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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the role of internal branding (IB) in fostering branding citizenship behavior in the hospitality context as well as the mechanisms underlying the relationship.

Design/methodology/approach: This study obtained empirical evidence from 377 hotel employees in North Cyprus.

Findings: Our findings support the positive relationship between IB and brand citizenship behavior (BCB). The evidence was found for a dual and sequential mediating role of brand trust and brand commitment. Moreover, the organizational climate serviced as a moderator to influence the positive relationships between IB and BCB.

Practical implication: This study has shown that employees are rewarding firms involved in IB initiatives in the form of BCB – directly and indirectly –through trust and commitment. This finding can advance managers’ understanding, enabling them to better manage their IB initiatives to achieve the most effective outcomes.

Originality/value: The research advances convergence between IB and BCB research streams, which has been under-explored in the tourism context. Besides, it extends the IB and brand citizenship literature through a novel dual and sequential mediation mechanism and organizational climate as a novel moderator.

This chapter aims to shed light on the role that a sustainable orientation plays in strengthening the relationships between global consumers and online brands. Despite many previous studies about the importance of sustainability considerations for national consumers’ brand commitments and purchase intentions, there is a lack of empirical studies focussing on this relationship from a global consumer perspective. A pre-study (consisting of focus group discussions) and a widely distributed international survey with responses from 74 countries show mixed results. Whereas the results from the focus groups imply that a sustainable orientation influences both global consumers’ purchase intentions and brand commitments towards online brands, the survey results imply that global consumers’ sustainable orientations do not affect purchase intentions directly, even though they influence brand commitments. An implication of these results is that an international online brand’s possibility to portray a sustainable orientation plays an important role in strengthening the relationship with global consumers, especially regarding brand commitment.

The purpose of this study, which draws on the stimulus organism response (S-O-R) theory, is to empirically examine the effect of brand coolness on communal brand connection and brand commitment, while assessing how the latter fosters brand trust and loyalty among smartphone users.

Data are collected from 410 smartphone users in Ghana and analyzed with Smart-PLS utilizing the structural equations modeling technique.

The study's findings show that consumers' perceptions of brand coolness have a positive influence on their communal brand connection and brand commitment. The study also discovers that brand commitment influences brand loyalty, whereas communal brand connection influences brand commitment, loyalty and trust, respectively. Similarly, brand commitment and communal brand connection are identified as important mediating variables in the relationship between brand coolness and both brand loyalty and brand trust.

The study underlines the significance of developing cool brand images and communicating same effectively to current and prospective customers, along with other stakeholders.

The study highlights the fact that properly creating cool brands can lead to increased communal brand connection, brand commitment, and, consequently, brand trust and loyalty.

Relying on social identity and social exchange perspectives, the present study aims to investigate the role of employee branding dimensions in stimulating employees’ brand citizenship behaviour (BCB) directly and indirectly through job satisfaction and affective brand commitment.

A field-survey method was used to target customer-contact employees of luxury chain hotels. Regression-based approach and bootstrap method (via PROCESS MACRO, Model 6) were applied to test the direct and indirect effects.

The results show that perceived external brand prestige has a strong direct effect on BCB. Through mediation analysis, this study observes that job satisfaction and affective brand commitment have significant mediation effects (i.e. individual, parallel and sequential) between employee branding dimensions and BCB. Analysing the results precisely, job satisfaction and affective brand commitment have the lowest sequential mediation effect and the greatest parallel mediation effect concerning the said relationships.

This study is novel in applying a three-path mediation model in the Indian hospitality context, considering a multi-dimensional perspective of employee branding to capture its diverse impact on BCB directly and indirectly through job satisfaction and affective brand commitment. Moreover, this study advances employee branding research by considering the under-investigated mediating (individual, parallel and sequential) role of job satisfaction and affective brand commitment.

This study aims to develop comprehensive definitions, conceptualizations and measures of four internal brand management (IBM) outcomes, namely, brand understanding, brand identification, brand commitment and brand citizenship behaviour (BCB). In doing so, it also aims to propose a model, which considers the relationships across these outcomes.

Data were collected via an online survey of 375 employees who work in service organizations, sourced from an Australian, Web-based market research list.

