e. place brands.Design/methodology/approach – Interviews with 35 individuals belonging to the Generation Y cohortand four focus groups were conducted. A number of categories that define an attractive employerwere set up based on patterns from the interviews and focus groups. Finally, a survey was sent to aninternational set of students to find out how they view and approach ideal employers.Findings – The results suggest employer location to be one among a few criteria of a workplace thatGeneration Y individuals see as very important. The attractiveness of a place was found to have astrong impact on the attractiveness of an employer. Both concepts have become very important forplaces and employers in recent years.Practical implications – Although some strong place brands mainly derive their benefits from tourismand other stakeholders than employees, there are strong reasons to consider the employers active inthe place at hand, since they constitute a solid basis of attractiveness that makes the place lessvoluntary to changes in e.g. tourism flows and other flows with a strong seasonal component, thusattractive employers contribute to making the place less vulnerable to financial fluctuations.Originality/value – Despite conceptual similarities, the interest for research that attempts tounderstand the interplay between place branding and employer branding has been very limited,although the interest for both areas has increased significantly in the last decade. This article is an attempt to deal with this challenging and potentially fruitful connection.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Place branding

Place attractiveness

Generation Y

generational cohorts

Employer Branding

Ideal Employer

Branded society

Millennials

företagsekonomi

Business Administration

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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