The progression in employer branding and employee-based brand equity: Scholar API-based systematic literature review

Aim/purpose – This paper systematically reviews the literature of employer branding (EB) and employee-based brand equity (EBBE) using the Application Programming Interface (API) provided by Google Scholar. While combining EB and EBBE this paper considers both the perspective of current, as well as potential employees and provides a systematization of knowledge related to organizational attractiveness and the impact of employees on the organizational brand. Design/methodology/approach – This study reviews the progresses in employer branding since 2009 to 2022, therefore ranging from the time that the concept of employee-based brand equity was proposed by King and Grace (2009). A four-stage process empowered by was used to review the existing literature: 1) to identify the current tendencies Google Trends search was applied; 2) to search the databases and to identify the most active contributors (publishers and authors) the scholar API was used; 3) PRISMA-S checklist was applied to ensure the rigorousness of systematic literature review; 4) to expose the interdependence of the concepts a bibliometric analysis was conducted using VOSviewer 1.6.18 software; 5) finally this study proposes a comprehensive framework of employer branding. Findings – The research on employer branding has grown substantially in the past decades and various conceptual and empirical studies have advanced the knowledge of both employer and internal branding. Still, the progression in the literature is narrow due to complexity of the field. This study identifies the main dimensions of employer branding and offers a comprehensive framework to systematize the current state of art. Research implications/limitations – The multidisciplinary nature of employer branding has led to a dispersed understanding of constructs and applications in the academic studies. This study focuses on the marketing/branding perspective and does not consider the studies grounded purely in human resource management. Originality/value/contribution – This study increases our understanding of the current literature and new research trends in employer branding and employee-based brand equity. Additionally, it explains the link between EB and EBBE. While applying the recently developed scholar API and artificial intelligence empowered software to conduct the systematic review, this study creates a procedure that can be used by researchers in an array of fields.