Employee brand advocacy in social media: employers' absent roles.

Abstract

This paper examines whether employers in SMEs within the food and drinks sector motivates their employees to adopt and use eWOM to promote their businesses. Another consideration is whether employees adopt and use eWOM because they are provided with incentives from their employer. Finally does the adoption and use of eWOM result in brand advocacy for the business. The research avails of quantitative methods and applied elements from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model to a random sample of SMEs with the food and drink sector. Data from 150 online questionnaires were analysed using partial least squares structural equations modelling (PLS-SEM) software Smart-PLS. This paper examines three constructs: employer motivate their employees to adopt and use eWOM. The adoption and usage of eWOM results in brand advocacy. However, employee are not incentivised by their employers to adopt and use eWOM.