The Impact of Brand Equity on Employee’s Opportunistic Behavior: A Case Study on Enterprises in Vietnam

: Brand is considered a valuable asset that a business wants to create and maintain growth throughout its business cycle. This paper examines the impact of corporate brand equity on employees’ opportunistic behavior. The paper uses quantitative research methods, through linear SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) analysis of structural model with a scale of 609 samples of employees of enterprises in Vietnam. The research results show that corporate brand equity has a negative impact on employees’ opportunistic behavior. In the relationship between these two factors, trust and emotional engagement act as intermediate factors. Additionally, the research demonstrates that trust has a positive effect on all three components of employee engagement, including emotional engagement, computational engagement, and standards-based engagement. On that basis, the research suggests a number of recommendations to minimize the opportunistic behavior of employees in the enterprise. The ﬁndings of this study have shown the importance and impact of brand equity on employee opportunistic behavior. These are meaningful contributions in both theory and practice to help businesses gain deeper insight into brand equity and the need to pay attention to building and developing durable brand equity for businesses. At the same time, it is an important basis for the next research projects.


Introduction
Opportunistic behavior is considered a negative behavior and has a significant impact on employee performance in the enterprise. All managers do not consent the employee's work process to be seriouly influenced by the himself's opportunistic behavior, or even a part or a collective in the business. Therefore, limiting these types of behavior on the part of employees has long been seen as an effective solution to increase business performance. Opportunitsic behavior often stems from benefits that the individual wishes to achieve through different expectations within the organization. Once an enterprise has a foothold in the market, and the brand itself of that enterprise has a high value, it will often influence employees' perception, build trust, limit opportunistic behaviors that impose individualism in the business.
Branding is about increasing brand value (Yoo and Donthu 2001). Brand is considered a valuable asset that a business wants to create and maintain growth throughout its business cycle. Consumers develop feelings, associate with the brand and become loyal to the brand because of the values it brings to them. Brand equity is based on the consumer, based on the idea that the power of a brand rests in the consumer's mind (Leone et al. 2006). Today, with the diversified development of the market economy, along with the international integration and globalization process, it shows the importance of corporate brand value.
So far, in many of their studies, the authors have mentioned factors affecting opportunity behavior of employees such as the research of Katsikeas et al. (2009) ;Ivancevich and Mattson (2005); Pierce and Dunham (1987); Steers (1977); Ritzer and Trice (1969), etc. However, few studies refer to corporate brand equity as an important driver of opportunistic behavior. Many different models are built by the authors when it comes to the brand equity of the business. For most employees, when working in a prestigious and professional environment, and enjoying appropriate remuneration they will have better motivation and limit individual behaviors, opportunism in the enterprise.
Vietnamese enterprises are considered to have made significant progress in many fields. However, many Vietnamese enterprises today with limited operation scale, small and fragmented way of running business do not have clear business strategies, leading to less than expected business performance. There are many reasons for the limited quality of employees working in small and medium enterprises in the North Central region. In addition to the process of working under the direction of the manager, is still imposing, stereotyped, less innovative in terms of thinking and working style, weak in the bond between leaders and employees, one of the main reasons set out is the awareness of employees. Individualism or in other words, personal interests, is still popular and has considerable effect on their working process. In the context of deep and wide integration into the world economy, facing the competitive pressure of many large enterprises inside and outside the region, the problem of building brand names of Vietnamese enterprises becomes increasingly difficult. Corporate brand value is dominated by many different factors, and has a significant impact on employee's opportunistic behavior at the same time. This greatly affects the motivation, their working performance and the overall business performance.
The study aims to model and examine the relationships that directly and indirectly impact of brand equity on employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam. In the relationship between these two factors, research shows the mediating role of employees' trust and emotional engagement to the firm. This result demonstrates the contribution of research both in terms of theory and practice, thereby helping enterprises make appropriate recommendations to reduce employee opportunistic behavior through the process of building, maintaining and developing brand equity for businesses.

