Designing an alignment model of the employee's personal branding and the Corporate brand in the fintech industry with Intercompany Customer Experience Management

Objective: Since the employee establishes working and emotional relationships with customers through formal and informal interactions; These relationships should be aligned with the company's organizational identity. Therefore, the current research was conducted with the aim of providing a practical model for companies active in the fintech industry, especially in the field of payment, with the title of designing an alignment model of employee personal branding and the Corporate brand with an inter-company customer experience management approach.

Methods: The research paradigm is pragmatic and its approach is inductive. In terms of its overall purpose and orientation, it is a developmental-applied study, and in terms of its method, it is an exploratory research conducted using a mixed method (qualitative-quantitative). In this research, the method of systematic Grounded was used to design to design a model in the qualitative section The statistical population in the qualitative section was expert university professors in the field of branding and active supervisors, consultants, assistants, and managers in the country's payment sector in Tehran who were familiar with the topics of personal branding, corporate branding, and customer experience management The snowball sampling method was used for sampling, which is a non-probability method. Sampling adequacy was achieved by theoretical sampling method, which after conducting semi-structured interviews with 7 university professors and 17 experts in the field of payment, theoretical saturation was achieved and data collection was stopped. The statistical population in the quantitative section was experts, heads and managers of units, and vice presidents of various areas of the FinTech industry as customers of payment companies in Tehran who were familiar with marketing, branding, and customer orientation issues. Using the convenience sampling method, 450 people were selected as sample members. The method of data collection in the quantitative section, which was conducted using a descriptive-survey method, was a researcher-made questionnaire based on the findings from the qualitative section.

Results: Research findings in the qualitative section that were obtained after the coding process based on three stages of open coding, axial coding and selective coding, it showed that a total of 140 concept were obtained from the collected data and through coding it was transformed into 35 sub-categories and finally 6 main categories related to the main subject of the research. Also, structural equation modeling and SmartPLS3 software were used to quantitatively analyze the data obtained from the proportionality questionnaire, and it indicated that the alignment model of personal branding of the employee and the Corporate brand in the fintech industry has a favorable fit with the approach of inter-company customer experience management.

Conclusion: The results of the research showed that the dimensions of alignment between employee personal branding and the company brand as a central category can be classified into 6 dimensions: brand identity, brand endorsement, Brand Allegiance, brand positioning, Brand Consistent Behaviour, and Brand communication, which are derived from a total of 27 concepts. The outcomes of the research model were also categorized into individual outcomes, company-related outcomes, customer-related outcomes, and social outcomes. The results of the hypothesis test in the quantitative section also showed that causal conditions affect the central category, the central category affects strategies, contextual conditions affect strategies, intervening conditions affect strategies, and strategies affect outcomes.