Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study in the U.S.A. and in the Czech Republic

69 TRENDY EKONOMIKY A MANAGEMENTU TRENDS ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT ISSN 1802-8527 (Print) / ISSN 2336-6508 (Online) 2017 29(2): 69–81 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13164/trends.2017.29.69 Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study in the U.S.A. and in the Czech Republic Zuzana Wroblowská Abstract Purpose of the article: The author’s interest focuses on human factor of brand managers, as brands and their added value are considered to be among the most important sources of competitive advantage for business in a competitive marketplace. There is no doubt that for succeeding in their job role, brand managers must have knowledge, dispositional traits and concomitant soft skills that arise from these traits. The purpose of the article is to provide the insight into the offering of brand manager posts in the Czech Republic and in the U.S.A. and to analyse the collected data with the special interest in finding the answer whether the employers are searching the brand managers possessing personal dispositions and skills of knowledge workers, and if there is no significant difference in the requirements between the Czech and American recruitment advertisers. Methodology/methods: For a successful empirical research, the content analysis method by Berelson was used to study the texts in the advertisements publicly available on career portals. The statistical verifications of results were conducted using the chi-square test. Scientific aim:The goal of the primary survey was to provide the answers to the research questions that arise from the following research assumptions: (1) employers do not publish different requirements for candidates for the job of Brand Manager in the U.S.A. and in the Czech Republic, (2) the set of requirements for candidates for the job of Brand Manager in the U.S.A. will confirm that a brand manager is one of the workers who has skills and personality prerequisites expected from knowledge workers. Findings: The results of the actual research project confirmed the fundamental need for excellent communication skills (69.0%) and presentation skills (65.5%). Unlike employers in the Czech Republic, the American companies are more interested in people with a high degree of responsibility (41.4%) that is the third highest relative frequency of identified traits. About one third of American advertisements had requirements for the high degree of creativity, conceptual thinking and analytical skills of candidates for the position of Brand Manager. During the comparison of the data results gathered in both countries, there were recorded significant differences practically in all analysed groups of personality traits, behavioural competencies and so-called soft skills. Statistical verification confirmed the shift of requirements in the group of performance prerequisites and abilities, as well as in the group of interpersonal skills and abilities. Conclusions: Comparison of frequencies of requirements placed on candidates for the position of Brand Manager in the U.S.A. and in the Czech Republic indicated differences, but Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 70 it does not mean that the US employers are less demanding. The differences in the employers’ expectations supported by a set of psychological requirements placed on candidates for the position of Brand Manager inspire the discussion and are the reason for a deeper investigation of the job roles in product management. The findings indicated that employers are looking for employees possessing personal dispositions and skills of a knowledge worker nevertheless the ability to innovate is not presented in the American job advertisements as often as in the Czech Republic. Keywords: abilities, brand manager, knowledge worker, personality traits, product management, recruitment advertisement, skills JEL Classification: D83, M12, M31, M51 Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 71 Introduction Nowadays, brands belong to a pool of resources that generate much of the company market value. These are the brand managers who are responsible for everyday tactical manoeuvres in a number of organizations, and in the overwhelming majority of companies, they also manage the building of the assigned brands on a strategic level. The social forces and trends that led to the transformation of most markets in the first decade of the 21st century and which lead companies to create new approaches and practices have a significant impact on their current working conditions. As nothing indicates that the pace of change will slow down, according to Kotler, Keller (2013), there is no doubt that marketers will need to acquire new skills and competences, but they leave it to the readers to know what specific personal qualities they can succeed in. In this situation, there is an opportunity to find out in the form of empirical research what requirements the companies, which face hard competition and have to constantly transform their resources into sustainable competitive advantages, place on their brand managers. Thanks to the repeatedly validated methodology of analysing the content of recruitment advertisements for the positions of product managers and brand managers in the Czech Republic, the data was collected again from publicly available recruitment ads and analysed by the Berelson method. By choosing the US labour market, the author has pursued two goals, both to verify the situation where brand management and product management have their roots, and to analyse the offer of vacancies in the country where are brand owners at the highest rungs of the ladder of the Interbrand “Best Global Brands” ranking. In the current article, the data obtained by US primary research will be compared with already published results gathered in the same year in the Czech Republic. The analysis will also be used to complement the view of the brand manager as a knowledge worker, as the author pursues the secondary goal of inspiring the training providers of talented young people and help the talents orientate themselves in the offers of the labour market where the knowledge and ability to acquire, expand, and share knowledge significantly influences the success of the individual, the team and the entire company. 