Corporate Brand Equity and Employee's Opportunistic Behavior
Brand is the combination of all physical, aesthetic, reasoning, and emotional elements of a product, or a product line, including the product itself, the name, the logo, and the image and all visual representations, gradually built up in the mind of the customer over time (Moore 2003). Brand equity is the core concept in brand management. Aaker (1991) defines brand equity as the set of assets and liabilities associated with a brand, its name and logo, plus or minus from value provided by a product or services to a company or its customers. In Aaker's opinion, brand equity includes five components, which are Brand Loyalty; Brand Awareness; Perceived Quality; Brand Associations and Other Brand Proprietary Assets. According to Keller (1998), brand equity includes: Brand awareness; Brand image; Reaction to the brand; and Relationship with the brand. Brand attachment and attitude positively influence consumer-based brand equity (Amin et al. 2018). Brands are instrumental to marketers and consumers alike. For centuries, brands have served as effective carriers of functional and symbolic information about goods, services, and experiences, allowing customers to efficiently associate personal meaning to a company's products (Travis et al. 2020). According to Erkmen (2018), while internal communication enhances brand knowledge and role clarity, external communication, and employee experience with the brand positively affect the brand commitment of employees. Iyer et al. (2018) argued that while brand orientation, strategic brand management, and internal branding are directly associated with brand performance, internal branding partially mediates the relationship between brand orientation, strategic brand management, and brand performance.
Opportunistic behavior is fraudulent seeking of personal gain (Williamson 1975), the nature of which is a breach of commitments, a breach of obligation, of liability required to be performed (Morgan and Hunt 1994). According to Nguyen et al. (2020), opportunistic behavior is considered to be a negative behavior of employees in the organization, governed and determined by perceptions, attitudes, and capacities of employees themselves. People as members of the organization are influenced and affected by factors of the organization such as culture, leadership, power, organizational structure, and groups of the organization in which the employee participates as a group member. Opportunistic behavior is measured by accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management, does have an affect on company performance (Suryani et al. 2018). According to Ko et al. (2018), both ethical leadership and formal control systems individually play significant roles in reducing employee opportunistic behavior. In addition, ethical leadership and formal control systems function as complements to jointly constrain employee opportunistic behaviors.
In addition to the two main factors mentioned are corporate brand equity and employee opportunistic behavior, the study also addresses the mediating factors in the model including employee's trust and employee engagement to enterprise.
Trust is an employee's willingness to share thoughts and perceptions with colleagues in the company. Mayer et al. (1995) believe that trust is the belief of one object with another, it is necessary to clarify the concept of trust in the relationship between trustees and believers. From an organizational perspective, trust is understood as the degree to which a member places trust in an enterprise (Zaheer and Harris 2006). Trust can be expressed at the cognitive, intentional and behavioral levels. Trust at the cognitive and intentional levels is often difficult to discern. Morgan and Hunt (1994) argue that willingness to rely on partners can be seen as the result of trust. If a party believes in a partner and is not willing to rely on a partner, then the confidence is limited (Moorman et al. 1992). Behavioral level of trust means that the believer must take risks when acting (Mayer et al. 1995). According to Campagna et al. (2020), whether trust meta-accuracy is associated with positive relational outcomes for leaders depends upon the level of an employee's actual trust in the leader. Integrity-based trust has a negative effect on knowledge-seeking behavior at workplace (Neethu and Kamalanabhan 2019).
Entrepreneurial engagement is defined as an unwavering belief in the organization's goals and values (Meyer and Allen 1991). Consistent with that view, Mowday et al. (1979), Porter et al. (1974) and Steers (1979) further emphasize that engagement is an employee's willingness to contribute to significant efforts for business. The importance of employee expectations towards leaders and the factors fostering positive relations between employees is emphasized (Drewniak et al. 2020;Den Hartog and Belschak 2012). According to Meyer and Allen (1991), commitment to business is a psychological state (desires, needs, and responsibilities) that shows the employee's relationship with the organization and has an impact on the aspirations to stay in the organization. The author examines these differences in concepts and has since proposed a concept of engagement consisting of three components: emotion, calculation, and norm. Meyer and Allen (1991) also emphasize that emotional, computational, and normative engagement should be viewed as three components, not the three categories of commitment. Each employee can experience all three of these components in his or her engagement.
Emotional engagement refers to the employee's affection and attachment to the business, feeling a part of the business. Employees with a high emotional engagement to stay because they like it. Mowday et al. (1982) claim that emotional-based commitment is influenced by groups of factors such as personal characteristics, structural characteristics, work characteristics, and work experience.
Computational commitment refers to the perception of the costs and benefits associated with leaving the business. Employees have high computational-based commitments to stay with the business because they need to be. In a classic psychological study, Becker (1960) suggested that commitment to an action increases when a person has invested and that this investment can be lost if the action is not continued.
A standards-based engagement refers to a sense of responsibility to stay in the business. Committed employees who are based on a high standard perceive that staying in the organization are a duty and ethical standard even though they may not be interested or genuinely beneficial compared to other options. Studies related to ethical commitment are more theoretical than empirical.

