Chapter 4 Hypotheses Deve lopment and Research Framework
4.3 Hypotheses
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favorable image, identification and reputation through sending signals to all stakeholders, managing organizational behavior, communication, and symbolism (Muzellec et al., 2006; Einwiller et al., 2002), thus making perception of external stakeholders and behaviors of internal stakeholders transformed (Vallaser et al., 2006).
In the process, the organization can help employees produce brand psychological ownership and brand citizenship behavior via corporate branding practices, such as leadership, training, rewards, communication, interactive process and departmental coordination (Kay, 2006; Burmann et al., 2005; Hatch et al., 2003; Leitch et al., 2001).
That is, employees whose needs are satisfied through the exchange relations may in turn reciprocate the organization by developing brand psychological ownership and producing brand citizenship behavior, thus contributing to brand equity. Based on Masterson et al. (2003), employees who have social identity through the process of corporate branding may have belongingness toward the corporate brand, and then produce brand psychological ownership which contributes to brand citizenship behavior, thus fostering brand equity. However, researchers have never investigated the relationships among corporate branding, brand psychological ownership, brand citizenship behavior via social identity theory or social exchange theory, revealing an important research gap.
4.3 Hypotheses
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4.3.1 Practical Phenomenon
In order to clearly clarify the multilevel relationships among corporate branding, brand psychological ownership, brand citizenship behavior, and brand equity, the case of 7-Eleven is first utilized by this research to explain the research framework via the practical phenomenon.
Based on the content of in-depth interview, brand values of 7-Eleven proposed by senior managers include abundant goods, guaranteed hygiene, best quality and friendly service, all of which make customers produce positive perceptions toward 7-Eleven, thus enhancing brand equity. In order to make customer-facing customers realize these brand values, practices of corporate branding conducted by 7-Eleven include vision and culture, brand leadership, interaction with stakeholders, departmental coordination, brand-centered HR practices, and brand communication.
In the process of corporate branding, brand values which are proposed by senior managers become culture and vision of corporate brand which affect employees’
cognitions and behaviors. Brand values are unceasingly transmitted toward employees via brand leadership, interaction with first-line employees, brand training, and enhancement of brand-related knowledge and skills, making first-line employees identify the corporate brand and produce brand psychological ownership and brand citizenship behavior. Consequently, customers may perceive 7-Eleven is the
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franchisee organization with excellent brand values, such as abundant goods, guaranteed hygiene, best quality, and friendly service, which contribute to the brand equity.
4.3.2 Brand Psychological Ownership and Brand Citizenship Behavior
Employees with psychological ownership facilitate positive attitudes (e.g., responsibility, altruism etc.) toward targets (e.g., organization, brand etc.), thus helping employees to identify self-existence and self-meaning (Van Dyne et al., 2004).
From empirical evidence, psychological ownership is an antecedent of organizational commitment (Van Dyne et al., 2004), which can evoke altruistic spirit (Podsakoff et al., 2000), and then contribute to organizational citizenship behavior. Therefore, psychological ownership is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior.
Based on the perspectives of psychological ownership proposed by Van Dyne et al.
(2004) and Pierce et al. (2001), three roots of brand psychological ownership make employees have favorable feelings toward corporate brand, feel they are effective in brand-related activities, and identify themselves according to corporate brand. Three traits of brand psychological ownership make employees produce positive attitudes toward corporate brand, regard corporate brand as their extensions, and be willing to defend corporate brand. For example, employees who have brand psychological ownership may regard corporate brand image as their extensions and then feel
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responsible for defending the brand while other people criticize their corporate brand.
Therefore, employees with brand psychological ownership may produce brand altruistic spirit. This study extends arguments of Eisenberger et al. (1986), Pierce et al.
(2001) and Van Dyne et al. (2004) and proposes that employees with brand psychological ownership have brand altruistic spirit that contributes to positive brand behaviors, which is termed as brand citizenship behavior. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is proposed.
Hypothesis 1: Brand psychological ownership positively affects brand citizenship
behavior.
4.3.3 Corporate branding and Brand Psychological Ownership
According to arguments of scholars, important perspectives of corporate branding include vision, culture, and image alignment (Harris et al., 2003), brand leadership (Vallaster et al., 2006), interactions with multiple stakeholders (Leitch et al., 2001), departmental coordination (de Chernatony, 1999), brand-centered HR practices (Martin et al. 2005; Burmann et al., 2005), and communication (Balmer, 2001) can contribute to the success of corporate branding. After examinations of EFA and CFA, five dimensions obtained by this study include: communication and evaluation of corporate branding, vision and culture of corporate branding, leadership and interaction with stakeholders of corporate branding, departmental coordination of
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corporate branding, and training and selection of corporate branding. As argued by Muzellec et al. (2006), corporate branding is the implemented processes adopted by an organization to create and maintain favorable corporate reputation via sending signals to multiple stakeholders, communication, and symbolism. That is, an organization may implement practices of corporate branding to make employees’
cognitions transformed (Hatch et al., 2003; Balmer et al., 2003). Therefore, this study asserts that the implements of corporate branding can make employees produce brand psychological ownership.
