Gorbatov, 2018

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
published: 21 November 2018

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02238
Personal Branding: Interdisciplinary

Systematic Review and Research
Agenda
Sergey Gorbatov*, Svetlana N. Khapova and Evgenia I. Lysova
Department of Management and Organization, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Personal branding has become an important concept in management literature in recent

years. Yet, with more than 100 scholarly papers published on the concept to date, it
has developed into a fragmented area of research with a diversity of definitions and
conceptual boundaries. This paper posits that this heterogeneity of extant research
impedes theoretical and empirical advancement. To strengthen the foundation for future
work, we review the extant literature and offer an integrative model of personal branding.
Through our systematic literature review we identify the key attributes of the construct,
establish its clarity by comparing it with similar concepts in its nomological network, and
suggest the definitions of personal branding and personal brand based on the reviewed
literature. Further, we propose a theoretical model of personal branding summarizing the
Edited by: findings from the reviewed papers. The proposed model outlines the trends conducive
Deborah Anne O’Neil, to personal branding, as well as its drivers, processes, and outcomes. Finally, we
Bowling Green State University,
United States discuss ethical implications of personal branding for both scholarly work and practice.
Reviewed by: In conclusion, we outline a further research agenda for studying personal branding as a
Ana I. Jiménez-Zarco, critical career and organizational behavior activity in contemporary working environment.
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,
Spain Keywords: personal branding, personal brand, self-presentation, self-marketing, career
Teresina Torre,
Università di Genova, Italy
*Correspondence: INTRODUCTION
Sergey Gorbatov
sergey.gorbatov@student.vu.nl Marketing-born and reared, personal branding has made its definitive headway into management
science. Sitting at the junction of marketing, sociology, communication, psychology, organizational
Specialty section: behavior, and some would claim even accounting (Vitberg, 2010), personal branding has emerged
This article was submitted to as a means of attaining career success in the context of more temporary employment systems and
Organizational Psychology, project based work structures.
a section of the journal Many reasons have prompted the emergence and penetration of the concept—personal
Frontiers in Psychology
branding—into the management discourse. Among the key is a widespread shift of the
Received: 27 June 2018 responsibility for employees’ careers from organizations to individuals (Arthur and Rousseau,
Accepted: 29 October 2018 1996; Arthur, 2014; Greenhaus and Kossek, 2014). Indeed, business changes in traditionally stable
Published: 21 November 2018
sectors push thousands of lifetime workers out of jobs, e.g., because of the “greening” of the
Citation: energy sector, or massive job cuts in the call centers, and because of the advances in artificial
Gorbatov S, Khapova SN and
intelligence. More frequent career transitions require expanding and creating new networks of
Lysova EI (2018) Personal Branding:
Interdisciplinary Systematic Review
contacts, which, in turn, predicate more frequent personal rebranding activities (Schlosser et al.,
and Research Agenda. 2017). With the technological advances bringing about the ease of communication across the
Front. Psychol. 9:2238. Internet and numerous social media platforms, “careers have become personal brands that need
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02238 to be managed in a virtual age” (Gioia et al., 2014). When Peters (1997) wrote that everyone is a
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 November 2018 | Volume 9 | Article 2238

Gorbatov et al. Personal Branding: Systematic Review
CEO of his or her own company, it must have been prescient restrictions: TOPIC OR TITLE: (personal brand∗ ), Refined by:
to the labor market situation of today, where careers are Research Domains: (Social Sciences OR Arts Humanities) AND
boundaryless (psychological contract wanes) (Arthur et al., Document Types: (Article OR Review) AND Research Areas:
2005), individuals are as good as their last gig (portfolio careers) (Business Economics OR Psychology OR Communication OR
(Cawsey, 1995), and “you are your own enterprise” (the need to Social Sciences Other Topics OR Sociology), Timespan: All years,
be intelligent in career decisions) (Arthur et al., 2017). Search language=Auto. Most of the articles in the topic search
Although personal branding originated in the field of were related to the marketing studies of product branding, and,
marketing (Lair et al., 2005), there are now more than a hundred therefore, were excluded, as they were not relevant to the research
published papers on the topic across a range of disciplines. topic of personal branding. Similarly, we did not consider
These papers contribute to the growing body of literature that non-academic papers and patents. Removing the duplicates
aims to define personal branding, explain how it works, and across the topic and title search and studying the abstracts,
to conceptualize it in relation to various input and output 96 references were selected for full-text analysis. To ensure
variables. Yet, this body of literature is diverse and disconnected, that any unindexed references are included, additional Boolean
without any attempt so far to bring scholarly efforts together searches on the keywords “personal brand∗ ” were carried out
toward a more integrated understanding. No commonly accepted on EBSCO Business Source Complete restricting it by peer-
academic definitions or theoretical models exist. As the voice reviewed publications only and on Google Scholar, returning 13
of popular press on personal branding becomes increasingly and 19 additional original references respectively; top 250 hits
pervasive, painting a consistent picture that standard work is were manually reviewed in each search. After analyzing the full
obsolete, that self-fulfillment is a sine qua non of success, and that texts of the articles, 44 references were excluded for the following
organizational and personal interests are diverging (Vallas and reasons: (a) for lacking academic rigor albeit published in peer-
Cummins, 2015), science needs to step forward to corroborate reviewed journals (N = 16), (b) for lacking relevance to the topic
or refute such allegations. With this literature review we aim to of the study (N = 14), and (c) for being in a language that the
fill this gap. researcher did not know (N = 10), and for the inability to find
We analyze 100 papers on personal branding published full text articles (N = 4). A manual search in the reference lists of
in journals representing various disciplines, with the purpose the selected articled resulted in 16 additional references added to
to, firstly, synthesize all definitions of personal branding the list. Conference proceedings and papers were included. As a
stemming from different disciplines and fields of studies, and result, this current review is based on the analysis of full text of
to propose a new definition that integrates multidisciplinary 100 academic publications. This process is graphically explained
knowledge about the concept. Secondly, we establish the personal in Figure 1. Each article was subsequently analyzed in depth
branding’s construct clarity, by positioning personal branding as with the results coded under the corresponding category titles,
a distinct construct alongside other established concepts related main ones being definition, theory, model, methods, population,
to managing perceptions of others toward achieving a specific inputs, processes, outputs, study design, primary social media,
objective, such as image, fame, or self-promotion. Thirdly, we future research recommendations.
propose a conceptual model of personal branding based on Considering that the first academic papers on the topic were
the reviewed literature outlining successive inputs, processes published in 2005, the review period for this paper was set as
and outputs. Finally, a future research agenda is laid out by 2005–2017. Since 2005, there has been an uptake in scholarly
positioning personal branding as one of the essential human writing on the subject, and the growths in academic research and
activities for maintaining sustainable work and employment. writing on the topic of personal branding follows an exponential
trend line (R² = 0.7416) as illustrated in Figure 2.
METHODOLOGY
FINDINGS
This field of knowledge being fragmented and scarce, we
conducted a systematic literature review, applying wide criteria As our review reveals, research on personal branding is
to include all the extant academic research on personal branding. progressively moving from conceptualization to empirical
A systematic approach intends to remove subjectivity and bring studies, with a preference for qualitative methods. Out of the 100
about cohesion through the synthesis of available information. reviewed papers, 34 are conceptual. 42 papers used qualitative
To ensure a comprehensive approach and minimize the bias, methods, 17—quantitative, and seven used a mixed-method
where applicable, we followed the PRISMA guidelines for approach. Supplementary Table 1 lists all the reviewed papers
systematic reviews, suggested by Moher et al. (2009), related to in chronological order, together with the definition of personal
defining the research question, setting the search parameters, branding or a personal brand, the nature of conducted research
extracting and appraising the relevant data, and synthesizing and the populations studied.
the findings. We followed the literature selection process used
by Mol et al. (2015), followed by the “snowballing” technique Construct Clarity and Definitions Personal
(Greenhalgh and Peacock, 2005). An initial search by topic Branding
TM
and title on Web of Science on April 1, 2018 returned Looking through the literature, we found that despite a
1183 results from all databases after applying the following substantial number of academic articles on the topic of personal