Corporate Brand Equity and Employee's Trust
Brand is considered as an important asset with long-term value for the business, a "strong brand" brings many values and benefits to the business. According to Joe (1999), the way to create a brand with added value in the competitive global market today is to create a suitable, effective strategy including advertising, marketing, public relations, and research investigation. The author has synthesized and showed readers how to build a successful brand strategy and to build brand loyalty. Employees have a desire to work in organizations with "strong brands", and employees' trust seems to be strengthened in those organizations. In order to examine the relationship between brand equity, employee's trust and its direction impact on the Vietnamese corporate context, the study hypothesizes: Hypothesis 1 (H1). Brand equity positively affects employee's trust in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1). components, not the three categories of commitment. Each employee can experience all three of these components in his or her engagement.
Emotional engagement refers to the employee's affection and attachment to the business, feeling a part of the business. Employees with a high emotional engagement to stay because they like it. Mowday et al. (1982) claim that emotional-based commitment is influenced by groups of factors such as personal characteristics, structural characteristics, work characteristics, and work experience.
Computational commitment refers to the perception of the costs and benefits associated with leaving the business. Employees have high computational-based commitments to stay with the business because they need to be. In a classic psychological study, Becker (1960) suggested that commitment to an action increases when a person has invested and that this investment can be lost if the action is not continued.
A standards-based engagement refers to a sense of responsibility to stay in the business. Committed employees who are based on a high standard perceive that staying in the organization are a duty and ethical standard even though they may not be interested or genuinely beneficial compared to other options. Studies related to ethical commitment are more theoretical than empirical.

