Bridging Employer Branding and Talent Management: A Transformational Leadership Perspective from the Manufacturing Industry

Talent management has become a strategic priority for manufacturing firms operating in increasingly competitive labour markets, yet the organizational mechanisms that drive it and the role leadership plays in activating them remain underexplored, particularly outside Western, services-sector contexts. This study examines the relationship between employer branding and talent management among middle-management employees in Malaysia's electrical and electronics (E&E) manufacturing sector, and tests whether this relationship is mediated by transformational leadership. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design grounded in social exchange theory, data were collected from 113 middle managers across nine E&E manufacturing organizations in Negeri Sembilan and analysed using multiple regression and the Sobel test for mediation. Employer branding both as a composite construct and across its six value dimensions (economic, social, development, application, interest, and work-life balance) was found to be positively and significantly related to talent management. Employer branding was also positively related to transformational leadership, which in turn was positively related to talent management, and transformational leadership was found to partially mediate the relationship between employer branding and talent management. Work-life balance emerged as the strongest individual predictor of talent management, ahead of more established dimensions such as economic and development value. These findings suggest that employer branding's influence on talent outcomes operates substantially through the leadership behaviours it helps cultivate, offering both a theoretical bridge between the employer branding and leadership literatures and practical guidance for manufacturing firms seeking to strengthen talent attraction, development, and retention through combined branding and leadership-development strategies.

: employer branding; talent management; transformational leadership; mediation; manufacturing; Malaysia

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