Brand-Specific Transformational Leadership: Analysis of the Role of the Employee’s Brand-Building Behaviour on Brand Evangelism in Insurance Companies

  Branding evangelism, as a new and growing phenomenon, includes positive recommendations to others about the brand, as well as measures to weaken rival brands. None of the existing models has considered the independent role of the evolving leadership variable of the brand and the brand-building behaviours of the employees, and only the parameters of brand trust, brand identity, brand affinity and purchase intentions have been investigated. Given the importance of this issue, and given that current studies often ignore the view of branding practices of employees in this regard, and, on the other hand, given the limited body of research in the area of ​​evangelism and the gaps in the literature of brand evangelism; this study seeks to measure the role of brand transformational leadership and branding behaviours on brand awareness in insurance companies. Therefore, to realize if there is a relationship between the evolving leadership of the brand and the evangelism of the brand can be considered a worthwhile topic.

The present research is applied in terms of purpose and in terms of data collection method, it is descriptive of survey type. The statistical population of this research includes the representatives of the commercial insurance companies of the cities of Semnan and Urmia. According to the random sampling method, 171 employees of the insurance representative of Semnan city (group 1) and 71 employees of Urmia City (Group 2) were selected as samples. A Likert scale based questionnaire was used for data collection and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the research data.

The findings of this study indicate that brand-specific transformational leadership has a significantly positive effect on participation, oral advertising and survival. In addition, there is a significantly positive relationship between the variables of participation, oral advertising and survival with brand evangelism. The research showed that brand evangelism not only helps maintain customers and make them re-purchases, but also promotes brand advertising and customer support. It also reduces the cost of marketing and advertising.

Transformational leaders often contribute to their participation by emphasizing participation in collective activities and providing opportunities for sharing experiences among employees. Brand-specific transformational leadership causes increase in employee accountability and more willingness to conduct citizen behaviors. However, it is clear that the leader cannot provide the grounds for the development and increase in the effectiveness of the staff, unless through sharing and dissemination of information in the organization and the consideration of the ideas and opinions of employees can create opportunities for the greater participation of employees and promoting their creativity and innovation.
Since the transformational leadership of a particular brand has a positive and significant impact on employee participation, it is suggested to leaders or managers of insurance agents to consider rewards for their employees in exchange of an increase in employee participation in brand development of the organization. Transformational leaders often contribute to their participation through the emphasis on participation in collective activities and providing the opportunity to share experiences among employees. For this reason, companies have to create good communication channels with their customers and predict the extent of customer participation in these channels. Companies can also encourage their customers to express their interests, requests, and needs. At the same time, employees should also be able to clearly explain their expectations of customers in order to provide desirable services.