FIGURE 1 | Review methodology process.
FIGURE 2 | Total number of academic publications (n = 98) by year included in current review. The 2018 publications (n = 2) are excluded from this graph to prevent
distortion of the exponential trend line, as the year is not over yet.
branding suggesting a diversity of definitions, there is little Construct Clarity

agreement on the exact boundaries of the concept. Therefore, While the authorship of the term “personal branding” in 1997
as the first step, it deems necessary to determine the construct is contended by Montoya and Vandehey (2002) and Peters
clarity and position it in the field of related concepts. Then, (1997), some researchers indicate the origins of the concept
we elucidate the definitions of personal branding and personal either in Goffman’s work in 1960s (Lorgnier and O’Rourke, 2011;
brand, clearly demarcating them as self-standing constructs. Khedher, 2015; Philbrick and Cleveland, 2015) or in the 1980s
We conclude this part with the analysis of the theoretical in marketing studies (Vallas and Cummins, 2015). Despite these
premises for personal branding that the earlier authors based early attempts, the academic work to research personal branding
their research in. as a self-standing concept only began in early 2000s.

Shepherd (2005) reviewed the popular literature on the in the reviewed literature. They belong to the same group for
subject and acknowledged wide acceptance of the term “personal the reason that they deal with perceptions of others of an
branding.” Some researchers use the term “self-branding” individual. However, the agency of managing those perceptions,
(Gandini, 2016), which is synonymous to personal branding. the vector of action, the nature of methods and techniques,
Still, this review finds that the term “personal branding” is and their intent are different, which gives way to distinguishing
more customary and accepted. Parmentier et al. (2013) made them one from the others. Zinko and Rubin (2015) in their
an attempt at the conceptual rapprochement among different work on personal reputation have provided a useful overview
definitions, stating that despite various names “the premise of several concepts under consideration, including reputation,
of much of what has been written is that some product status, image, fame, celebrity, pedigree, legitimacy, credibility,
branding concepts are sufficient for understanding how people branding, and impression management. In our study, we have
can position themselves to be successful in any career pursuit” chosen the following most relevant seven related concepts with
(p. 373). We hope to contribute further to greater construct their definitions, as they were most frequently mentioned in
clarity for personal branding. In order to do so, we followed relation to personal branding:
the process suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2016). We present
• Human branding. Close et al. (2011) defined human
our findings in the next four sub-sections: (1) analysis of the
brand as “persona, well-known or emerging, who are the
definitions encountered in the reviewed literature; (2) study of
subject of marketing, interpersonal, or inter-organizational
the related concepts in the nomological network of personal
communications” (p. 923). This concept comes from
branding as informed by this literature; (3) synthesis of the key
marketing, building upon the branding literature and
attributes of personal branding from the reviewed definitions
extending it from products to people (Thomson, 2006).
and analyzing presence or absence of the identified attributes in
• Impression management. Kowalski and Leary (1990) defined
the related concepts; and (4) defining personal branding and a
impression management as “the process by which individuals
personal brand.
attempt to control the impressions others form of them” (p.
Heterogeneity of Extant Definitions 34). It is the “vehicle by which professional image construction
Although the definitions encountered in the studied articles occurs” (Roberts, 2005).
are diverse, they can be grouped according to the underlying • Self-promotion. While Molyneux (2015) placed an equation
theoretical approach. We have identified two main categories mark between personal branding and self-promotion, we
of those definitions: Those based in the marketing theory and would like to disambiguate the two. Bolino et al. (2016)
those sprouting from the studies of self-presentation behaviors. view self-promotion as a distinct impression management
The “marketing” definitions (see, for example, Lair et al., 2005; technique, when actors “are inclined to highlight their
Marwick and boyd, 2011; Bendisch et al., 2013) tend to use accomplishments, take credit for positive outcomes, name-
words like “product,” “buyer,” “seller,” “market,” “added value,” drop important others, and downplay the severity of negative
“promise,” “differentiation,” or “meeting customer needs.” They events to which they are connected” (p. 384).
liken personal branding to a product branding process, using • Image. Roberts (2005) provided an authoritative point of view
similar terminology and directly applying marketing principles. on professional image, also influencing our understanding of
The “self-presentation” definitions (see, for example, Parmentier personal branding in considering the desired and perceived
et al., 2013; Molyneux, 2015; Schlosser et al., 2017) tend to components of the personal brand (see further section
include such words as “impression,” “reputation,” “individual’s on Brand Architecture). Yet, we would like to extract the
strengths,” “uniqueness,” “image,” “self-promotion,” or “identity.” “professional” part from her definition, given that image
These definitions position personal branding as a person-centric construction may occur outside of the organizational setting,
activity, focused on managing how others view the individual. so that it becomes “the aggregate of key constituents’
Although some papers use the definitions suggested by other <. . . > perceptions of one’s competence and character”
scholars, there is no commonly accepted way to define personal (p. 687).
branding in either approach. Also, we find that the existing • Reputation. Several authors liken reputation to a personal
definitions, provided in Supplementary Table 1, lack either in brand (Noble et al., 2010; Schlosser et al., 2017), yet there are
comprehensiveness, e.g., “active process of synthesizing and distinct differences between these concepts. Zinko and Rubin
packaging a personal brand to target customers, prospective (2015), noting that the research on reputation is not yet well-
employers, and an online network of colleagues” (Cederberg, developed, propose their own definition of it: “a perceptual
2017, p. 1), rigor, e.g., “planned process in which people make identity formed from the collective perceptions of others,
efforts to market themselves” (Khedher, 2015, p. 20), or both, which is reflective of the complex combination of salient
e.g., “how we want to be perceived by employers, potential personal characteristics and accomplishments, demonstrated
employers, clients, professional peers, and others in a way that behavior, and intended images presented over some period
will boost short- and long-term career prospects” (Evans, 2017, of time as observed directly and/or reported from secondary
pp. 271–272). sources, which reduces ambiguity about expected future
behavior” (p. 218). While we would disagree with the word
Related Concepts “intended” in this definition, as reputations can be formed in
There are seven related concepts, chosen for this exercise, as they the most unintended manners, this is the most robust one we
were consistently mentioned alongside with personal branding have found.