Corporate Brand Equity and Employee's Trust
Brand is considered as an important asset with long-term value for the business, a "strong brand" brings many values and benefits to the business. According to Joe (1999), the way to create a brand with added value in the competitive global market today is to create a suitable, effective strategy including advertising, marketing, public relations, and research investigation. The author has synthesized and showed readers how to build a successful brand strategy and to build brand loyalty. Employees have a desire to work in organizations with "strong brands", and employees' trust seems to be strengthened in those organizations. In order to examine the relationship between brand equity, employee's trust and its direction impact on the Vietnamese corporate context, the study hypothesizes: Hypothesis 1 (H1): Brand equity positively affects employee's trust in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Corporate Brand Equity and Employees' Engagement
Meyer and Allen (1991) argued that engagement to business is a steadfast belief in the goals and values of the organization. Brand is one of the important factors contributing to maintaining, expanding and developing domestic and foreign markets for enterprises, which creates a more professional working environment for employees and positively impacts the employee's long-term commitment to the business. In order to test the impact of corporate brand equity on employees' engagement, in the context of enterprises in Vietnam, the authors hypothesized: Hypothesis 2 (H2). Brand equity positively affects employees' emotional engagement to businesses in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Employee's Engagement and Opportunistic Behavior
Research on the relationship between engagement and work behavior has shown mixed results. Engagement is found to be related to work behavior in several studies such as Pierce and Dunham (1987); Steers (1977), etc., but not confirmed in other studies (Jarnal 1984). From the individual level in the business, research by Ritzer and Trice (1969) demonstrated a positive relationship between organizational engagement and employee remuneration policy. A long-term commitment to the business creates a positive, comfortable, and secure working mentality in striving for the job, thereby limiting the opportunistic behavior of employees. With the context of enterprises in Vietnam, in order to examine the relationship affecting organizational engagement to the opportunistic behavior of employees, the hypotheses were built: Hypothesis 5 (H5). Emotional engagement negatively impacts employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).
Hypothesis 6 (H6). Calculation engagement negatively impacts on employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Hypothesis 7 (H7).
A standard-based engagement adversely impacts employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Corporate Brand Equity and Employees' Opportunistic Behavior
Brand equity shows consumers' perception of difference, superiority or peace of mind, comfort, and trust in choosing and consuming goods and services that that brand brings. Brand equity brings customers expectations about employee's positive attitude and professional behavior towards them. Gond et al. (2010) clarified the impact of the implementation of social responsibility on employee's behavior and attitude. Viswesvaran et al. (1998) analyzed the link between corporate social responsibility toward employees and employees' oppose acts. To clarify the relationship between corporate brand equity and employee opportunistic behavior, a hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 8 (H8). Brand equity has a negative impact on the employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Employee's Trust and Opportunistic Behavior
According to Katsikeas et al. (2009), there is a relationship that influences opportunistic behavior on trust and thereby the business performance. Morgan and Hunt (1994) in their research showed that there is an opposite effect between trust and opportunistic behavior in marketing. Strengthening employee's trust will create a series of positive effects, create long-term engagement and gradually reduce negative behaviors on the part of employees. With the business context in Vietnam, how is this relationship demonstrated? To have specific measures of this relationship, the authors hypothesize: Hypothesis 9 (H9). Trust has a negative impact on the employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Employee's Trust and Engagement
Up to now, in their studies, many authors have mentioned factors that influence employee engagement to business. One of the first attempts to develop a theoretical framework of engagement was that of Becker (1960) on the basis of the relationship between the individual and the organization. This argument is supported by later research (Ritzer and Trice 1969). Stone and Porter (1975) also emphasize that job factors are considered the key which plays the most important role in determining employee's engagement with business. From a trust perspective, there are many studies mentioned when analyzing the components, levels, and relationships with many other factors belonging to the individual and the organization. However, there are a few researches examine the impact of trust on employee's engagement to the business and its constituents. As one of the personal factors, trust is of great importance in the success or failure of most activities in business. Trust at different levels has different effects on effectively mobilizing and utilizing resources for business. Trust has the effect of creating a long-term connection between employees and the business, creating a solid solidarity, promoting the implementation of decisions quickly and effectively. In order to clarify the impact of trust on employee's engagement to enterprises in Vietnam, the following hypotheses are established in this study: Hypothesis 10 (H10). Trust positively impacts employee's emotional engagement to enterprises in Vietnam (see Figure 1).

Measurement Scales
Based on the theoretical overview and related research works, the paper proposes a research model with independent variable as Corporate brand equity. The intermediate variables are Employee Trust and Commitment in the business, including: Emotional engagement; Computational engagement; Standards-based engagement. The target variable is the employee's opportunistic behavior. The scale used in the research is a likert scale with 5 levels (Strongly agree; Agree; Normal; Disagree; Strongly disagree). The indicators measuring the applied variables are adjusted in accordance with the characteristics of the sample from the previous studies (see Table 1). Meyer and Allen (1991) 5 Standards-based engagement 6 Meyer and Allen (1991) 6 Opportunistic behavior 5 Katsikeas et al. (2009)

Data Collection and Sampling
The sample selected by the non-probability sampling method is a convenient sampling, relatively stratified by provinces and localities in Vietnam. The unit of analysis in this study is an employee in enterprises in Vietnam. The sample size for collection is 609 samples. The data collection process is conducted in two ways: direct and online questionnaires distribution. The number of online questionnaires collected was 256, the number of available questionnaires was 241. In term of direct survey, the number of questionnaires issued is 500, the number of questionnaires collected is 394, the number of questionnaires used is 368. The total number of valid questionnaires used for analysis is 609. Based on the study of Hair et al. (1998) for reference to the expected sample size, the minimum sample size is 5 times the total number of observed variables. With the number of observations in the paper is 37, the research scale includes 609 samples to ensure analysis requirements. The time to complete data collection is from June 2020 to September 2020.

