A Study On The Impact Of Employee Brand Internalization In Service Enterprise On Service Brand Loyalty

Traditionally, marketing and management pay attention to the external customers and external market, and emphasize earning profit by attracting and retaining customers. Most of the studies in service brand field are external orientation, emphasizing the relationship between service brand and customers. The original studies on service brand loyalty, most of which are also adhere to the traditional research paradigm, the mostly concentrate on the concept of service and the influence to brand loyalty by perceptive value, service quality, customer satisfaction, brand image, etc. However, the brand construction not only focus on the outside of enterprise, but also need enterprise all the staff’s harmony inside the enterprise. Only a few scholars propose that, service brand construction needs to pay attention to the enterprise interior and need through the internalization to achieve. The source of the difference of the service and the competitive advantage is employees. As the representative of the enterprise, their attitude and behavior which is showed in the interaction process with customers would have a significant impact on customer satisfaction and the decision on whether keeping loyalty or conversion. Against the background, under the framework of the brand internalization and brand loyalty, this study explored the "employee-brand-customer loyalty" mode. This study discussed service brand loyalty with brand internalization perspective.This study, systematic combed the related concepts of service brand, brand internalization and service brand loyalty through a qualitative study. We also separated the employee brand internalization concept from other similar ones by comparing two pairs of concept:employee brand internalization versus brand internalization, the employee brand internalization versus brand loyalty. We explored that employee brand internalization as a result state conclude brand understanding, emotional commitment and involved behavior. According to the result of theoretical study, after standard scale development process, This study developed the measurement to employee brand internalization in service enterprise.This study proposed the " employee brand internalization in service enterprise-customer satisfaction-service brand loyalty" mode and empirically examined that the effect of service brand loyalty on employee brand internalization. We surveyed the catering industry. Through the widely investigation on consumers,318valid questionnaire were collected, and thus we conducted descriptive statistical analysis, validated the measurement model and tested the research hypotheses. The results showed that, brand understanding, emotional commitment and involved behavior have positive effects on customer satisfaction:brand understanding, emotional commitment and involved behavior have positive effects on brand loyalty; Customer satisfaction have direct positive influence to the service brand loyalty. And we further tested the intermediary role of customer satisfaction between employee brand internalization and brand loyalty.The main conclusions are as follows:(1) Brand internalization at the business level as a result state for service businesses constitutes three dimensions:brand understanding, emotional commitment and involved behavior.(2) We analyzed the influence path of brand understanding, emotional commitment and involved behavior three dimensions to the service brand loyalty. Three dimensions have significantly positive effects to service brand loyalty.(3) Customer satisfaction has a directly positive effect on the service brand loyalty, and has an intermediary effect between employee brand internalization and service brand loyalty.