| A measure of individual differences in brand implicit image (BII), defined as the extent to which consumers believe that brand attributes are fixed (brand-entity theorists) versus changeable (brand-incremental theorists), was introduced and validated. Scale development results confirmed the reliability and demonstrated the convergent and discriminant validity of the BII scale. A series of studies were conducted to establish the predictive validity of the BII scale. In these studies, participants indicated their purchase intentions after being exposed to new brand information (i.e., changes in brand pricing, changes in service quality, and introduction of a new product). The results generally supported the hypothesis that the impact of new brand information on purchase intentions is moderated by BII which suggests that brand-incremental theorists are more influenced by new brand information than brand-entity theorists. At the end of the dissertation, implications for practice and theory, limitations, and future research directions for BII were discussed. |