Based on previous literature (Smidts, Pruyn and Van Riel, 2001), the communication is regarded as the antecedent of organizational identification.
Employees with strong organizational identification are more willing to express supportive attitudes toward an organization and their decision making is consistent with organizational goals (Smidts et al., 2001). Two types of organizational identification proposed by Smidts et al. (2001) include cognitive and affective components. The cognitive component reflects the perceived amount of interests shared by an organization or organizational members, whereas the affective component reflects the positive image which may contribute to organizational identity (Smidts et al., 2001). Building on above-mentioned perspectives, an organization can adopt brand communication to make employees’cognitive and affective components
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of corporate identity transformed. That is, brand communication can be adopted by an organization to make employees’cognitions transformed and then produce brand psychological ownership. As argued by Hatch et al. (2003), corporate branding is regarded as an organizational tool implemented by an organization to transmit vision, belief, value, and norm toward employees, thus making employees’cognitions transformed and producing brand psychological ownership. Employees with psychological ownership are willing to shares beliefs and behavioral norms (Druskat and Pescosolido, 2002; Wagner et al., 2003), implying that employees with brand psychological ownership are willing to shares beliefs and behavioral norms of corporate branding. Therefore, brand communication and brand-related transmission of vision, belief, value, and norm can make employees produce brand psychological ownership.
Brand-oriented leaders may construct a brand-centered vision that influences personal value of employees and induces them to transcend self-interests due to corporate brand (Burmann et al., 2005). In the situation of brand leadership, employees may feel effective in brand-related activities and be willing to devote themselves to corporate brand. Extended from perspectives of Pierce et al. (2001), Van Dyne et al. (2004) and Burmann et al. (2005), this study argues that employees with brand psychological ownership may regard brand image as the extension of self
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image, feel responsible for protecting and maintaining brand image, and feel efficacious that they have rights to promote brand value. As argued by Burmann et al.
(2005), brand leadership which is regarded as the effective leadership contributes to employees’brand commitment, brand organizational citizenship behavior, and brand identity. Therefore, an organization may transmit brand values toward employees through the interactive processes (Harris et al., 2001), and then make employees produce brand psychological ownership.
Successful corporate branding is inextricably linked to the integrated efforts of organizational resources (e.g., marketing and human resources), thus contributing to employees’congruence perceptions of corporate brand (Hatch et al., 2003; Balmer, 2001) and revealing departmental coordination contributes to the implementation of corporate branding. Furthermore, brand-centered human resource management is a brand-centered strategy that contributes to the generation of brand identity internalization (Burmann et al., 2005) and brand-centered strategies may be implemented via HR practices (Aurand et al., 2005). Lin (2007) found that employees may be positively encouraged and then have interdependent interests with the organization when high commitment human resource management is adopted, implying that employees may be positively encouraged and then produce brand psychological ownership via brand-centered HR practices, such as training, selection,
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rewards, development and evaluation of the corporate brand.
Based on social exchange theory, employees who are satisfied via these supportive practices may feel effective in brand-related activities (Whitener, 2001;
Masterson et al., 2003; Allen et al., 2003), and then form intangible contracts which inspire employees to defend corporate brand. From the empirical evidences, three formal ownership programs which include participation in profit-sharing plans, participation in decision making, and the access to business information can contribute organizational psychological ownership (Chi et al., 2008). Extending from these results, this research argues that corporate branding which can be regarded as formal ownership practices may contribute to brand psychological ownership. For example, an organization which lets employees participate in decision making of brand-related activities may make employees feel they are effective in brand-related activities, which satisfy the root of brand psychological ownership. Brand-centered HR practices can be adopted by an organization to make employees participate in brand-related profit-sharing plans. Furthermore, an organization which communicates brand-related values via training may improve the congruence between personal values of employees and values of corporate brand; consequently, employees identify themselves according to the corporate brand. According to above mentions, this study argues that corporate branding can be regarded as an aggregated construct that is
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positively associated with brand psychological ownership. Therefore, hypothesis 2 is proposed.
Hypothesis 2: Corporate branding positively affects brand psychological ownership.