Data Analysis Method
The research applies quantitative methods. The data after collection and cleaning are processed through SPSS and Amos. First, the study assesses the reliability of the scale with Cronbach's Alpha value > 0.7. Next, the study analyses EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) discovery factor with the aim of determining "convergent values" and "discriminant values of the scale". Then, using AMOS to assess the suitability of the research model through CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) test and finally the research conducts to examine the research hypotheses by analyzing SEM model.

Verify the Reliability of the Scale
Cronbach's Alpha test analysis results show that the reliability of the scale used in the analysis that Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of all variables >0.7. However, indicator BE6 has Cronbach's Alpha if Item Delete coefficient as 0.946 which is larger than the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of BE variable (0.940). Meanwhile, indicator SE6 has a Cronbach's Alpha if Item Delete coefficient of 0.901 larger than the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of the variable SE (0.899). Therefore, in order to increase the suitability of the scale, the study conducted BE6 and SE6 indicators (see Table 2).

EFA Analysis
After conducting the test of the suitability of the scale, the research conducts the analysis of EFA discovery factor. The analysis process conducted for both independent variables, intermediate variables and dependent variables. The analysis results show that the data are eligible for analysis due to the load factor coefficient > 0.5 and satisfy the two conditions of "Convergence value" (observation variables converge on the same factor) and "Distinctive value" (observed variables that belong to one factor are distinguished from another) (see Table 3).
In particular, hypothesis H1 is accepted with the significance level p < 0.05 and the regression weight is 0.593 (>0). That is, brand equity has positive impact on employees' trust in small and medium enterprises in the North Central region. This result corresponds to the work of Joe (1999); Ritzer and Trice (1969), etc.
Hypotheses H2, H3, and H4 examine the impact of brand equity on employee's engagement components on small and medium-sized enterprises in the North Central region. The research results show that the hypotheses are accepted with significance level p < 0.05 and positive regression weight, showing the positive effect of brand equity on all three components of engagement. These results correspond to the works of Meyer and Allen (1991); Becker (1960); Stone and Porter (1975), etc. In which, the order of impact is determined based on the regression weight is the brand equity to the standards-based engagement (0.412); computational engagement (0.335) and emotional engagement (0.273).
With the significance level p < 0.05 and the regression weight of −0.215 < 0, the hypothesis H8 is accepted. This means that brand equity has a negative impact on the opportunistic behavior of employees in small and medium enterprises in the North Central region. This result is consistent with the studies of Gond et al. (2010); Viswesvaran et al. (1998), etc. Hypothesis H9 testing the effect of trust on employee opportunistic behavior in SMEs in the North Central region is also accepted with p < 0.05 and the regression weighting is −0.237 (<0). Thus, it can be concluded that trust has a negative impact on the employee's opportunistic behavior. This result corresponds to the research of Katsikeas et al. (2009), Morgan and Hunt (1994), Pham and Hoang (2019).
With the rejection of the two hypotheses H6 and H7, while accepting all the remaining hypotheses from H1 to H9, it can be concluded that, on the direct relationship, the corporate brand equity has opposite effects to the employee's opportunistic behavior. Indirectly, research has shown that trust and emotional engagement play a role as mediating factors in the relationship between the two. This show the contribution of this study to demonstrating that not all components of engagement but only emotional engagement influence employee's opportunistic behavior. (see Table 4).
In addition, with hypotheses H10, H11, and H12 testing the impact of trust on employee's engagement components on small and medium-sized enterprises in the North Central region, the research results show that the hypotheses are also accepted with p < 0.05 and positive regression weights. This expresses that trust has a positive impact on all three components of the employee's engagement to the business. These results correspond to the works of Becker (1960); Ritzer and Trice (1969); Stone and Porter (1975), etc. In which, the order of impact is determined based on the regression weight is the trust to emotional engagement (0.245); standards-based engagement (0.200) and computational commitment (0.121).
It can be seen the importance of brand equity to employee opportunistic behavior. In addition, the determination of the mean also shows the actual impact of each of the factors in this study on employees in SMEs in the North Central region. With the highest average of the research variables included in the model is 3.7778, employee's emotional engagement to businesses is moderately high. This demonstrates the employee's concern and their long-term engagement t to the business is heavily emotionally based. However, if compared with the general index of other factors in management and business activities, this index is still at a relative level.
In addition, the mean value of opportunistic behavior is 2.1120, compared to other factors in the model, this is the lowest assessed factor, reflecting the positive situation of business activities. However, this is still a relatively high number for one factor that reflects the flip side of business. Businesses need to pay more attention to the opportunistic behaviors of individuals in the organization. It is necessary to develop specific targets for all employees in each unit, encourage employees to do a good job with evaluation policies, fair performance recognition and reasonable motivation. Enterprises should strengthen control activities in the business to limit self-rewarding behaviors and dependence on work (see Table 5).

