The Effects Of Brand Values Congruence In Business Market

With the increase of brand influence and value in the business market,academia has paid ever increasing concern on brand theory and empirical research in business market,among which resource of brand equity is becoming more and more important.Taking company brands as study objects,this study uses questionnaire survey method,collects data from practitioners from business market,and introduce an innovative construct,brand values congruence,to explore how brand values congruity affects B2B brand relationship(trust,cooperation,word-of-mouth and value co-creation)via brand identification.This study addresses several key findings.Firstly,brand values congruence directly enhance brand identification.Meanwhile,brand values congruence positively affect B2B brand relationship via brand identification.Specifically,brand identification plays a partial mediator part in the relationship between brand values congruence and trust,while it fully mediates the relationship between brand values congruence and cooperation,word-of-mouth and value co-creation.Further,the mediation effect of brand identification doesn't exist on the dimension of conservation.In addition,compared with those with low brand sensitivity,business buyers with high brand sensitivity tend to pay more attention to the brand values congruence with suppliers on the self-enhancement dimension,thus promote the B2B brand relationship quality.These findings make innovative theoretical contributions in expanding brand values research and congruity theory,interpreting the mechanism on how brand values congruence improve B2B brand relationship,which also verifies the applicability of brand identification derived from B2C situation and provides important managerial implications to B2B branding.In general,brands managers from business market need to be more focused on brand values' establishment,put values management at the leading position of strategies and implement values into all practices of brand management,especially to keep in line with those of targeted customers.During the process of brand concept construction,brand managers need to differently convey brand values according to their relative importance.Considering the brand sensitivity level of customers,the communication on such benefit associations as power and accomplishment to consumers effectively improve consumer brand identification.