• Fame. Zinko and Rubin (2015) suggested that fame equals is to differentiate oneself in the emerging attention economy
reputation less predictability, since fame can be brought (Hearn, 2008b). The inability to create a positive desired image
about by singular events, and later developed into reputation in the minds of the target audience or a mismatch between the
through repeated behavioral displays. goal and perception is a branding failure. Labrecque et al. (2011)
• Employee Branding. While not often mentioned in the identified two types of personal branding failures: Insufficient
literature on personal branding, this concept is very close branding (e.g., lack of content, failure to emphasize the desired
to the one under study, differing only in few key attributes. message, etc.) and misdirected branding (e.g., inconsistencies with
Miles and Mangold (2004) conceptualized employee branding the brand identity, addressing wrong audiences, etc.). They offer
within the framework of internal marketing, and defined it as specific advice to increase the positive attribute of a personal
“the process by which employees internalize the desired brand brand: “Reinforcement for optimal branding, augmentation for
image and are motivated to project the image to customers and insufficient branding, and deleting or diffusing for misdirected
other organizational constituents” (p. 68). branding” (p. 47).
Clarifying the Construct of Personal Branding: Key Promise

Attributes The marketing nature of the personal branding construct implies
We will now proceed to the discussion of each of the five first- the idea of signaling a promise to the target audience (Tulchinsky,
level attributes (strategic, positive, promise, person-centric, and 2011; Philbrick and Cleveland, 2015). Parmentier et al. (2013),
artifactual), which were drawn from the definitions found in the studying positioning of personal branding in the organizational
reviewed literature. field of modeling, concluded that effective signaling of one’s
human, social, and cultural capital depends on successfully fitting
Strategic into a specific organizational field (cf. product brand points of
Several definitions used in the reviewed literature specifically parity) and standing out from the competition in that field (cf.
point out that personal branded activities are targeted, i.e., product brand points of differentiation). In contrast to product
directed at a defined audience (Labrecque et al., 2011; Cederberg, brands, standing out in personal branding is achieved not by
2017), and programmatic, i.e., designed as a series of coordinated having additional attributes or characteristics but having higher
activities (Lair et al., 2005; Manai and Holmlund, 2015). levels of those qualities, valued by the target audience. The most
There are some definitions using the word strategically directly adjacent concepts related to this attribute are human branding
(Marwick and boyd, 2011; Kleppinger and Cain, 2015; Nolan, (Thomson, 2006) and employee branding (Miles and Mangold,
2015; Lee and Cavanaugh, 2016). For certain roles, strategic 2004), both of which are built on the foundational purpose of a
personal branding is a prerequisite. For example, Bendisch brand to convey a promise. Human branding is a generic concept,
et al. (2013) discussed closing the gap between the desired which may lack agency in cases when, for instance, an advertising
identity, image, and reputation for CEO brands from the agency brands a movie character, rather than the actor playing
stakeholder and organizational perspectives, requiring a planful that character. Employer branding lacks reflexivity as that work
and deliberate approach. Gandini (2016), studying digital is conducted top-down, guided by the overall organizational
freelance professionals in London and Milan, likens strategic objectives.
personal branding to a profitable form of investment of time,
labor, and relationships, essential in a reputation economy. Such Person-centric
concepts as “fame” actively lack these characteristics, and they This attributes comprises three second-level attributes: agency,
are not essential for “self-promotion,” “reputation,” or “image.” reflective, and differentiation. The principle of agency supposes
Bolino et al. (2016) note that while impression management can an active involvement of the subject of personal branding into
be strategic and intentional, it also can be “unconscious and the process: “Workers are encouraged to view themselves as
habitual” (p. 378), hence we conclude that the programmatic entrepreneurs within corporate employment or while seeking
aspect of impression management may be missing. corporate employment” (Lair et al., 2005, p. 316). While
human branding, employee branding, fame, and reputation may
Positive occur without the subject’s volition, personal branding demands
The definitions of personal branding are consistent in the the individual’s involvement. Since personal branding requires
positive intentionality of personal branding. Authors concur that agency and intentionality, persistent claims that “everybody has
its main objective is to “establish favorable impressions” (Lee a personal brand” (Rampersad, 2008, p.34) are misguided, calling
and Cavanaugh, 2016), be “appealing” (Omojola, 2008), and for a more accurate “everybody has a reputation.” Reflexivity
“valuable, reliable or desirable” (De la Morena Taboada, 2014). highlights the exteriorization processes that are central to
We use the term “positive” as “desired by the target audience,” personal branding, where the subjects are required to identify
as indeed, there may be cases where personal branders would individual characteristics prior to engaging in positioning of
want to be associated with characteristics that are in ill regard their personal brands to the outer world (Wee and Brooks,
by the societal norms, such as in research of male sex workers 2010). We have already highlighted that human branding and
by Phua and Caras (2008). From this perspective, we can argue employee branding may lack reflexivity as an attribute due to
that “positive” also could be “drawing attention,” following the low agency. Finally, differentiation refers to building a personal
line of reasoning that one of the objectives of personal branding brand around a set of characteristics that are unique and desirable

by the target audience (Parmentier et al., 2013). Studying Theoretical Foundations of Personal
personal branding of professional golfers, Hodge and Walker Branding
(2015) discuss how differentiation, or “standing out” from the Personal branding, being a multidisciplinary construct, employs
competition, allowed those sportsmen to access valuable career a wide range of distinct theories to explain it. We have grouped
opportunities. the theories used in the reviewed literature into four large
categories: sociological, marketing, psychological, and economic.
Artifactual
Both personal branding and core marketing literature points Sociological Theories
out artifactual nature of branding. Examples of artifacts in The majority of the authors, totaling 38 papers, used sociological
personal branding go back to embroidering monograms on theories to explain the concept of personal branding. Goffman’s
shirts, personalized stationary and visiting cards, or a signature (1959) dramaturgical perspective is most often referenced (19
at the bottom of a painting. Khedher (2015) specifically attributes papers), positioning personal branding as both a backstage
artifactual displays of impression management behaviors to activity (e.g., reflection, sense-making, etc.) and onstage
personal branding activities. Scholars are unanimous regarding performance (impression management, feedback-seeking,
the need for a narrative (Brooks and Anumudu, 2016; etc.) to influence the perceptions of others. Meyrowitz (1990)
Eagar and Dann, 2016; Pera et al., 2016) and related extended the dramaturgical theory into wider social and digital
imagery (van der Land et al., 2016; Holton and Molyneux, contexts (cited by one paper). While Goffman’s work on self-
2017). Several papers specifically studied the artifacts of presentation and social interactions is a predominant way to
personal branding efforts, such as narrated selfies (Eagar and understand the activities around personal branding, it does not
Dann, 2016), LinkedIn photos (van der Land et al., 2016), explain fully the interactions in the digital world, and it may
Instagram photos (Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016), YouTube overlook some ways to understand the outcomes of personal
videos (Chen, 2013), and ePortfolios (Jones and Leverenz, branding.
2017). Concepts like reputation or impression management As an extension to Goffman’s work, specific research
do not necessarily require a coherent story or associated on impression management by Kowalski and Leary (1990),
artifacts. Baumeister (1982), Gardner and Martinko (1988), and Schlenker
Juxtaposing the identified attributes with other related (1980) was mentioned in three papers. Linked to the backstage
concepts, we determine these attributes necessary and sufficient activities, four papers rely on the reflexivity theories of Giddens
(Podsakoff et al., 2016) to demarcate the construct of personal (1991), Beck (1992) and Adams (2003, 2006) attempt to explain
branding as self-standing and distinct. The overview of the how individuals build own identities in the fast-changing
attributes of personal branding, compared to related concepts, is technological world. Five papers used Bourdieu’s (1993) theories
depicted in Table 1. to explain accumulation of social and cultural capital in specific
organizational fields, highlighting that our identities are shaped
by the habitus and we are not in full control over them. Finally,
Defining Personal Branding
Du Gay’s enterprising culture theory (Gay and Salaman, 1992; Du
Having identified the core attributes of the construct in question,
Gay, 1996) is used in six papers to position personal branding
we proceeded to elucidating its definition. Guided by the
as a new type of labor in the post-Fordist era, working identities
characteristics of a “good definition” (Suddaby, 2010), we
forged into “enterprising selves” or “flexible subjectivities.”
propose the following way to define personal branding:
Marketing Theories
Personal branding is a strategic process of creating, positioning, and Shepherd (2005) noted that Kotler was first to expand the
maintaining a positive impression of oneself, based in a unique field of marketing beyond the product. Hughes (2007), Neale
combination of individual characteristics, which signal a certain et al. (2008), and Speed et al. (2015) attributed the emergence
promise to the target audience through a differentiated narrative
of personal branding as a separate discipline to Keller’s
and imagery.
distinguishing the “small b” approach to branding, referring
to product branding only, and the “large b,” extending the
In the reviewed literature, the authors would choose to base science of branding to services, organizations, and people. The
their work either on the definition of personal branding as a work of Aaker (1997) on brand personality and brand identity
process, or a personal brand as a product, or both. Hence, is most often referenced in research on personal branding
we offer a definition of a personal brand as well. Drawing (seven papers). Thomson (2006) contributed to the stream
on the definition of personal branding and one provided of thinking around human brands. Eagar and Dann (2016)
by Ottovordemgentschenfelde (2017), we proceed to define a suggest three approaches to the self as a human brand: (1)
personal brand: “consumerist”—viewing human brands from the position of
consumers, (2) “reputational”—assuming a passive approach
Personal brand is a set of characteristics of an individual (attributes, in having a brand, and (3) “agency”—proactively creating and
values, beliefs, etc.) rendered into the differentiated narrative and managing one’s personal brand. An overwhelming majority of the
imagery with the intent of establishing a competitive advantage in extant literature on personal branding subscribes to the latter two
the minds of the target audience. approaches: understanding the brand equity, or the reputation,

