Enhancing institutional reputation through personal branding: a study of employee advocacy in Indian academia

This paper examines how such personal branding influences Indian academicians university professors to perform as organizational evangelists. It investigates the processes of perceived value of personal branding as a mediator in this relationship and digital literacy as a potential moderator. A quantitative strategy was adopted and data were collected from 449 Indian professors belonging to different disciplines using a structured questionnaire. Along with confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis, structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data. The findings indicate that, even though perceived value plays a minor mediating role, employee advocacy behavior is strongly influenced by personal branding, the support of the organization and the identity of the occupation. Professional identity and advocacy are positively moderated by digital literacy and faculty members who are tech-savvy are more competent to be advocates. The research contributes to the necessity of resonating institutional strategies to faculty branding, and underlines how digital competencies can support raising institutional visibility and competitiveness.