4.3.4 Corporate Branding and Brand Citizenship Behavior
Brand values can be fostered by brand citizenship behavior which is regarded as the consequence of brand altruistic spirit. In fact, brand identity needs emotional components (e.g., brand commitment and brand psychological ownership) to make employees be aware of brand identity (Burmann et al., 2005), and an organization may utilize brand communication to communicate the concept of brand identity with employees. Employees with strong organizational identity are more willing to show supportive attitude toward organizational goals (Smidts et al., 2001), therefore, an organization should engender identification which contributes to organizational functioning via communication. Extended from the perspective, this study argues that an organization should engender brand identity that contributes to brand altruistic spirit and brand citizenship behavior via brand communication. Prior research demonstrated that communication is positively associated with organizational identification (Bartels, Ad Pruyn, and Inge, 2007), and an emotional appeal contributes to brand identity which can be fostered by brand communication (Burmann et al., 2005). Furthermore, an organization can transmit vision, belief, value,
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and norm of brand toward employees in the process of corporate branding (Hatch et al., 2003). Therefore, an organization can adopt practices of brand communication to communicate core values of brand with employees and then make employees produce brand citizenship behavior.
Leaders may foster followers’perception of variety and autonomy via intellectual stimulation, such as seeking new perspectives and developing new ways to frame new organizational tasks, which represent that leadership positively contributes to employee positive behaviors (Piccolo et al., 2006). Brand citizenship behavior is not only brand-oriented behavior which is considered as one part of organizational citizenship behavior, but also the externally targeted behavior which contributes to perceptions of external stakeholders (Burmann et al., 2005). Therefore, the relationships among leaders, employees, and external stakeholders can be regarded as the outcome of an interactive process with multiple stakeholders (Leitch et al., 2001). Form empirical evidence, transformational leadership is positively associated with organizational citizenship behaviors (Podsakoff et al., 1990). Both transformational leadership and brand-oriented leadership are considered as effective leadership (Burmann et al., 2005), that is, leaders with brand-oriented leadership may construct a brand-centered vision that influences personal value of employees and make them produce altruistic spirit that contributes to brand citizenship behavior
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(Burmann et al., 2005). Therefore, a brand leadership can induce employees to express brand citizenship behavior.
The integrated efforts of HRM, communication and marketing departments bring the success of corporate branding, which indicate departmental coordination plays an important role in the process of corporate branding (Hatch et al., 2003). Furthermore, high performance human resource management is regarded as HR practices may contribute to employees’role of good organizational agents (Leana and Van Buren, 1999; Sun et al., 2007). Brand-centered human resource management is a brand-centered strategy that contributes to the generation of brand identity internalization (Aurand et al., 2005; Burmann et al., 2005). Building on the perspectives, both high performance HRM and brand-centered HRM are considered as supportive practices that make employees perception and behaviors transformed.
Both service-oriented OCB and brand CB can be aroused via supportive HR practices (Bettencourt et al., 2001; Sun et al., 2007), such as brand-centered HRM which include training, selection, rewards, development and evaluation of the corporate brand (Burmann et al., 2005).
Building on social exchange theory, when employees have high levels of mutual trust, respects, and loyalty with the organization, high-quality social exchange relationships will be produced (Chen et al., 2003). Eisenberger et al. (1986) argued
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that employees who perceive organizational support and care may produce altruistic spirit and behavior, such as organizational citizenship behavior (Podsakoff et al., 2000). From empirical evidences, Chi et al. (2008) found that three formal ownership programs (i.e. employee participation in profit-sharing plans, employee participation in decision making, and access to business information) contribute to organizational psychological ownership which makes employees produce altruistic behaviors. It reveals that employees can produce mutual trust, respects, and loyalty with the organization via supportive practices of corporate branding, such as employee participation in decision making (i.e., empowerment) which is regarded as one form of leadership. On the basis of reciprocal relations (Flynn, 2005), employees will disregard their gain to apply effort to the organization and then reciprocate via positive behavior, such as brand citizenship behavior. According to above mentions, this study argues that corporate branding can be regarded as an aggregated construct that is positively related to brand citizenship behavior. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is proposed.
Hypothesis 3: Corporate branding positively affects brand citizenship behavior.