Conclusions and Administrative Implications
The study aims to model and examine the direct and indirect impacts of brand equity on employee's opportunistic behavior in enterprises in Vietnam. Research results show that corporate brand equity has a negative impact on employees' opportunistic behavior. In the relationship between these two factors, trust and emotional engagement act as mediating factors. In addition, research demonstrates that trust has a positive effect on all three components of employee engagement, including: emotional engagement, computational engagement, standards-based engagement. The findings of this study show both theoretical and practical contributions, demonstrating the importance and impact of brand equity on employees' opportunity behavior, as well as the mediating role of the factors of trust and emotional commitment in this impacting relationship. In addition to those contributions, research also has certain limitations. Convenient sampling is a limitation of the study, which can reduce the ability to control the representativeness of the sample. At the same time, the research context is limited to businesses in Vietnam. With the results achieved, the paper opens up a development orientation in research will be deployed in other countries in the region and in the world.
Based on the research results, the authors suggest a number of recommendations to minimize employee's opportunistic behavior through the process of building, maintaining, and developing brand equity for businesses.
Firstly, in term of corporate brand equity, it is necessary to create differentiated values for the brand associated with the company's criteria, goals, and strategy. Enterprises should promote advertising and marketing activities. At the same time, managers need to build trust, increase employees' engagement with the business, specifically by building work targets for employees, encouraging employees by evaluating policies, recognizing fair performance, and creating reasonable motivation. It is important to managers to strengthen control activities in the business to limit self-rewarding behaviors and reliance on employees' work. These make great contribution to creating a positive and effective working mentality, thereby promoting the efficiency and efficiency of business operations of the business.
Secondly, in term of employees' trust, it is necessary to create a friendly working environment in the company and encourage open and straightforward information sharing among employees in the company. Building relationships between employees and administrators and among colleagues in the business is an ideal way to improve employees' trust. Management levels also need to express confidence in the performance of colleagues and employees.
Thirdly, in term of emotional engagement, enterprises need to implement methods to convey their development orientation to employees transparently and at the right time so that employees understand the company's development direction and build selfdevelopment orientation in that organization.
Fourthly, in term of computational engagement, it is important to create a working environment in which businesses view and evaluate employees fairly and transparently. When employees are recognized for their contributions and treated properly and fairly, they would be motivated and desire to engage long term with the organization, because they find satisfaction in the job and the effort they spend is worthy.
Last but not least, standards-based engagement, managers need to know how to inspire employees, create lasting connections with employees by committing to providing the values and benefits for employees who get high working performance.