<p>Background: The forthcoming shortage of labor, due amongst other things to demographical issues and the increasing mobility of people on the labor market, will affect the possibilities to attract and retain employees with valuable key competencies. To win the talent war employer branding has arisen to become a strategy to overcome this threat. </p><p>Purpose: To investigate and analyze the outside perspective of employer branding – the employer image – of a knowledge intensive organization through a study of AstraZeneca. Course of action: An approach based on critical theory has been used to generate results, including both quantitative and qualitative methods. </p><p>Results: The workforce is at risk of becoming a scarce resource and the situation seems to be most alarming in areas related to natural sciences, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular. The employer image of AstraZeneca has been found to be very positive, showing high ratings of brand recognition and employer of choice, but the underlying reasons for these results have not been proven. Attraction between employer and employee could occur if the individual is able to see how to reach self-fulfillment through contributing to the company purpose.</p>

Background: The forthcoming shortage of labor, due amongst other things to demographical issues and the increasing mobility of people on the labor market, will affect the possibilities to attract and retain employees with valuable key competencies. To win the talent war employer branding has arisen to become a strategy to overcome this threat. Purpose: To investigate and analyze the outside perspective of employer branding – the employer image – of a knowledge intensive organization through a study of AstraZeneca. Course of action: An approach based on critical theory has been used to generate results, including both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results: The workforce is at risk of becoming a scarce resource and the situation seems to be most alarming in areas related to natural sciences, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular. The employer image of AstraZeneca has been found to be very positive, showing high ratings of brand recognition and employer of choice, but the underlying reasons for these results have not been proven. Attraction between employer and employee could occur if the individual is able to see how to reach self-fulfillment through contributing to the company purpose.

This paper explores the ideas of culture and leadership as a unified phenomenon and a means to face challenges caused by implementing new ways of working in knowledge intensive organizations. By creating a supportive culture and trusting in employees, managers can give decisive authority to employees, which will increase motivation, and enable managers to focus on strategy and vision. The research was conducted as a case study at one of the larger Nordic banks. The findings suggest that a cultural perspective on leadership can be used to increase motivation, and help understand the challenges of complex organizations. / Den här uppsatsen utforskar idéer kring kultur och ledarskap som ett gemensamt fenomen och som ett verktyg för att bemöta utmaningar som uppstår då nya sätt att arbeta implementeras i kunskapsintensiva organisationer. Genom att skapa en stödjande kultur och genom att lita på de anställda kan chefer beslutande ansvar till de anställda, vilket kommer öka motivationen bland de anställda samt ge cheferna mer tid till att fokusera på att utveckla strategi och vision. Forskningen utfördes som en case-studie på en av de större nordiska bankerna. Slutsatserna i den här uppsatsen pekar mot att kulturellt ledarskap kan användas som ett verktyg för att öka motivation, och för att förstå och bemöta the utmaningar som uppstår i komplexa organisationer.