Work does not speak for itself: examining the incremental validity of personal branding in predicting knowledge workers’ employability

The changing context of contemporary knowledge work, including the massive adoption of home office work arrangements and a great resignation, calls for new research on the employability of knowledge workers. In this paper, we suggest that knowledge workers can no longer rely on developing their human capital and being intrapreneurial at work to secure their employability. With the aim to offer a new perspective, we test the incremental validity of personal branding in predicting employability over and above established predictors (i.e., human capital and intrapreneurship behaviours) and test the relationships in three studies (total N = 883), consisting of a supervisor sample (Study 1), a student sample (Study 2), and a time-lagged employee sample (Study 3). Results show that personal branding explains variance in employability over and above human capital and intrapreneurship behaviours. The results also show that the relationship between personal branding and employability is fully mediated by personal brand equity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the opportunities the concept of personal branding offers for employability research in the context of the contemporary world of work.