Is there a bigger and better future for employer branding? Facing up to innovation, corporate reputations and wicked problems in SHRM

Employer branding is becoming an increasingly important topic for research and in multinational enterprises (MNEs) because it plays directly into their reputation, talent management and employee engagement agendas. In this, we argue that the potential effects of employer branding have yet to be fully because current theory and practice have failed to connect this internal of marketing and branding to the key reputational and innovation agendas MNEs, both of which are at the heart of another strategic agenda – effective governance. However, these agendas are characterised by ‘wicked problems’ MNEs, which have their origins in competing logics in strategic human resource (SHRM). These problems need to be articulated and understood before can be addressed. This paer proceeds by (1) setting out a definition and model of branding and how it potentially articulates with corporate governance, and organisational reputations, (2) discussing and analysing the ‘wicked ’ resulting from the sometimes contradictory logics underpinning innovation corporate reputations and SHRM in MNEs and (3) evaluating the potential of branding as a contribution to the third SHRM approach – HR strategy-inaction – as a way of resolving three particularly wicked problems in MNEs. We with some ideas for research and practice on the future for empl