In addition to the indirect effect of brand understanding on BCB via affective IBM outcomes (i.e. brand identification and brand commitment), the study exposes a direct effect of brand understanding on BCB. Therefore, the study shows that BCB is affected by cognitive and affective antecedents.

Because this study focuses on IBM outcomes, future studies could propose and test relevant antecedents and moderators. As the empirical basis of this study comes primarily from the tourism and hospitality industry in one domestic market, the study should be replicated in other industries and countries to ensure the generalizability of the identified relationships.

This study not only delivers IBM outcome measures but also empirically validates that employees’ understanding of the brand is a foundation for affective and behavioural IBM outcomes. Therefore, managers, especially in service organizations, should provide sufficient IBM practices to enable such brand understanding.

This study contributes to IBM literature by developing comprehensive definitions, conceptualizations and measures of four important IBM outcomes. This study is the first to include brand understanding, brand identification, brand commitment and BCB simultaneously.

The study aims to develop a theoretical model that portrays the antecedents of emotional attachment in the travel context by combining branding, marketing and information systems theories.

The authors gather empirical data through a Web-based questionnaire from 236 respondents. The proposed theory-driven model is examined empirically by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that social media rewards and benefits impact users’ brand commitment. Social media interactivity and rewards help building a stronger brand image. Brand commitment and brand image, in turn, affect emotional attachment positively.

Other unexamined constructs may add to the explanation of building brands using social media platforms. As this is an exploratory study in relation to enhancing emotional attachment in an online travel setting, other constructs such as brand page commitment, annoyance, social benefits and telepresence may be considered in future studies.

Practitioners might encounter ways to influence favorable perceptions and brand commitment when consumers use social media sites. The model addresses questions regarding the significant role of social media activities on influencing brand image and brand commitment that in turn influence the development of a strong emotional attachment.

This study examined the effects of social media activities including interactivity, psychological benefits and rewards on brand image and brand commitment, and the effects of brand image and brand commitment on emotional attachment in the travel context. The results offer further verification for the theory-based model presented in the study. Evidently, statistically significant and meaningful associations exist among the factors.

The key contribution of this study is that it presents and validates a theory-driven model that reveals the antecedents of sustainable emotional attachment. The proposed framework stresses the positive relationships among constructs and offers research basis for expansion in other settings.

本论文结合品牌、营销、以及信息系统等理论, 建立了一个理论模型以描述在旅游情境中影响情感依恋的各种要素。

作者通过网络问卷的形式收集了236份数据, 并且通过验证性因素分析和结构方程模型的手段来实际测量以理论为基础建立的模型。

本论文研究结果表明社交媒体的奖励和好处影响用户的品牌承诺。社交媒体的交互性以及奖励帮助建立更强的品牌形象。品牌承诺和品牌形象对情感依恋有着积极促进的作用。

社交媒体平台的品牌建立模型还存在一些其他变量尚未开发测量。本论文只是开拓了网络旅游平台的情感依恋研究的方向, 其他变量比如品牌专页承诺、烦恼、社交好处、以及网真等, 应该在未来的研究中得以深入。

执业者可能会遇到多种方法, 通过社交媒体网站的方式影响消费者的主观感知和品牌承诺。本论文提出的模型可以帮助执业者解决关于社交媒体活动对品牌形象和品牌承诺显著影响从而达到强烈情感依恋效果的诸多问题。

本论文研究了旅游产业中, 社交媒体活动, 包括交互性、心理好处和奖励对品牌形象和品牌承诺的影响, 以及品牌形象和品牌承诺对情感依恋的影响。研究结果进一步深入测量了提出的理论模型。很显然, 数据分析结果表明模型结构之间存在显著有意义的联系。

本论文最重要的贡献在于它提出并验证了一个理论模型, 显示可持续情感依恋的动力起因。本论文提出的模型强调了结构之间的积极联系, 并且为在其他情境中的研究延申做出启示。

The purpose of this paper is to: analyze the effect of trust and affect toward a brand community on the commitment of brand communities; and investigate the mechanism through which the commitment of a brand community is able to increase various loyalty behaviors (e.g. repurchase intentions, positive word‐of‐mouth, and constructive complaints).