4.3.5 Organization-level Brand CB and Brand Equity
Brand citizenship behavior refers to employees’brand-oriented voluntary behavior which contributes to brand strength (Burmann et al., 2005). This study
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argues that employees with brand citizenship behavior may express brand-centered extra-role behavior which can enhance brand equity. That is, employees with brand citizenship behavior may express brand-oriented behaviors beyond formal requirements which contribute to brand equity, such as good brand image improved by good service behaviors of employees (Sun et al., 2007). According to Keller and Lehmann (2001), the first category of brand equity (i.e., customer mind-set) can assess the brand equity from customer-based sources which measure customers’
attachments, association, awareness, attitudes, and loyalties (Ailawadi, Lehmann and Neslin, 2003). This study argues that customers with positive perception can have positive attitudes (e.g., positive association, loyalty, and awareness) and be less sensitive to price increases, as the premium price charged by an organization (Ailawadi et al., 2003), thus enhancing competitive advantage (Yoo and Donthu, 2001). Based on social exchange theory, organizational practices, which make employees perceive organizational support, may make employees produce positive behavior (Eisenberger, Fasolo and Davis–LaMastro, 1990). According to above mentions, this study asserts employees who receive supportive organizational practices (i.e., corporate branding) can reciprocate the organization through brand citizenship behavior that enhances brand equity. Therefore, brand citizenship behavior contributes to brand equity.
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Based on Yoo et al. (2001), brand equity is measured via perceptions of customers; therefore, the data of customers have to be nested with the corporate brand.
Compare to service-oriented OCB proposed by Sun et al. (2007) which have to be nested with employees’good servicebehaviors, brand citizenship behavior proposed by this research which contribute to overall brand equity have to be nested with the corporate brand. As argued by Burmann et al. (2005), employees with brand citizenship behavior produce brand-oriented voluntary behaviors which contribute to brand strength, revealing that brand CB contributes to the corporate brand. For example, customers may confront different employees who work in different stores of Burger King. Customer-facing employees in different stores provide good services that improve customers’overall perceptions of Burger King, thus enhancing brand equity. Therefore, this research has to aggregate individual data of brand CB to the organizational level, and then utilizes organizational data to investigate the relationship between organization-level brand CB and brand equity. Thus, hypothesis 4 is proposed.
Hypothesis 4: Organization-level brand citizenship behavior positively affects brand
equity.
4.3.6 Multilevel Mediating Role of Brand Psychological Ownership
Based on inferences of hypotheses 1-3, the relationships among corporate
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branding, brand psychological ownership, and brand citizenship behavior may be correlated. As argued by Pierce et al. (1991), psychological ownership is created by formal ownership which is designed according to three fundamental rights: the right to possess some share of the owned object’s financial value, the right to affect the owned object, and the right to get information the owned object. Chi et al. (2008) found that three formal programs which included profit sharing, participation in decision making, and access to business information were all positively related to organizational psychological ownership. Extended from these results, this research argues that brand psychological ownership is affected by formal ownership programs, such as practices of corporate branding. According to previous researches, corporate branding is related to vision, culture, and image (Hatch et al., 2003), brand-centered HRM (Burmann et al., 2005), interaction with multiple stakeholders (Leitch et al., 2003), brand leadership (Kay, 2006), brand communication (Harris et al., 2001), and departmental coordination (de Chernatony, 1999). That is, an organization can make employees have the right to get information of the corporate brand via brand communication, have the right to participate in brand-related decision making via interaction with internal stakeholders and departmental coordination, and have the right to share profits of corporate brand via sophisticated HR practices. Therefore, this research argues that brand psychological ownership can be created by practices of
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corporate branding. Furthermore, psychological ownership which can evoke altruistic spirit contributes to organizational citizenship behaviors (Van Dyne et al., 2004;
Podsakoff et al., 2000), representing that brand psychological ownership contributes to brand citizenship behavior. Employees who believe that the reciprocal exchange of valued benefits can occur may learn how to establish exchange relations with the organization (Molm et al., 1995). Furthermore, employees who have social identity through the process of corporate branding may have belongingness toward the corporate brand (Masterson et al., 2003). That is, employees who identity the corporate brand may reciprocate the organization by developing brand psychological ownership and then produce brand citizenship behavior, thus contributing to brand equity. From empirical evidence, formal ownership (i.e. corporate branding) can make employees produce altruistic behaviors through organizational psychological ownership (Han, Chiang and Chang, forthcoming). According to above-mentions, this research proposes that brand psychological ownership mediates the relationship between corporate branding and brand citizenship behavior. Thus, hypothesis 5 is proposed.
Hypothesis 5: Brand psychological ownership mediates the relationship between
corporate branding and brand citizenship behavior in the multilevel relationship.
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Based on the above-mentioned literature review, five hypotheses are proposed by this research to investigate multilevel relationships among corporate branding, brand
Corporate Branding
Vision and culture of corporate branding
Leadership and interaction with
Leadership and interaction with