TABLE 1 | Attributes of personal branding compared to related concepts.
First-level attributes Strategic Positive Promise Person-centric Artifactual
Second-level
Related attributes
concepts Targeted Programmatic Always Positive Promise Agency Reflexive Differentiation Narrative Imagery
Personal branding P P P P P P P P P
Human branding P P P P A P P P
Impression management P P P
Self-promotion P P P
Image A P P P
Reputation P P
Fame A A A A P P P
Employee branding P P P P A P P P
Legend: P, present; A, absent (if blank, presence or absence of an attribute is situation-dependent).
and managing the desired projected image. Overall, marketing needs and shaping own identity (psychological perspective), an
theories were used in 17 papers. individual engages in online and offline interactions with others,
trying to manage their perceptions of him/her to gain a certain
Psychological Theories benefit (sociological perspective). There are specific principles
Eleven papers used psychological theories to explain personal and practices of creating, positioning, and managing own brand
branding. Four papers (Shepherd, 2005; Gioia et al., 2014; (marketing perspective), and these activities are predicated by
Molyneux, 2015; Holton and Molyneux, 2017; Schlosser et al., larger shifts in the organizational and societal contexts (economic
2017) highlight the role of personal branding in identity perspective).
formation, situating their thinking in the works of Mead (1934),
Erikson (1968), Turner and Oakes (1986), Ibarra (1999), and Trends, Drivers, Processes, and Outcomes
others. Schlosser et al. (2017) even likened the narrative approach of Personal Branding
to the concept of personal branding, which “reflects how Research on the topic is fragmented, so we used a systematic
executives project their identity to others in order to demonstrate approach to synthesize the knowledge from the reviewed
their leadership fit” (p. 574). Psychological needs were referenced literature, categorizing the findings into trends, conducive to
in five papers, ranging from basic need for self-fulfillment and personal branding, its drivers, related processes, and outcomes.
self-esteem (Shepherd, 2005; Gioia et al., 2014; Zinko and Rubin, We proceed to discuss these five aspects of personal branding in
2015) researched by Cohen (1959) and Baumeister and Leary separate sections below.
(1995) to non-social motives, as suggested by Labrecque et al.
(2011): need for power, to pass time and provide entertainment, Trends Conducive to Personal Branding
and need for advocacy. Finally, Shepherd (2005) and Khedher There are three broad categories of trends that are conducive or
(2015) suggest that personal branding can be viewed as a preclusive of personal branding activities, found in the reviewed
self-development tool, grounding their conclusions in Schon’s literature: Economic, societal, and technological.
reflective practitioner theory (Schon, 1984).
Economic (6 papers)
Economic Theories The basic economic premise of an imperfect market (Hernando
The economic theories, used only in nine papers, help us and Campo, 2017) is already a strong foundation to argue
understand the macro environment, in which personal branding for the need to signal own value to the target audience.
takes place. There are a variety of attempts to describe the Another economic premise for personal branding relates to the
current economic conditions shaping social interactions: flexible economic reality of the modern world. The reviewed literature
accumulation (Harvey, 1990), controlled discourse (Andrejevic, refers to these conditions as “era of post-Fordism” (Vallas
2007), emotional capitalism (Illouz, 2007), leading to the and Cummins, 2015), “knowledge economy” (Gandini, 2016),
emergence of reputation economy (Gandini, 2016). Hernando “sharing economy” (Pera et al., 2016), or “era of consumer-to-
and Campo (2017) used Freeman’s multi-stakeholder approach consumer” (Chen, 2013), and most concur that the marketplace
to describe the complexity of brand positioning. Spence’s for skills has become much more demanding, coupled with
signaling theory (Spence, 1973) was used in two papers to reflect increasing employment uncertainty (Cederberg, 2017; Holton
communication of unique characteristics to target audiences in and Molyneux, 2017) and the rise of portfolio careers (Gandini,
imperfect markets. 2016), all of which lead to personal branding as an effective career
Thus, we conclude that comprehensive understanding of strategy in the new economic environment. Abrate and Viglia
personal branding lies on four broad social sciences: sociology, (2017) note that “parties operating in sharing economy platforms
marketing, psychology, and economics. Driven by certain are incentivized to use reputation-signaling mechanisms to

maximize the likelihood of a successful transaction.” (p. 4). Individual (5 papers)