In order to test the hypotheses, a total of 200 Chinese female online brand community users were sampled, specifically users who had been active in the online brand community for over a year, and Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis was performed.

The results identified the significant positive paths: brand community trust → brand community commitment; brand community affect → brand community commitment; and brand community commitment → brand loyalty behaviors. In addition brand community commitment was found to play a mediating role in the relationships between brand community trust/affect and brand loyalty. Finally, brand community commitment was seen to have a stronger effect on word‐of‐mouth than on constructive complaints.

This study demonstrates the need to elaborate the brand community commitment construct. Specifically, attention to the underlying dimensions of commitment should identify more dynamic relationships among trust/affect, brand community commitment, and brand loyalty behaviors.

Marketing executives and brand managers who are considering customer loyalty improvement strategies must understand the value of managing an online brand community effectively. The findings of this study suggest significant ways to increase brand loyalty behaviors, particularly for brands seeking to broaden their appeal in the female Chinese market.

In contrast with the existing studies dealing with community commitment as an attitudinal antecedent of brand loyalty, this study empirically tested the mediating role of community commitment based on Baron and Kenny's logic. Moreover, the mediation was found to have a differential effect, namely a partial mediation for the relationships community trust‐repurchase intention/WOM but a full mediation for the relationship brand community affect‐constructive complaint.

Value congruence (VC) (the similarity between personal and object‐relevant values (such as a product or service)) rarely appears in studies of services, despite its importance for affective commitment. Existing research also neglects moderator variables. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of VC on affective commitment to service brands and examine the moderating effects of selected psychological, situational, and demographic characteristics in two services contexts.

Four retail clothing brands and four major bank brands provide input for the empirical research. In total, 1,037 respondents completed an online questionnaire with items pertaining to VC, affective commitment, preference for consistency (PFC), switching costs (SC) and demographics.

The positive impact of VC on affective commitment is stronger when the levels of PFC and SC are higher. Demographic characteristics of consumers, including gender, age, and education, do not moderate the effect of VC on affective commitment.

Increasing VC for all consumers may not be sufficient to secure consumer affective commitment. Instead, service providers should focus on consumers with high levels of PFC or create situations with high SC.

The paper demonstrates how PFC, SC and demographics moderate the relationship between VC and affective commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a model of brand love that includes both its antecedents and its consequences. The model is rooted in a causal approach and features established consumer‐brand relationship constructs (brand identification, brand trust and brand commitment).

The conceptual model and associated hypotheses are tested with a sample of 1,505 consumers. Data were analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results demonstrate strong relationships between the two antecedents (trust and identification) and brand love, and between brand love and its consequences (brand commitment, positive word of mouth, and propensity to pay a higher price for the brand).

Through the causal approach and proposed nomological model, the authors discriminate brand love from three important relational constructs (i.e. brand trust, brand identification and brand commitment) and establish the relationships among the constructs. Following recommendations in prior research, the predictive ability of the different relational constructs (trust, identification, commitment and love) are compared and the relevance of brand love for understanding consumer‐brand relationships is demonstrated.

The findings from the brand commitment literature suggest that the outcomes of commitment are not always favorable to the brand. This research aims to integrate the multi-component view of commitment with the relationship investment model to suggest a possible explanation to understand the mixed findings in the literature.

A random mall intercept method was used. A total of 1,000 surveys were distributed to participants to answer and mail back. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This research finds that consumers in affective and continuance commitment relationships differ significantly from each other both from an antecedent and an outcome perspective. Specifically, affective commitment consumers were more willing to make sacrifices, felt better about their brand relationship, held less favorable impressions about a competitor brand and were likely to continue patronizing the brand in the future. Continuance commitment consumers were unwilling to make sacrifices for the relationship, did not feel that their brand relationship was superior, were not keen on continuing the brand relationship in the future and were more favorable toward a competitor brand.

This paper contributes to the development of theory on brand commitment and provides a way to understand the mixed findings in the literature. Importantly, by examining the antecedents and outcomes, a more complete understanding of affective and continuance commitment is possible. The marketing manager benefits by understanding that not all brand commitments are the same. This research might help them to think more broadly about important brand-related outcomes in a service setting.