Mechanism Of Corporate Reputation On Consumer Loyalty

Market is the base of corporate development.Firm's economic value has to be transferred in the market,whatever the firms operate.So the share of market is the final goal that corporations chasing.Corporations compete in the market with many measures.The corporate level marketing is the most effective way.Reviewing the hundreds of years of firms' competition,with the times of mass production, technology innovation and knowledge information,corporations have made scale, technology as the main competitive ways.With the development of corporations,the competition of non-technology and non-material measures always exist and show more energy.On modern production basis,corporations can get stakeholders' identification and support through particular identity and values to keep the competition advantage and irreplaceable.In the situation of the similar producing capacity,technology innovation,knowledge updating etc hard competition,the era of corporate marketing which depends on corporate idea identification and value attraction to establish competition advantage is coming.Corporate idea and value is the major elements of corporate identity.The essence of stakeholders' identification to corporate idea and value is identifying the identity of the corporate.Due to the stakeholders' identification,it may result in their potential and factual tendency to the corporate.This tendency performs as the corporate attractiveness to the stakeholders.Consumer as the major parts of stakeholders can be influenced by the corporate identity directly.Corporate marketing wins theirs loyalty by this way.This dissertation will research corporate identity's influence to the consumers.The corporate competitiveness feedback of consumers embody in loyalty. And consumers' understanding to corporate identity is established on the foundation of corporate reputation.Therefore the research question can be specified as corporate reputation's influence on consumers' loyalty.The way to establish competitive advantage by corporate idea identification and identity attraction is determined by the stakeholders' recognition to the corporation. Corporate reputation is the concentrated reflections of corporate identity.Consumers can judge the corporate value then influence their identification and relationship quality with the corporate,through their knowledge to the reputation.Consumers' attitude change due to the corporate reputation may influence their loyal intent and behavior.In reputation,there are both rational factors offered to evaluate by objectively and emotional factors to judge by subjectively.Reputation is the mixture of rational and emotional factors.Both of the two kinds of factors affect mutually. Current research cannot separate them clearly,and separation will cut off the close mutual interaction between them.So this research decomposes corporate reputation's driving constituent factors,and analyzes the mechanism of different reputations constituents influence consumers' loyal intent and behavior through their influence to consumer-company identification and relationship.Based on the research thought above,this dissertation tries to research company identity from outsiders' view with organizational identification and relationship marketing.Review current research,arrange the relationship between company identification and relationship marketing and set up theoretical platform for following research.The research target is PC industry which company name is consistent with production brand and it will decrease the unclear investigation target problems in multi-brand research.According to Moore's law,the out rate and repurchase rate of PC is increasing and some corporations have set up certain loyalty.The amount of PC company is not too much to choice,and also not too less to compete.Consumers can choose relatively freely with less transfer barrier.This research will investigate main consumers' selection,evaluation of corporate reputation,company identification, relationship quality and loyalty level etc variables and complete the whole analysis of research through four parts.Research one,the research of relationship among corporate reputation, consumer-company identification and relationship quality.This includes two parts: one is the influence extent of consumer-company identification to relationship quality; two is the influence of corporate reputation to both of them.Corporate reputation is the vector of corporate identity and transmits the identity information to consumers. Based on the fitness of corporate identity and self-concept,consumers have different feelings to one corporation.The degree of consumers' identification will influence the relationship quality between them.Through empirical research,not all the contents of corporate reputation can influence consumer-company identification.The contents of reputation which cannot be measured quantitatively such as ethical norm,social responsibility and equity etc have influence on identification directly. Consumer-company identification influence on relationship satisfaction and trust, meanwhile relationship satisfaction influence relationship trust and have mediate effect to company identification and relationship trust.Research two analyzes the joint influence of consumer-company identification and relationship quality to consumer's loyalty.In the theory of relationship marketing, relationship quality can improve consumers' loyalty.But in the circumstance of consumer-company identification,it is worth to research the influence of relationship quality to four kinds of consumers' loyalty.Through the empirical research,it re-proves the influence of relationship quality to consumer's loyalty.And relationship quality as mediator influences consumers-company identification to consumers' loyalty.Relationship satisfaction has no direct relationship with consumers" loyalty, but influences it through relationship trust's mediate effect.Consumer-company identification has direct relation with consumers' loyalty,meanwhile it influences through relationship quality mediate effect.In the four main kinds of consumers' loyalty,relationship trust has direct influence on word-of-mouth communication, recommendation will and repurchase & first choice etc.consumer's loyalty, meanwhile,it influences paying premium through relationship trust mediate effect.Research three is the integrated research of corporate reputation to consumers' loyalty.It analyzes corporate reputation's direct influence on consumers' loyalty and possible mediate effect of consumer-company identification and relationship quality. On the basis of research one and two,the integrated model of corporate reputation to consumers' loyalty is analyzed.The empirical results show that corporate reputation can influence consumers' loyalty through many ways.Among the components of corporate reputation,some contents influence consumers' loyalty directly,some do it through consumer-company identification and relationship quality,others have both two kinds of functions.In further analysis of typical company,the excellent parts of corporate reputation have special influence to consumers' loyal attitude,and some findings are discussed.Research four analyzes the reaction of consumers' loyalty to corporate reputation. Consumers' loyal attitudes influence their WOM(word-of-mouth) and recommendation,and this will influence new round reputation.This research sets up model of WOM reputation communication by adjusting epidemic model.Reputation communication process is simulated and influential factors are analyzed.This research finishes the cycle action of corporate reputation communication and consumers' loyalty and is helpful to understand the integrated round of corporate reputation communication.The practical meaning is discussed.From outside viewpoint with corporate marketing idea,social identity theory and organizational identification theory,this dissertation analyzes consumer-company identification from consumers' knowledge of corporate reputation,explains mechanism of corporate reputation to consumers' loyalty with identity theory and relationship marketing theory,and uses consumer-company identification as one of reasons of loyalty to interpret corporate reputation's function to consumers' loyalty and influential function of reputation's detail components.Some meaningful discoveries are discussed.There are still some shortages needed to fulfill.In the future, it needs farther research both in theory and practice.