Employee brand citizenship in Saudi Green Hotel narratives: A narratological reading of credibility and pride

Abstract

Employee brand citizenship is usually examined as behaviour that supports a brand beyond narrowly prescribed duties. This article considers how such citizenship becomes intelligible through stories. Combining literary narratology with organizational identity and environmental citizenship scholarship, it examines five publicly available texts associated with the St. Regis Red Sea Resort, Six Senses Southern Dunes, and Red Sea Global. Two texts present employee experiences; three provide institutional and environmental frames. Close reading attends to narrative voice, focalization, temporal organization, characterization, recognition, and closure. The analysis identifies an interpretive tension between employees represented as authors of professional achievement and employees positioned within corporate narratives of national and environmental transformation. Credibility emerges as a claim requiring an identifiable speaker, a bounded account of action, and appropriate evidence. Pride becomes legible through recognition, belonging, and anticipated achievement, although published testimony cannot establish employees’ private feelings. The article proposes narrative conditions under which brand citizenship can be represented responsibly, including visible discretion, acknowledged support, ecological specificity, and room for disagreement. Its contribution is methodological and conceptual: narratology reveals how organizational communication assigns agency and moral value, while preventing attractive stories from being mistaken for evidence of employee motivation, causal mediation, or verified sustainability performance. By situating employee narratives within Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 agenda, the article speaks to national research priorities on sustainable tourism, decent work, and environmental accountability.