Search results

By drawing on theories of social identity, attraction, social comparison and consumer identification, this research seeks to examine how consumers' perceptions of other customers of an organisation (the other customer effect) may have an influence on corporate image and consumer‐company identification. This study aims to test a model integrating these constructs in two contexts, i.e. products and services. It also seeks to investigate the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of a favourable corporate image in order to provide more insights to the argument that a corporate marketing approach helps to enhance marketing performance.

A survey of a convenience sample of 383 adult consumers is conducted. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is employed in order to test the proposed model. An alternative model is examined both in products and in services contexts.

The results indicate that perceptions about other customers influence customers' affective and behavioural reactions towards a company for both products and services. This finding suggests that corporate‐level marketing activities aiming to increase interaction among consumers lead to favourable corporate image and higher consumer‐company identification and hence desirable marketing outcomes. Furthermore, results show that for services the other customer effect is more prominent than for product offerings.

This study extends the concept of other customer effect to the context of corporate image and consumer‐company identification studies. It provides evidence that shifting towards corporate‐level marketing gives organisations another avenue for gaining a distinct position in the minds of consumers. Furthermore, by addressing both service and product contexts, it shows that other customer effect may exist beyond services studies.

This study aims to examine the effect of halal company identity includes halal identity similarity, halal identity distinctiveness and halal identity prestige on customer satisfaction and customer trust. Furthermore, it verifies the influence of customer satisfaction and customer trust on customer-company identification. Finally, it explores the effect of customer-company identification on halal restaurant loyalty.

This study selected a sample of halal restaurants in the area of Semarang City, Indonesia, using a purposive sampling method with a total of 520 respondents. The data analysis uses confirmatory factor analysis to identify discriminant and convergent validity and then structural equation modeling is used to validate the hypotheses.

The result showed that all aspects of halal company identity, namely, halal identity similarity, halal identity distinctiveness and halal identity prestige, significantly affect customer satisfaction. Halal identity similarity and halal identity distinctiveness insignificantly affect customer trust; however, halal identity prestige successfully affects customer trust. Both customer satisfaction and customer trust positively impact customer-company identification and, in turn, customer-company identification impacts halal restaurant loyalty.

This study contributes to the theory of halal tourism based on social identity theory and the theory of relationship quality in achieving customer loyalty of halal restaurants.

Based on the social identification theory, this study aims to understand employees’ reactions to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in oil companies. This study finds that employees’ perceived CSR is positively related to the employee organizational identification in controversial sector companies.

The authors chose to analyze five oil companies in India. These companies are large in size and revenue and provide a valid context for the present study. A survey of 316 employees had been carried out in the year 2015 at the headquarters of these companies located in India.

The finding shows that organization CSR activities enhance employees’ organizational identification, which in turn leads to employee commitment to their organization. Furthermore, the finding highlights the relationship between perceived CSR and organizational identification, which is mediated by perceived external prestige and perceived organizational support.

The limitation of this study is the cross-sectional research design. The variables under investigation were measured only at one specific point of time. Another restriction of the study is that the data had been collected from the self-reported questionnaire. The results were dependent on how employees perceive and interpret how outside world assesses or views their organization.

This study provides a first step of empirical evidence suggesting that CSR engagement is important and can help in building the relation with stakeholders even in controversial industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers' personality (i.e. motivation for affiliation) and their perceptions about the company (i.e. identity attractiveness) and the relation they maintain with the company's employees (i.e. personal connection with salesperson) influence their identification with the company. The research also considers the moderating effects of identity salience and salesperson identification with the company. In addition, the study proposes that salesperson identification may further enhance the positive influence of the consumer‐salesperson connection on the consumer's identification with the company.

In order to test the hypothesized model, this study uses a sample of customers from a financial institution with different levels of business involvement with the company. With a questionnaire formed with measures taken from previous literature, structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model.

The results showed that all three determinants – i.e. identity attractiveness, need for affiliation, and personal connection – have direct and positive effects on consumer identification with the company. Moreover, the moderating effect of identity salience was also confirmed for the impacts of both identity attractiveness and need for affiliation on consumer identification, as well as the moderating effect of salesperson identification for the impact of personal connection between the customer and the salesperson on consumer identification.

This research offers important insights for marketing managers. Specifically, companies need to be aware of and to deliver a consistent and attractive identity of both their salespeople and their company. Moreover, marketing communications that attempt to connect a product or brand to a social identity should consider the extent to which target consumers value that social identity, and what aspects can be leveraged to increase perceptions of relevance associated with that identity. Therefore, all communication activities should provide cues about how the company or its products are related to an identity that is relevant to the consumer.

This research contributes to the literature on social identity and organizational identification as it examines the consumer‐company relationship in a consumer context. The main contributions are three. First, it highlights the importance of the non‐product aspects of a company in terms of building a consumer‐company bond. Second, it shows that consumers are more likely to adopt social identities (i.e. to identify with particular social groups) when they consider the company's identity to be personally relevant. And third, it demonstrates the impact of the salesperson identification with the company on his/her performance, a relationship that sales literature has not considered yet.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the corporate marketing literature by examining how an individual's identification with a company influences their willingness to invest in the company's shares.

A set of hypotheses was developed, based on theory, and survey data were obtained from 440 individuals in order to test the hypotheses. The data pertained to the individuals' recent decisions to invest in particular companies' shares, and to the degree of their identification with the companies' identities. The analysis method was PLS path modelling.

First, an individual's identification with a company was found to have a positive effect on their determination to invest in the company's shares rather than in other companies' shares that have approximately similar expected financial returns/risks. Second, company identification was found to elicit preparedness to invest in the company's shares with lower financial returns expected from the shares than from other shares. Both influences were partly mediated by the individual's willingness to give support to a company with which they identify.