Schlosser et al. (2017) conducted their research on career Driven by the need for a positive personal reputation (Zinko
rebranding specifically within the framework of modern career and Rubin, 2015), comprised of the need for self-esteem, need
agency, seen as a response to the economic changes. On the other to belong and desire for rewards, certain personal characteristics,
side of the imperfect labor market, employers embrace digital as such as attributes and values, make it easier or more difficult
well, which results in emergence of such practices as, for instance, for individuals to engage in personal branding. Pihl (2013)
cybervetting (Berkelaar, 2014). In a similar vein, research by van performed a netnographic study of three professional Swedish
der Land et al. (2016) shows that effective management of own bloggers, which found that individual characteristics aligned
picture in the LinkedIn profile may lead to better chances of with their personal brand enhance its impact and effectiveness.
getting a job interview. Lorgnier and O’Rourke (2011) identified specific skills required
for personal branding: technological, metacognitive, creative and
critical. Therefore, we may hypothesize that individuals with
Societal (4 papers)
superior digital skills, who are able to discover own points
Several researchers have attributed the societal shifts to
of competitive differentiation and creatively turn them into
emergence of personal branding. The generational divide and
compelling narrative and imagery, while doing that strategically
novel lifestyle choices (Harris and Rae, 2011) have contributed
and socially-appropriately, have greater chances of professional
to the need of self-promotion, both at work and in private
and personal success. In addition to that, cultural and social
life. Constructing a public image, previously a prerogative
capitals predicate the required effort and the effectiveness of the
of celebrities, today is available to “everyday person” (Eagar
personal branding process (Khedher, 2015).
and Dann, 2016). Researching social media consumption on
YouTube, Chen (2013) maintains that amateur individuals are
Role/industry-related (12 papers)
embracing social media for personal branding purposes. It is
A significant portion of literature links personal branding with
noteworthy that different cultures may have varying degrees
the requirements, expectations, and/or limitations of specific
of appreciation of personal branding practices. For instance,
roles and industries. Some authors make general statements
North American blogger communities are more discerning and
that professions of today require promoting self via personal
skeptical of someone’s self-promotion activity and they place
branding (Bridgen, 2011; Harris and Rae, 2011), while others
a greater value on knowledge dissemination, while Middle
discuss specific jobs and industries. We conclude that industries
Eastern personal brander communities are “more praiseworthy,
with higher degree of transparency, such as sports (Green,
accepting, and less critical of the personal brander efforts at self-
2016) or journalism (Brems et al., 2016; Holton and Molyneux,
promotion and increasing social capital” (Saleem and Iglesias
2017), are more conducive to individual personal branding. At
Bedós, 2013, p. 20). Vallas and Christin (2018), having compared
the company level, Sturdy and Wright (2008) point out that
the attitudes toward personal branding among the US and French
organizations adopting an enterprise model may be more lenient
freelance web journalists, report that the French journalists are
or even supportive of personal branding. Amoako and Okpattah
more wary of such practices than their American counterparts.
(2018), having conducted a study on sales executives in the
insurance and FMCG sectors in Ghana, suggest that companies
Technological (6 papers) investing in personal branding of their employees may gain
There is a widespread consensus that the key driver for personal substantial financial benefits. As the existing research has been
branding is the ease of access to technology, especially the focused on particular populations, we observe that those personal
Web 2.0 tools, such as social media and blogs (Harris and branders belong to industries or roles conducive or indifferent
Rae, 2011; Holton and Molyneux, 2017). “If once personal to an individual’s engaging in personal branding activities. It is
reputation was considered crucial for celebrities and politicians, logical to assume that some industries or roles, such as defense
online tools have allowed personal reputation to become or police agents, may be less conducive to personal branding
an important marketing task for everyday people” (Pera or even precluding of such activities. We expose the specific
et al., 2016, p. 45). While technology facilitates personal occupations studied, categorized by the degree of conduciveness
branding, it also makes it more difficult to differentiate oneself for personal branding and the type of studied population, in
in “hyper-saturated and hyper-fluxed media environment” Table 2.
(Ottovordemgentschenfelde, 2017, p. 65), where digital media While a greater number of articles studying executives,
skills become an additional kind of brand identity. Green (2016) firm owners and high-profile political figures was expected,
concurs, having performed research in professional sports area, since much management research often begins with the upper
that, when other “sporting” characteristics are similar, an online echelons, the amount of papers on journalists’ personal branding
profile creates differentiation. was surprising. We attribute such interest to the fact that
journalism of one of the areas most impacted by the advances
Drivers of Personal Branding of social media, with the role and career of journalists currently
We have identified two broad groups of drivers pertaining to being in a flux (Holton and Molyneux, 2017). It is worthwhile
the individual doing own personal branding: Individual and noting that, according to Brems et al. (2016), freelance journalists
role/industry-related. These factors may explain why, how, and are more likely to engage in self-promotion and share personal
for what reason persons engage in personal branding activities. information than employed journalists. This points to differences

TABLE 2 | Samples studied in the reviewed literature, categorized by the degree of conduciveness for personal branding and the type of studied population.
Conduciveness for personal branding Type of population studied Specific occupations studied
Highly conducive Executives, firm owners and • CEOs and executives Bendisch et al., 2013; Karaduman, 2013; Fetscherin, 2015; Nolan,
high-profile political figures 2015; Chen and Chung, 2016; Schlosser et al., 2017;
• Entrepreneurs Gandini, 2016; Resnick et al., 2016; Abrate and Viglia, 2017;
• Politicians Hughes, 2007; Neale et al., 2008; Omojola, 2008; Balbino et al., 2015;
Speed et al., 2015.
Celebrities • Writers and artists Tulchinsky, 2011; De la Morena Taboada, 2014; Johns and English,
2016; Hernando and Campo, 2017;
• Sportsmen Parmentier and Fischer, 2012; Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016; Green,
2016; Geurin, 2017.
Academia • Scholars Noble et al., 2010; Close et al., 2011; Brandabur, 2012; García Montero et al.,
2014; Jaring and Bäck, 2017.
Conducive, Content-producers • Journalists Bruns, 2012; Schultz and Sheffer, 2012; Molyneux, 2015; Brems et al., 2016;
with possible restrictions Hanusch and Bruns, 2017; Hedman, 2017; Holton and Molyneux, 2017; Lopez-Meri and
Casero-Ripolles, 2017; Ottovordemgentschenfelde, 2017; Vallas and Christin, 2018;
• Bloggers Pihl, 2013; Saleem and Iglesias Bedós, 2013; Delisle and Parmentier, 2016.
SME owners and self-employed • Consultants Sturdy and Wright, 2008; Sheikh and Lim, 2011; Pagis and Ailon, 2017;
• Psychologists Cederberg, 2017;
• Sex workers Phua and Caras, 2008; Cunningham et al., 2018.
Industry and role dependent Specific roles in organizations • Librarians Gall, 2012; Baharuddin and Kassim, 2014;
• Sales executives and managers Rangarajan et al., 2017; Amoako and Okpattah, 2018.
in personal branding behaviors even within a specific professional advocating for ignoring the “true self ” and focusing only on
area. the needs of the target audience, and the personal branding
researchers, who advise not to change oneself and build
Processes of Personal Branding upon individual strengths. He suggests a consensus through
Several models are discussed in the reviewed literature regarding engaging in self-reflection vis-à-vis the target audience and the
the process of personal branding, with a total of 29 papers. Some competitors. Two later studies empirically tested applicability of
researchers quote the models from the popular literature, such marketing concepts to personal branding in terms of focusing on
as Aruda’s “extract, express, and exude” (Chen, 2013, p. 334), the target audience and choosing the right positioning strategy.
or the three-step model by McNally and Speak: “(1) identify Parmentier et al. (2013) found that to achieve and signal one’s
the areas where your competencies matter; (2) examine your capital in the desired organizational field it is necessary to
standards and values; (3) define your style” (Gander, 2014, comply with the principles of brand positioning (establishing
p. 101). Brooks and Anumudu (2016) examined the 10-step both points of parity and points of differentiation) and person
model used by the consultancy PriceWaterhouseCoopers to teach brand positioning (both fitting into expectations of the field
personal branding. Other researchers design own approaches and standing our from competitors in the field). The need for
such as Resnick et al.’s (2016) “4Ps” self-branding model. Drawing differentiation or uniqueness is highlighted in several papers
on our analysis of the reviewed papers, we single out the key (Chen, 2013; Gander, 2014; Cederberg, 2017). Such strategies
processes involved in personal branding: raising self-awareness, may be specific to various organizational fields and roles. For
needs analysis and positioning, constructing brand architecture, instance, Parmentier and Fischer (2012) claim that specialization,
self-reflection and feedback-seeking, and sense-making. high-level playing opportunities, revealing publically visible cues
about self, and interaction with the audience are key personal
Raising self-awareness branding strategies for professional athletes.
Self-awareness, introspection and critical skills (Lorgnier and Impression management is the vehicle for positioning the
O’Rourke, 2011) are viewed as essential for discovering the “inner personal brand (Labrecque et al., 2011; Khedher, 2015), which
self,” a combination of self-identity, personal values and beliefs, can be achieved through a combination of online and offline
self-image, and personal aims (Kucharska, 2017). Self-discovery strategies. Online activities get the greatest focus from the
is the most common first assignment in personal branding personal branding scholars, given the changing nature of the
courses, discussed in the reviewed literature, and scholars seem economic and social environment and the shift toward digital
to agree that self-awareness is the initial step of the personal work; “branding is inevitable when participating in an online
branding process (García Montero et al., 2014; Philbrick and environment” (Labrecque et al., 2011, p. 48). Social media
Cleveland, 2015; Cederberg, 2017). and Web 2.0 technology most often discussed in the reviewed
literature are Twitter (13 papers), Facebook (6 papers), LinkedIn
Needs analysis and positioning (5 papers), Instagram (3 papers), blogs (3 papers), and others
Shepherd (2005) draws our attention to the apparent (5 papers), such as MySpace, About.me, YouTube. As the role
misalignment between the consumer-oriented approach, of social media in individual career management increases,

