Employee’s personal branding as a competitive advantage : a managerial approach

The intellectual capital of each company is represented by each employee that it has - this is its most valuable resource and is very difficult to be copied by competitors. This paper aims to bring into the readers' attention, aspects related to employee's personal branding as seen from a managerial perspective. What makes the employees visible? How do the employees differ from one company to another and what makes them strong? Why should the personal branding of the employees be considered a competitive advantage? These are a few questions the study aims to answer and this willbe considered useful when creating guidelines for companies' sustainable development through strategy, attraction through talent brand, particularly within the emergent economies. The results have been drawn from an exploratory qualitative research among 12 managers and supervisors from private companies in Bucharest. In depth interviews were used as to collect the data. Three hypotheses were tested and confirmed corresponding to the above mentioned questions. The study presents directions on how the managers view the construction of the employee's personal brand and its relevance on the emerging markets. It represents a useful guideline for the future studies.