1. Theoretical Background The role of marketing is defined and characterised by many authors (McDonald, Wilson, 2012; Kotler, Keller, 2013 and others). Kotler, Keller (2013, p. 35) refered to the definition published on the website of the American Marketing Association which states that “Marketing is the activity, the set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Product management is the part of marketing management and includes the whole range of activities concerning product development and brand management in target markets. Kapferer (1998, p. 189) makes the definition of “brand” referring to the fact that it is widely known that, at the same time, a brand is a symbol, a word, an object and a concept and points out that a real brand management begins with a strategy and a consistent, integrated vision. Its central concept is the brand identity (Kapferer, 1998). The second key concept is the brand value, see Aaker (2003), who included the relationship between the value and brand loyalty. A strong brand identity has both functional and emotional characteristics and consists of three connecting instruments: a clear differentiating brand positioning, a distinct brand personality that gives the brand a face, and a consistent brand communication (Floor, 2006). Keller (2013, p. 31) contrasts a product and a brand Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 72 defining “a product is anything we can offer to the market for attention” and explaining “a brand is therefore more than a product because it can have dimensions that differentiate it in some way from other products designed to satisfy the same need”. Internal branding is at least as important to a company as an external branding strategy. A deeper understanding of a brand by all employees is crucial, especially for companies that provide services (Floor, 2006; Keller, 2008). To derive requirements for brand managers is to state their role in the process of strategic brand management, where the strategic, tactical and operative tasks are as follows: (1) identifying and establishing brand positioning, (2) planning and implementing brand marketing programs, (3) measuring and interpreting brand performance, and (4) growing and sustaining brand equity (Keller, 2013, p. 58). According to the research on the intellectual capital by Nguyen et al. (2015), brand managers should notably focus on promoting the concept of intellectual, behavioural and sensorial experience of a customer with the brands. Brands are widely accepted as key intangible assets, as stated by Abdolmohammadi (2005 in Nguyen et al., 2015). The set of intangible assets is the intellectual capital which, for the purpose of this article, can be defined, according to Subramaniam, Youndt (2005), as the sum of all the knowledge available to the organization and can be used to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Intellectual capital, which is usually divided primarily into structural capital and human capital, was incorporated by Ulrich (1998 in Armstrong, 2012) into a list of competitiveness problems. Ulrich explained that the cause of this difficult issue is the fact that it is difficult to ensure that companies are able to find, adapt, reward and retain human capital in the form of talented individuals whom they need and who can become the engine of a global organization responsive to both their customers as well as the ever-expanding possibilities of technology. According to Bontis (1999 in Armstrong, 2012), human capital is represented by the skills, intelligence and experience of people, which gives the organization its unique character. Knowledge management and human capital have a close relationship because knowledge is one of the attributes of human capital. High level of education and specialized skills combined with the ability to apply skills to identify and solve problems are distinguishing characteristics of knowledge workers (Drucker, 1993). Knowledge workers are not a homogeneous group. In her list of classifications, Mládková (2008, p. 21) mentioned the original classification KWP where the dimensions are value added to performance by tacit knowledge and so- -called golden skills required by the position or necessary for work. She counted autonomy which she interprets as willingness to take the responsibility, creativity, and ability to solve problems among the “golden skills” of knowledge workers. Personal determinants in close relation with performance are dispositional traits which determine how workers fulfil the given tasks (Štikar et al., 2003). Psychological attributes of a personality are usually called personality traits and they are smaller units than competencies. There are many definitions of competencies. Some of them put more emphasis on attributes, some on behaviour. This paper is based on the approach to competencies as “definitions of skills and behaviours that organizations expect their staff to practice in their work” (Rankin, 2002 in Armstrong, 2012). Noe and his colleges define competencies as a set of skills, knowledge, and abilities and personal characteristics that enable employees to perform their jobs (Noe et al., 2017, p. 701). As it is mentioned by Noe et al. (2017), knowledge workers are in demand because the companies need their specialized skills and the jobs requiring them are growing. If referrals and internal talent banks do not Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 73 offer suitable candidates, the external sources of candidates, such as recruitment agencies, newspaper advertisements and online recruitment, when the main types of online recruitment websites are corporate websites, agency websites and job sites, such as Monster.com and HotJobs.com, are used (Armstrong, 2012; Noe et al., 2017). Social networking websites are found by employers as a source with a good reach, among which is the largest career networking site LinkedIn that is moving to the largest job board with more than 300 million profiles, as it was reported by Wroblowská (2016c). The growing use of iPods and iPads has also opened up a new and rich avenue to get information from employer to applicant (Armstrong, 2012; Noe et al., 2017). 