Research On The Consumer-Green Brand Attachment Relationship

In order to expand green consumption market share and obtain the differentiated competitive advantage,building green brand has become the important choices for enterprises to adapt to the tide of green consumption.Because the development of Chinese green brand is still in the initial exploratory phase,the problems of unreasonable green brand marketing,different green brand evaluation standards and greenwashing are very outstanding,which have weakened the consumers' enthusiasm and trust for the green brand consumption.The ways to build the green brand which can be recognized and trusted for the consumers and establish strong and sustainable consumer-green brand relationship have become a main study area for the green brand management.The attitude-act theory is widely used for the researches on green brand consumption behavior and the green brand loyalty.But it is based on the consumer rationality hypotheses and excessive emphasis on the individual cognitive,which causes the interpretation and answer to the green brand consumption dilemma,has been wildly questioned.In the conceptions for describe the consumer-brand relationship,the brand attachment which can reflect the relationship of the consumer and brand by the emotional perspective is considered to be better illustrate and explain the high level of consumption behavior than attitude.The brand attachment can offer a new research approach for the brand loyalty.The theory research for the consumer-green brand relationship is still outside the scope of the marketing scholars.So the researches on the structure,antecedents and after-effect for the attachment relationship of the consumer and green brand have important theoretical and practical significance.According to the dilemma and characteristics for the Chinese green brand consumption,the construction of the consumer-green brand attachment relationship is researched based on the relevant literature and grounded theory.The construct model for the consumer-green brand attachment relationship research is built based on the S-O-R theory,ABC theory and VBN theory,and hypothesizes for the antecedents and after-effect are put forward.For the electronic green brand,hypothesizes are tested by the structural equation model,fuzzy qualitative comparison analysis,hierarchical regression analysis equation and the single factor analysis.There are two main questionnaire survey are carried.The dates of first main questionnaire survey are for the test of the double dimension of consumer-green brand attachment relationship and the dates of second are for the research of the structure,antecedents and after-effect for the attachment relationship of the consumer and green brand.The main research conclusion as follows:(1)The consumer-green brand attachment relationship is constructed by computational green brand attachment and affective green brand attachment.The computational green brand attachment is a mental connection for the consumer and green brand which is based on the rational calculation for the general function value and green function value of green brand by the consumer.The affective green brand attachment is affection ties which are included by initial emotion connection,warm emotion connection and indirect emotion connection.(2)The self-consistency and relationship authenticity for consumers-green brand have significant positive effect on consumer-green brand attachment relationship.In the green brand consumption situations,only reference group on the computational green brand attachment and the power on the affective green brand attachment are not significant.Self-consistency and green brand consumption situation combination can lead to high consumer-green brand attachment relationship.(3)The self-consistency has indirect effect on the consumers-green brand attachment relationship by relationship authenticity.Only rationality,reference groups,availability and consumption experience have indirect effect on the affective green brand attachment by the relationship authenticity.Green brand rationality,availability and reference group negatively moderate the intermediary relationship for ideal social self-consistency as the independent variable.And power negatively moderates the intermediary relationship for the true self-consistency as the independent variable and computational green brand attachment as the dependent variable but positively moderates the intermediary relationship for the social self-consistency as the independent variable and affective green brand attachment as the dependent variable.(4)Consumer-green brand attachment relationship has a significant positive effect on green brand commitment.Computational green brand attachment only has a significant positive effect on the repeat purchase,premium payment and word-of-mouth referrals,and cannot through green brand commitment to have an indirect influence on error forgiveness.Innovative cognitive style negatively moderates the mediating role of green brand commitment between consumer-green brand attachment relationship and repeat purchase.Adaptive cognitive style negatively moderates the mediating role of green brand commitment between affective green brand attachment and error forgiveness.Compared with other related research,the research by the perspective of consumer brand relationships on the green brand attachment structure,cause and after-effect enrich and perfect the theory of the relationship between consumer and green brand.Innovations in the following respects: First,taking Chinese consumers for example,the dimensions of consumer-green brand attachment relationship are put forward,and the conception of consumer-green brand attachment relationship is defined.Second,the action model of antecedents and after-effect for the consumer-green brand attachment relationship is built,and the main line of the study which is “self-consistency and green brand consumption situation?relationship authenticity ? consumer-green brand attachment relationship ? green brand commitment?behavioral intention” has been put forward.Third,the different of the antecedents and after-effect action model between computational green brand attachment and affective green brand attachment is revealed.And the advantages of the emotion to maintain and promote the relationship between consumer and green brand are clear.