Living the Brand? An Ethnographic Study of Employee Branding in the UK Fashion Retail Sector

This project aims to critically evaluate the role that the brand plays in mediating the production and consumption of meaning at work (Brannan, Parsons & Priola, 2015) with a view to improving employee engagement and wellbeing. Based on an ethnographic study of both head office and shopfloor management practices in three UK fashion retailers the project aims to explore how employers strategically leverage the brand to mould workplace meanings and engender employee engagement through processes of recruitment and training. It then examines how these attempts to 'brand' employee's lives impact on their work experience on the shopfloor. While previous studies have tended to look at either/or of these perspectives, this thesis aims to bring them together to evaluate the role of the brand within organisational life and to examine how the 'brand' might function to wed workers to insecure jobs but also possibly reduce feelings of insecurity.