digital storytelling also comes to the fore as a powerful signaling Web 2.0 environment where many personal branding activities
mechanism of one’s worth in the labor market (Jones and take place presupposes a two-way interaction, including receiving
Leverenz, 2017). feedback (Holton and Molyneux, 2017). Labrecque et al. (2011)
considers feedback essential to close the gap between desired
Constructing brand architecture self and perceived identity, as it helps avoiding branding failure.
In studying professional image, Roberts (2005) suggested two Both self-reflection and feedback-seeking lead to greater self-
facets of the construct: Desired professional image and perceived awareness.
professional image. We adhere to this line of thinking. A personal
brand comprises two key elements: Desired self and perceived Sensemaking
identity. Desired self can be understood through the dynamic As the labor environments become decontextualized, as
approach to studying work identity (Sveningsson and Alvesson, a consequence of technological advances, people have an
2003; Alvesson et al., 2008). While McCall and Simmons increased need to construct their working identities (Brooks
(1978) conceptualized idealized self as how individuals perceived and Anumudu, 2016). Cederberg (2017) is more categorical,
themselves according to internal values and needs, we posit specifying that “the purpose of a personal brand is to build an
desired self as how individuals want to be perceived by their target identity that associates specific emotions and perceptions with
audience. Creating the personal brand is, therefore, similar to an individual while simultaneously managing these perceptions
what Ibarra and Petriglieri (2010) described as “identity play,” successfully” (p. 1). People make sense of their environment
understood as “the crafting and provisional trial of immature through their identity (Walsh and Gordon, 2008). Since identity
(i.e., as yet unelaborated) possible selves” (p. 13). is a collection of meanings attached to a person by self and
While most of the papers, discussing personal branding others (Gecas, 1982), the intelligent career places the onus on
processes, focus on constructing and positioning desired self, the individual to make sense of those meanings. In reality, both
only seven articles explicitly address the issue of the audience’s individuals and the targets of their personal branding efforts
perspective, or perceived identity, i.e., how in reality one’s personal engage in a process of reciprocal sense-making (Gioia et al.,
brand is perceived by others (e.g., Cederberg, 2017). In fact, we 2014).
see this part of personal branding as the most important, as We posit, therefore, that effective sense-making, feedback-
perceptions of others determine their actions toward us. seeking, self-reflection, and greater self-awareness lead to
Gandini (2016) described personal branding as acquisition minimizing the gap between desired self and perceived identity,
of reputation, so it is important to understand the concept resulting in a stronger and more coherent personal brand.
of personal brand as both what we intend to project to the
target audience (desired self), and that audience’s reaction to it Outcomes of Personal Branding
(perceived identity). Desired self and perceived identity will have While many scholar position personal branding as a career
all the brand image features, derived from the marketing science: success strategy (Parmentier et al., 2013; Brooks and Anumudu,
attributes, attitudes, benefits (Keller, 1993), and personality 2016), the outcomes of personal branding are multifaceted and
(Aaker, 1997), which Manai and Holmlund (2015) refer to non-linear. Fifty-one papers specifically identified outcomes of
as “brand core,” comprised of core identity (education, skills, personal branding. Labrecque et al. (2011), acknowledging the
personality, values, experience, etc.), extended identity (abilities, importance of career motivation, notes that personal branding
attitudes, cultural aspects, etc.) and value proposition (functional, can also be used in dating, friendships or merely self-expression.
emotional, self-expressive and relationship benefits). Rangarajan et al. (2017) suggested a list of tangible and intangible
measures of the effectiveness of a personal brand in the
Self-reflection and feedback-seeking business setting. We synthesize the outcomes in three categories:
These are the two processes that enable the individuals to do individual and organizational, where the individual ones can be
maintenance of their personal brands, ensuring their relevance, either intrinsic or extrinsic. Each category is discussed below. The
strength, and competitiveness. Both procure information on number in brackets following the name of each category refers to
the personal brand, the former being internal and the latter— the number of papers that discussed it (we coded “career success”
external. Khedher (2015) sees both reflexivity and feedback as as both intrinsic and extrinsic unless specified).
integral pieces of the personal branding process. Despite being
critical of the way personal branding is being imposed on Individual intrinsic outcomes (18 papers)
the society, Wee and Brooks (2010) also see its benefits, as One of the outcomes of personal branding is developing
“personal branding strategies are clearly aimed at developing greater reflexivity (Khedher, 2015). This literature review leads
reflexivity because they encourage actors to engage in careful us to conclude that effective personal branding requires self-
and critical self-assessment about their relative strengths and awareness, feedback-seeking and sense-making, all of which
weaknesses” (p. 47), which is consistent with the research on lead to reflexivity in the attempt to position self-identity in
narrated selfies by Eagar and Dann (2016), confirming that the the social environment. Some other specifically mentioned
sheer act of posting a narrated selfie may require a degree of intrinsic outcomes are motivation (Ward and Yates, 2013), self-
reflexivity. Gioia et al. (2014) states that seeking confirmation on realization (Gandini, 2016), credibility and influence (Ward and
both positive and negative self-conceptions is a natural human Yates, 2013), and acquiring self-promotion skills (Edmiston,
behavior, based on the self-verification theory. The nature of the 2014). Therefore, we can also hypothesize that effective personal