2. Objectives and research methodology The aim of the paper is to present and discuss the partial results of the author’s empirical research project and to link them with the knowledge base that concerns brand management, human factor and knowledge management. The empirical research is designed to review the requirements which are faced by candidates for brand manager positions at the start-up phase of the recruitment process, specifically at the time of the publication of job vacancies. For the purposes of this paper, the analysis is limited to sources of information about personal predispositions and so-called soft skills which are based on the characteristics and capabilities that arise from these traits. The purpose of the analysis is to compare the sets of requirements published on job sites in the United States of America and in the Czech Republic and to answer the following research assumptions: (1) employers do not publish different requirements for candidates for the job of brand manager in the U.S.A. and in the Czech Republic, (2) and the set of requirements for candidates for the job of brand manager in the U.S.A. will confirm that a brand manager is one of the workers who has skills and personality prerequisites expected from knowledge workers. When resolving the issue, an interdisciplinary approach was applied as the understanding of both theoretical background and analysis of the current situation regarding the problem and the tendency of its development required research in multiple professional disciplines. When performing the empirical research itself, the method of content analysis according to Berelson (1952 in Gavora, 2000) was applied. The method is suitable for collecting a lot of information from available recruitment advertisements placed for the candidates for vacant positions in marketing. When researching the advertisements for free vacancies in the three selected states of the U.S.A. (Illinois, New York and California), the main selection criteria of the source of information were its availability and ability to present requirements for candidates and the information about the vacancy in the broadest scope possible. In four weeks in October 2015, the advertisements for positions entitled as “Brand Manager” were gathered from publicly available advertisements on the Monster.com job website. Thus were gathered 60 advertisements. If the position had a different title, such as “Senior Brand Manager”, the advertisement was not included in the set. After removing duplicates, the final sample showed 58 advertisements. The data segments were transferred into an electronic form. The data processing was performed in line with the procedure applied in the thesis by Wroblowská (2011) and elaborated on in other papers and the monograph of the author (Wroblowská, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) which allows for international comparison. The data segments were transferred in an electronic form. The work with the transferred texts was subjected to the so-called manifest content analysis according to Plichtová (1996 in Miovský, 2006) when only the explicit content of the text is examined. Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 74 There were analysed the requirements which the frequency of occurrence exceeded 5% in at least one of the compared data files. On the significance level of 0.1%, 1%, and 5%, it was tested whether the null hypothesis regarding the independence of the analysed variable on the sign representing the country realizing the content analysis of advertisements can or cannot be rejected. The test criterion was Pearson chi-square test. 3. Results This paper presents and discusses data and results which are directly related to the paper’s goal. Partial results related to requirements for knowledge, specialized skills and transferable general competencies will be presented in another paper that is now being revised. 3.1 Secondary data applied in the research project When preparing the methodology of the independent research, no new information was available from the empirical research which meant to research the human factor of brand managers apart from those which had been published already, see Wroblowská (2011, 2016a, 2016b, 2016d). The career portal Jobs.cz was the source of analysed recruitment advertisements in the Czech Republic. 3.2 Content analysis of requirements placed on brand managers The sorted data segments from the researched advertisement texts are presented in the form of frequency chart in Table 1. At the same time, the table gives the information about the results of the survey conducted by Wroblowská (2016d) in the Czech Republic. The sample of analysed Czech advertisements consisted of 56 advertisements. In the U.S.A., when applying the same selection rules, the sample of single advertisements reached the number of 58. Without meaning to get ahead of the discussion, it is evident from Table 1 that the advertisers used terms defining psychological dispositions or traits, as well as terms from the field of competencies (such as leadership) and performance dimensions (such as strong interpersonal skills). Comparison of frequencies of requirements for candidates for the position of “Brand Manager” in the US and in the Czech Republic is illustrated by Figure 1. Table 2 signals that the representation of individual characters differs in certain evaluated groups of requirements. The statistically significant difference in the distribution of frequencies of analysed requirements was confirmed for &=0.01 and &=0.05 in all tested groups. The changes in the representation of the requirements in individual groups are statistically insignificant on the level of &=0.001 for the group of “interpersonal skills and abilities” classified under letter “I” and for performance prerequisites and abilities, which is the group marked with letter “P”. On the significant level of &=0.001 the null hypothesis was rejected while testing the third group marked with “O” that join various traits connected to motivation, self-control and other personality dispositions and traits. Table 3 gives an idea of the procedure of applying the independence test. The test criterion was the Pearson chi-square test. On the significance level of 0.1%, 1%, and 5%, it was tested whether the null hypothesis regarding independence of the analysed variables on the sign representing the country offering vacant positions can or cannot be rejected. A statistically significant difference in the distribution of frequencies of skills, personal dispositions and qualities integrated into groups of interpersonal skills and abilities was confirmed for &=0.01 and &=0.05, as it was proved by calculations in Table 3. The representation of the individual characters in all tested groups of requirements differs, see Table 2. Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 75 Figure 1. Comparison of relative frequency of dispositional traits and so-called soft skills applied to candidates for the position of “Brand Manager” in the US and in the Czech Republic in 2015. Source: Author’s own study. Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 76 Table 1. Requirements applied to brand managers by advertisers in the US and in the Czech Republic. Source: Author’s own study. Table 2. Overview of results of individual requirement groups testing. Source: Author’s own study. Zuzana Wroblowská: Identification and Comparison of Requirements Imposed on Brand Managers: Cross-National Study ... 77 Table 3. Two-dimensional analysis for a group of interpersonal skills and abilities. Source: Author’s own study.