, vol. 2, issue 3, 2015.
It is not only financial competitiveness that the survival of a nowadays organization depends on. It is no less relevant for organizations to justify their existence in the eyes of their multiple stakeholders. Respectively organizations face increasing pressure to act in a socially responsible manner (Buciuniene and Kazlauskaite 2012).
To demonstrate their corporate social responsibility (CSR), organizations develop codes of ethics. Human resources management (HRM) plays a critical role in achieving the above aim, throw performing its functions in an ethical manner.
The association between HRM and CSR is twofold. On the one hand, HRM, as a management function of an organization, can be looked upon as an object of CSR. Socially responsible organizations are believed to be taking better care of their employees and continuously seeking to improve their working conditions and well-being. The latter are definitely a prerogative of HRM. On the other hand, it is through an organization's employees that actual CSR manifests in everyday activities of an organization. Even more they can be viewed as an indicator of CSR (Buciuniene and Kazlauskaite 2012). Such activities expose the organization's social responsibility to the public through their everyday interaction with customers and other external stakeholders inside and outside the organization (Shoemaker et al., 2006).
As the intangible assets become the crucial factor for success for a company in a highly competitive market, a brand, being a valuable intangible asset, is a part of the market capital of the company.
At the present time, the meaning of the brand concept has undergone considerable changes. Earlier brands related exclusively to products and services and were mainly defined as personified trademarks. Nowadays the semantic field “brand” has broadened considerably. Due to interdisciplinary studies in marketing and HRM in the middle of 1990s the employer brand concept emerged (Kucherov and zavyalova 2012).
Employer branding has emerged from applying marketing principles to the field of HRM. This means that the employment experience is seen as a product and employees are seen as consumers of this product (Lievens et al., 2007). Thus, employer branding could be defined as application of branding principles and technologies to HRM.
Employer branding (EB) is a term often used to describe how organizations market their offerings to potential and existing employees, communicate with them and maintain their loyalty, “promoting, both within and outside the firm, a clear view of what makes a firm different and desirable as an employer” (Jiang and Iles 2011, p.98). In other words, employer branding allows the organization to differentiate itself from other employers competing for talent and to attract applicants (Foster et al., 2010). Here, we will focus our views on the employees within the company, because they more be affected by applying HRM ethics, besides their perception about the CRS are composed, which in turn impact the image of the organization as an employer.
Also, this research develops integrative approaches to HRM ethics, CSR and marketing by focusing on the customer and employee stakeholders. Customers expect that the products and services they buy are sourced and produced, and can be used and disposed of, in socially responsible ways. Employees have similar expectations that recruitment, deployment, development and release practices embody employer commitment to ethical people management. Each stakeholder group uses its respective set of expectations to assess the CSR component of the brand value propositions that organizations offer.
It is noteworthy; however, that little research has been conducted on the CSR-HRM linkage so far. Thus, this research contributes to prior research in the field, as among other Issues it looks into the relationship between HRM ethics and CSR. Besides, there is no empirical studies illustrate the impact of the relationship between HRM And CRS on the employer brand. To be more specific, this research will study the relationship between HRM ethics, CSR and its impact on employer brand.(or) A question that arises in this context is then how the two constructs – HRM ethics and CSR – are correlated and what is their impact on the employer brand?
To achieve the aim of this research, it is divided into three main sections. In the first section a theoretical framework related to HRM ethics, CSR and employer brand is outlined. The second, empirical section begins with ……….
Finally, the conclusion section summarizes the major contributions of the research, and the implications for theory, practice and for future research.