branding leads to greater self-evaluations (self-esteem and organization’s culture, in order to be effective. When personal
general self-efficacy) as defined by Chen et al. (2004). branding happens online, the process stages are not discrete
and sequential but overarching (Tarnovskaya, 2017), so “when a
Individual extrinsic outcomes (50 papers) personal brand is born online, its enforcement and maintenance
The majority of the reviewed papers determine the outcomes become critical immediately” (p. 33). All of this evidence leads
of personal branding either as furthering professional career us to conclude that personal branding is an ongoing process,
(69%, n = 22) or creating some sort of social capital (78%, n requiring constant re-evaluation and maintenance.
= 25), be it power and influence (Ward and Yates, 2013; Zinko
and Rubin, 2015; Hanusch and Bruns, 2017), enhanced visibility Ethical and Social Considerations
(Lee and Cavanaugh, 2016; Jaring and Bäck, 2017), or prestige A particular set of findings deals with the ethical and
(Milovanović et al., 2015). Twelve papers identify differentiation social considerations of personal branding. Irrespective of the
as an outcome, which could enable a connection with the definitions, theory, or the model, scholars debate the ethical
target audience (Brems et al., 2016) and use that connection to nature of the branded self in contemporary careers. We have
receive a preferential treatment against those competing for same identified four directions of such debate: egalitarianism vs. elitism
resources (Parmentier et al., 2013). Ten papers directly point of personal branding, commodification of self, blurring the
to monetary outcomes of effective personal branding. (Hearn, line between the personal and professional lives, and teaching
2008b) summed up the outcomes of personal branding as, “the personal branding. We proceed to examine these in more
function of the branded self is purely rhetorical; its goal is to detail.
produce cultural value and, potentially, material profit” (p. 198). Lair et al. (2005) were the first researchers to raise the ethical
questions associated with personal branding, focusing on three
Organizational outcomes (10 papers) areas: gender, race, and culture. They were primarily analyzing
Despite the predominant view of personal branding from the at the US labor market, but, e.g., Saleem and Iglesias Bedós
position of the benefit for the person, there is emerging research (2013) also questioned across the board applicability of personal
linking employee branding with organizational performance. In branding practices in various cultural contents. However, such
a study of 225 Polish professionals, Kucharska and Dabrowski
˛ differences also benefit the individual. Although in a very
(2016) found that sharing tacit knowledge, arguably a company’s specific industry of sexual services, Phua and Caras (2008) point
key competitive advantage in the knowledge economy, is out that ethnicity, race, or nationality can be a differentiating
positively correlated with personal branding, which is consistent factor in personal branding, while gender not being statistically
with the exploratory findings of Vosloban (2012). Zinko and significant. Content analysis of Instagram photos of Olympic
Rubin (2015) distill the organizational benefits to three elements: athletes revealed that sexually suggestive photos are most popular
(a) predicting individuals’ behaviors, (b) basking in the reflected (Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016). While this lends itself to
glory of individuals, and (c) organizational signaling. This applies a discussion on morality of personal branding methods, it also
not only to heads of firms (Chen and Chung, 2016; Malhotra and leads us to the conclusion that gender, race and culture issues
Malhotra, 2016) or prominent figures in political parties (Neale associated with personal branding are situation-dependent.
et al., 2008), but to any employee as personal branding promotes The ethical debate of today centers around the concept of
the ideology of enterprise (Sturdy and Wright, 2008). commodification with polarized opinions on personal branding
as the new savoir-être of the new shared, digital and freelance
Integration and a Conceptual Model economy (Gandini, 2016) vis-à-vis the self being “a commodity
Derived from the knowledge in the reviewed literature and the for sale in the labor market, which must generate its own
analysis presented above, a conceptual personal branding model rhetorically persuasive packaging, its own promotional skin,
emerges as a result. Figure 3 demonstrates the relationships within the confines of the dominant corporate imaginary”
among the key elements of the model, each of which has been (Hearn, 2008b, p. 201). This pervasive messaging to brand oneself
discussed above. may be misused by mass media, e.g., reality television, to take
By definition, personal branding is a dynamic construct, advantage of most “precarious individuals and groups” to expose
subject to ongoing adjustment and change. Personal brands their insecurities to the public in exchange for creating a stronger
need maintenance (Lorgnier and O’Rourke, 2011), i.e., persistent personal brand (Hearn, 2008a). Sociologists are concerned that
reassessment and monitoring (Cederberg, 2017), which is not only our selves become commodified, but also a new type
achieved through constantly repeating the processes described of labor—the digital work of managing own professional identity
above. This is particularly relevant at the points of career online—is being thrust on the workers in the realities of post-
transitions. Schlosser et al. (2017) found that “executives must Fordist capitalism. Vallas and Cummins (2015) even use the word
revisit their personal brands, deciding how to best position their “coercive” to describe the vigor with which personal branding
skills and knowledge and values within the context of their is being introduced to the workforce. They also question the
new <...> organizations” (p. 576) at each transitional stage. In applicability of marketing techniques used for selling shampoo or
a study of personal branding in organizational settings Sturdy washing machines to branding individuals. Yet, in their research
and Wright (2008) discovered that consultants making a career they found that outward rejection of personal branding was rare,
transition into the corporate labor market need to “trade” their and in general the interviewees demonstrated an “active embrace
elite personal brand for one that is consistent with the new of branding discourse, coupled with an acknowledgment that one

FIGURE 3 | Personal branding model.
ought to engage in a determined effort to refine one’s brand as a assumption that their imagined audiences are bounded, while, in
condition of one’s success and personal fulfillment” (p. 311). reality, the cyberspace is limitless. This dialectic pressure between
Yet, the requirements of the “knowledge” or “reputation” the need to expose oneself in order to self-brand and the need to
economy blur the lines between the personal and professional. control own content and the personal boundaries is one of the
Labrecque et al. (2011) found that “separating social and findings in the study of Labrecque et al. (2011).
professional worlds appears nearly impossible without the proper Finally, teaching personal branding is a point of concern, too.
mechanisms for control” (p. 49). Several studies were conducted The issue of the curricula for personal branding and the practical
around the reporter profession. Conducting interviews with challenge of preparing people to be effective personal branders
reporters, Molyneux (2015) discovered a sense of uneasiness were raised as early as 2005 in academic sources (Shepherd,
as they lacked knowledge and skills of balancing professional 2005). Out of the 100 reviewed articles, 11 deal with teaching
and personal identities with no clear guidance from their personal branding, suggesting various curricula (Edmiston,
employers. We see that in this specific organizational field, 2014; Johnson, 2017) and estimating effectiveness of different
reporters are not aggressively pursuing personal branding, assignments in teaching personal branding skills (McCorkle and
and particularly newspaper reporters being the least motivated McCorkle, 2012; Wetsch, 2012; Stanton and Stanton, 2013; Jones
to do so (Schultz and Sheffer, 2012). The hypothesis here and Leverenz, 2017). This review demonstrated that there is
could be that professions that are most dependent on social limited understanding and concurrence on the concepts and
media and Web 2.0 technologies require a higher degree of processes; therefore teaching unproven ideas raises ethical issues
personal branding, while it is less of a necessity for more in itself. While some studies report teaching personal branding
traditional fields, which is consistent with the research in as a means to developing accompanying skills, such as awareness
the entrepreneurial environment (Pihl, 2013; Gandini, 2016). of online communication issues or metacognitive, creative, and
Examining personal brand positioning of journalists on Twitter, critical thinking skills (Lorgnier and O’Rourke, 2011), most of
Ottovordemgentschenfelde (2017) discovered that they had the papers mentioned in this section teach personal branding
to manage three identities at the same time—organizational, as a core subject. For better or worse, the popularity of
professional, and personal. This expands the existing role personal branding has created an industry, which is ahead of
of a worker and adds additional tasks to perform without the academic thought. Brooks and Anumudu (2016) found that
lowering the employer’s performance expectations. This creates “trainers, career and vocational development consultants, and
a conflict that many employees may not know how to manage. personal branding enthusiasts publish books and articles and
Unfortunately, the popular literature, urging everyone to delve conduct workshops to teach individuals to build their personal
into personal branding, provides little advice on how to deal with brands to become more employable and successful” (p. 24).
such quandaries (Pihl, 2013). The contemporary career frameworks (boundaryless, portfolio,
Another ethical point related to the protecting the private intelligent, Protean) share the same underlying assumption that
space is dissemination of private information. Marwick and career changes will become more frequent and personal agency
boyd (2011) found that social media users operate within the will increase. Therefore, such individuals need to be supported by

