Study Of The Impact Of Corporate Reputation On Customer Identity

As an important intangible asset of company,corporate reputation has a positive influence on customer behavior.However,this effect only comes into being when the customers identify with the corporate. In other words, Customer identification is the foundation that corporate reputation exerts its influence ,so it is the most important object of corporate reputation management to acquire the customer identification with the corporate.After reviewing the general body of corporate reputation and customer identification literature, the author constructs the research framework of this article.In this framework, corporate reputation is chosen as independent variable, corporate identity distinctiveness, identity prestige and identity attractiveness are regarded as mediator variables, customer identification is dependent variable.The framework is tested in the context of mobile phone industry and the college students are chosen to be the customers for the research.The paper discusses the corporate reputation's influence on customer identification.And then the differences among the effect of corporate reputation's dimensions are examined. Also the paper reveals managerial implications based on the final conclusions.The research draws mainly the following conclusions:(1) The corporate reputation has positive influence on the customer identification. corporate reputation has five dimensions including product&service,customer orientation, workplace environment, ethical social responsibility and philanthropic social responsibility, and every dimension's influence decreases successively.(2)The impact of corporate reputation on customer identification is fully mediated by corporate identity distinctiveness, identity prestige and identity attractiveness. Identity attractiveness is dependent on identity distinctiveness and identity prestige and the impact of identity prestige on identity attractiveness is stronger than that of identity distinctiveness.(3)In the process of product&service dimension of corporate reputation influencing customer identification, the mediating impact of identity prestige is stronger than that of identity distinctiveness.(4)In the process of customer orientation and ethical social responsibility dimensions of corporate reputation influencing customer identification, the mediating impact of identity distinctiveness is stronger than that of identity prestige.(5) The philanthropic social responsibility dimension of corporate reputation influences customer identification through identity distinctiveness only.(6) The workplace environment dimension of corporate reputation influences customer identification through identity distinctiveness only.