The study pertains to company identification of individual investors; institutional (and professional) investors are beyond the scope of the paper. Also, the sample focuses on investors in a single country (Finland), and the data may involve some self‐reporting and retrospection biases.

Considering corporate marketing in the stock markets, individuals who identify with the company are identified as worthwhile targets when the company seeks to attract new investors.

The paper provides theoretical grounding for and empirical evidence of the positive influence of company identification on individuals' willingness to invest in companies' shares. It is a novel finding for corporate marketing literature that individuals express their identification with a corporate brand also through investing in its shares.

The study aims to examine the effects of proactive vs passive environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), factoring in the moderating effects of price and the mediating effects of company–consumer identification(C-C identification) on consumer responses.

An experiment with general consumer samples was conducted. A randomized 2 (CSR levels: proactive CSR vs passive CSR) × 2 (price as a CSR trade-off: higher price vs lower price) full factorial design was used.

The study findings revealed that proactive environmental CSR not only engendered more positive C-C identification but also resulted in more favorable consumer attitudes, stronger supportive communication intent and purchase intent. In addition, when a company demonstrates proactive CSR, consumers' C-C identification is generally positive irrespective of price differences, and in turn, more positive reactions follow. When a company takes a passive approach and offers lower prices, respondents showed significantly less positive C-C identification, and less favorable responses. This indicates that passive environmental CSR programs can potentially backfire, especially when combined with lower prices. This study also shows the important mediating impact of C-C identification on consumer responses.

This study is one of the few to explore consumer perceptions of and reactions toward the food industry's environmental CSR programs by degree of CSR involvement and price differences in the context of SMEs. This study's findings provide useful information to SME managers and public relations practitioners who work closely with SMEs, allowing them to make informed strategic decisions, especially when they evaluate the extent of their company's commitment to environmentally proactive CSR practices and its communication to consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether customer-company identification (CCI) can transfer from one organization to the next within the context of service alliances.

A between-subjects experiment using a fictitious alliance and a field study focused on a real alliance tests identification transfer at the time of a service alliance announcement and while the service alliance is in operation.

Identification transfer is enabled by an exclusive service alliance but not an inclusive one. For identification transfer to be maintained, customers must perceive the companies as a coherent group (i.e. high entitativity) and have close physical proximity to the alliance.

By drawing heavily on self-categorization theory for the proposed effects, the current research provides a new theoretical framework to the service and brand alliance literature that contrasts with the attitude-based theories commonly used. Furthermore, the current research explores how company-company relationships influence CCI whereas most research has focused on characteristics of the customer-company relationship. These two differences suggest service alliances provide more value to the companies and customers than currently realized.

The purpose of this paper is to address the research issue of how companies manage their consumers' identification to compete effectively in intensely competitive market places. Drawing on theories of social identity and organizational identification, this study proposes that favorable consumer purchase intentions often result from the consumer‐company identification (C‐C identification) which depends on several identity judgments like identity prestige and identity attractiveness.

A research model and 13 hypotheses are derived in this study. LISREL models are employed to identify the validity of the entire model and data are collected from ten direct selling companies.

The results of empirical analysis show that identity judgments positively affect C‐C identification and the degree of C‐C identification positively influences consumer purchase intentions. The moderating effects of identity trustworthiness and embeddedness have mild influences on the relationship between identification and purchase intentions.

This study confirms that encouraging identification has not only been identified as a good employee retention strategy in organization management but also a good customer retention strategy in marketing management.

This study intends to go one step further to empirically test the viability of the C‐C identification model that is lack of empirical supported.

Prior research does not provide a clear picture of how managers can effectively manage customer in-role and extra-role behaviours in a retail setting. This study aims to test the differential impact of the two main customer relationship predictor paths – identity-based and satisfaction-based paths – on customer in-role and extra-role behaviours.

A random sample of 500 customers from the flagship store of an up-market, international department store chain participated in a written survey. Purchase spending data for each customer was obtained from the retailer’s loyalty card database.

The two studied predictor paths possess a differential impact on customer extra-role behaviours. Civic virtue and co-creation behaviours are exclusively driven by the identity-based path, whereas sportsmanship is driven solely by the satisfaction-based path. Moreover, the identity-based path impacts purchase behaviour only when symbolic purchase motivation is high. Overall satisfaction has no impact on purchase behaviour.

In some retailing contexts, extra-role behaviours such as co-creation or civic virtue might simply be irrelevant (e.g. discount chains).

Managers, who have the intention to stimulate customers to give constructive feedback on products or services, or to involve them in co-creation activities, are well advised to also invest in identity-based path activities.

This study is the first to empirically test the effects of customer identification and overall customer satisfaction on the various dimensions of customer in-role and extra-role behaviours. Customer extra-role behaviours should not be conceptualised as one global construct but should comprise distinct dimensions of discretionary behaviours that have different antecedents.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the relative emphasis accorded by members of a brand community to identification with that community and identification with the brand‐owner, and thereby close a gap in the literature to date.

Based on a review of the literature relating to identification, loyalty, and potentially mediating brand‐related constructs, a cross‐sectional questionnaire‐based survey was carried out at a brandfest organised by a major European motorcycle manufacturer. Data collected from 256 respondents were analysed by structural equation modelling, testing seven hypothesised causal links.

Brand loyalty is primarily influenced by identification with the brand community, through the mediating role of brand affect.

The findings require confirmation in other settings and industry sectors before they can be generalised with confidence, but point to several fruitful research directions.

Brand strategists have new evidence to guide allocation of effort and resources to the effective cultivation and maintenance of brand loyalty.

The study makes an original contribution, in a real‐world setting, to the understanding of how members of a brand community relate to the brand, and of how their brand loyalty is activated.