bona fide training on how to thrive in the modern employment empirical testing of conceptual models of personal branding
environment. The demand has already been vocalized to identify (Bendisch et al., 2013; Dumitriu and Ciobanu, 2015; Johns and
the skills required for effective personal branding (Manai and English, 2016).
Holmlund, 2015), develop the content of such training (Lorgnier
and O’Rourke, 2011), and provide guidance on the decision
to engage in personal branding vs. remaining digitally invisible Studying Personal Branding in the
(Kleppinger and Cain, 2015). However, furthering the ethical Organizational Context
debate, Pagis and Ailon (2017) point out that learning the Our review reveals that a small group of researchers specifically
complex personal branding skills may not be accessible to all. point in the direction of studying the person vs. organization
tension resulting from personal branding (Hughes, 2007;
Bendisch et al., 2013; Karaduman, 2013; Nolan, 2015; Zinko
DISCUSSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS and Rubin, 2015; Ottovordemgentschenfelde, 2017). Only few
This systematic review is the first attempt to look at the academic studies related to the organizational/corporate setting exist
literature pertaining to personal branding comprehensively. (Korzynski, 2012; Vosloban, 2012; Kucharska and Dabrowski,
˛
Having reviewed the selected 100 papers, we have (a) provided a 2016). Given the discussed tensions between personal and
definition of personal branding and a personal brand that is more organizational, the managerial attitudes toward employee
comprehensive, rigorous and detailed than the existing ones and personal branding call for further research of organizational
that can help to distinguish these concepts from related ones, and practices (e.g., guidelines, communication) and employees’
(b) offered a conceptual model capturing inputs, processes, and activities (e.g., co-branding, signaling). Hence, it may be
outputs of personal branding. These findings and this systematic opportune to converge the studies of careers and human
literature review as a whole suggest important directions for resources management, which traditionally have been apart.
future research on personal branding that we discuss below. Although novel and unconventional, it may prove necessary.
Firms must embrace the new reality of workers with strong
personal brands overreaching the organizational boundaries.
Developing a New Measurement
For instance, Kucharska (2017) suggested that the co-branding
Instrument of Personal Branding concept is also applicable to personal brands. So, one of
While many authors have indicated the need for aligning the areas of future research could be examining whether
similar concepts across the related fields (Zinko and Rubin, constructing a working identity through personal branding is a
2015), as well as developing a comprehensive personal (re-) source of greater employee loyalty, intrapreneurship intentions,
branding framework (Resnick et al., 2016; Schlosser et al., innovation, new clients, and an indication of a stronger employer
2017), only in this paper we have provided an extension to the brand.
existing body of research by offering an integrative definition of
personal branding. By following Podsakoff et al. (2016) rigorous
approach toward greater construct clarity through identifying Studying the Sustainability and
its key attributes and positioning personal branding as a self- Transferability of Personal Branding
standing concept in the nomological field, we outlined its distinct This literature review shows that there is a host of issues
differentiating properties. The introduction of the integrative regarding the veracity of personal branding (Hughes, 2007),
definition of personal branding warrants development of a new portability of personal brands (Parmentier et al., 2013), and
measurement instrument of personal branding. While Chen and their sustainability (Bendisch et al., 2013). We wish to see
Chung (2016) already developed a scale to measure the personal further contributions to the ongoing scholarly debate about
brand of a business CEO, we question its validity, due to lack whether having multiple personal brands is possible, how to
of rigor in the process of scale development and validation. adapt one’s personal brand when changing employers, and how
Therefore we hope that the new definition will stimulate much to avoid the spillover from private social media activities into
needed personal branding scale development and validation for the professional sphere. Furthermore, up to date the research
moving the field further. has only focused on the industries that are most conducive
for personal branding. We do not know much about the
Empirically Testing the Proposed Personal challenges of creating and maintaining personal brands in
Branding Model settings that are not conducive or outright preclusive of self-
When developing a conceptual personal branding model, we promotion, at least, to the outside world. The limited amount
found that 26 papers discussed the antecedents of personal of industries and roles studied to date, as well as small samples
branding, and 51 papers discussed the outcomes, while only 29 in those studies, renders scarce opportunities to generalize the
papers focused on the processes. This points toward lacunae in knowledge and make conclusive statements about extrapolating
academic knowledge of personal branding that needs further the findings. Additionally, the majority of the empirical studies
investigation. Understanding the antecedents and outcomes of took place in European, Australian, or North American settings,
personal branding is critical for further theory building and so the possible research directions could lead scholars to
field research. By providing an integrative model we offer fresh test the theoretical premises of personal branding in other
avenues for future research and join other scholars’ calls for cultures.

CONCLUSION around the merging spheres of personal and professional.

Research and practice have a chance to expand the theory
We conclude that the academic interest in the concept of personal and provide guidance on successfully navigating the current
branding is growing, and that a better understanding of how a employment reality.
personal brand is constructed and managed in the modern labor
markets characterized by frequent job changes, project-based
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
work engagements, and increasing job insecurity is needed. This
literature review contributes to the field of personal branding SG is a PhD candidate, who is the main author of the submitted
by consolidating the extant research, proposing an integrative paper. SK and EL are PhD supervisors. SG was responsible for
definition of personal branding and personal brand, developing identifying relevant papers under the supervision of SK, who
a conceptual personal branding model, and discussing future has expertise in literature review writing. SG also did the initial
research directions that could stimulate the advancement of our analysis of the paper and wrote the initial draft. In the consequent
knowledge on the topic. process SK and EL helped to develop the paper toward the final
By showing that personal branding is a distinct construct submission.
that spans a number of disciplines, we point to an opportunity
for a closer integration of traditionally individual-driven SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
career efforts and organization-driven human resources
practices to help the employees create effective personal brands, The Supplementary Material for this article can be found
benefitting both the individual and the firm. This paper casts online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.
but a glimpse of light into the confusion and uncertainty 2018.02238/full#supplementary-material
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employment: how workers respond to “personal branding” discourse. Work Copyright © 2018 Gorbatov, Khapova and Lysova. This is an open-access article
Occup. 45, 3–37. doi: 10.1177/0730888417735662 distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
Vallas, S. P., and Cummins, E. R. (2015). Personal branding and identity norms The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the
in the popular business press: enterprise culture in an age of precarity. Organ. original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original
Stud. 36, 293–319. doi: 10.1177/0170840614563741 publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
van der Land, S. F., Willemsen, L. M., and Wilton, B. G. E. (2016). “Professional No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these
personal branding,” in HCI in Business, Government, and Organizations: terms.

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

published: 21 November 2018

Personal Branding: Interdisciplinary

Personal branding has become an important concept in management literature in recent

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FIGURE 1 | Review methodology process.

branding suggesting a diversity of definitions, there is little Construct Clarity

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Clarifying the Construct of Personal Branding: Key Promise

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TABLE 1 | Attributes of personal branding compared to related concepts.

First-level attributes Strategic Positive Promise Person-centric Artifactual

Legend: P, present; A, absent (if blank, presence or absence of an attribute is situation-dependent).

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maximize the likelihood of a successful transaction.” (p. 4). Individual (5 papers)

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FIGURE 3 | Personal branding model.

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CONCLUSION around the merging spheres of personal and professional.

REFERENCES Baumeister, R. F. (1982). A self-presentational view of social phenomena. Psychol.

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Kucharska, W., and Dabrowski,

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