Organizational Knowledge as an Element of Employer Branding: Example of Polish TOP 500 Enterprises

Abstract

Studies developed by management practitioners and theoreticians suggest a growing interest in organizational knowledge (OK) and a broadening under-standing of the term. Currently, the concept encompasses not only a set of codified data or information but also knowledge accumulated in the brains of employees. This knowledge poses a challenge for the processes of its positioning, processing and dissemination. This mainly concerns so-called tacit knowledge, i.e. hidden knowledge of which employees themselves may not even be aware. The method of processing such OK is significantly linked to subjective perception of employees, which, in turn, is currently an important element of employer branding (EB) communication. The purpose of this study is to analyze, on the basis of a research, the links between the approach to OK represented by the examined organizations and their EB activities in the context of transformations associated with the youngest employees of the generation Z entering the labor market. The research was conducted in 2019 among organizations ranked as the TOP 500 in Poland. The TOP 500 list includes the organizations that had the best market and financial performance in 2018 according to the methodology used by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper. The analyses use the STATISTICA program. The following tests were used: the Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA on ranks, the Mann-Whitney test, the median test and the Pearson’s chi-square test. The strength of correlations between the variables was evaluated by means of the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. The results of the research suggest that the leading market organizations still see OK in the traditional way, as a resource that should be protected both by individuals and by the organization. Consequently, the resource is not fully used or shared between employees what affect company’s image. as ensures its homogeneity and easy processing. The closed questions were constructed in such a way as to ensure their theoretical, logical and con-tent-related correctness. The uses a fragment of the research concerning the EB and level of organizational climate in the examined enter-prises. The demographic and EB questions are original and they were formulated by the members of the research team of the Department of Applied Sociology and Human Resource Management of the Faculty of Management of the Cz ę stochowa University of Technology, whereas the questions concerning the OK were developed on the basis of a publication by Krot and Lewicka (2016).