How Does Friendship Motivate Frontline Employees to Exhibit Brand Ambassador Behavior: The Important Role of Well-Being and Helping Behavior

Training employees to become image ambassadors is an important manifestation of an organization’s internal branding. However, most tourism destination marketing studies consider external image-building and pay little attention to the brand ambassador behavior of internal members. This study investigates 208 front-line employees in two tourist attractions and constructs a structural equation model including workplace friendship, employee well-being, employee helping behavior, and employee brand ambassador behavior. The results show that: (1) workplace friendship has a significant promoting effect on employee brand ambassador behavior; (2) employee helping behavior mediates the relationships between workplace friendship and employee well-being, and between workplace friendship and employee brand ambassador behavior; (3) employee well-being mediates the relationship between workplace friendship and employee brand ambassador behavior; (4) employee helping behavior and employee well-being play a chain-mediating role in the relationship between workplace friendship and employee brand ambassador behavior. Our findings not only enrich the theoretical understanding of outcomes of workplace friendship, but also provide important guidance for tourist attractions regarding internal brand marketing.

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