Enough is enough! When identification no longer prevents negative corporate associations

By Sabine A. Einwiller, Alexander Fedorikhin, Allison R. Johnson, Michael A. Kamins. 2006

303 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Negative publicity has the potential to create negative corporate associations. However, consumers’ identification with a company might moderate the extent of this effect. This article examines the impact of consumer-company identification on reactions to variable levels of negative publicity about a company. Exposing consumers who had strong identification with a company to moderately negative publicity was found to result in less negative corporate associations than for consumers who had relatively weak identification. In contrast, consumers’ levels of identification did not affect reactions to extremely negative information, resulting in equally negative corporate associations for those with strong versus weak consumer-company identification. Thus, strong identification mitigates the effects of moderately negative publicity but does not attenuate the effects of extremely negative publicity. Consumers’ perceptions of and thoughts regarding negative information about a company partially mediated the effect of identification on attitudes and behavioral intentions.

Subfields: Marketing, Sociology and Political Science, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fc87fe28abe3c96b4b903dc76c63b54f3b5c9d35

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Citations in the corpus

Exploring consumer‐brand relationship quality and identification (2012, background): “Although several organisational identification researchers propose that the emotional aspect of identification is unexplored and merits further research (Pratt, 1998; Harquail, 1998; Einwiller et al., 2006), others recognise that the affective component of identification is similar to the affective ”
A model of customer loyalty and corporate social responsibility (2011, background): “Service quality has also found to be a strong antecedent of bank loyalty (Einwiller et al., 2006).”
The effects of social identification and organizational identification on student commitment, achievement and satisfaction in higher education (2016, background): “Organizational identification develops and grows over time (Einwiller et al. 2006), so universities should actively attempt to build student-university identification as soon as students start their programmes of study.”
Overcoming the ‘Window Dressing’ Effect: Mitigating the Negative Effects of Inherent Skepticism Towards Corporate Social Responsibility (2017, methodology): “Word of Mouth (3 items) studies 1 and 2 Source Brown et al. (2005), p. 135 Assuming that you own a mobile phone from Company X, how likely it is that you would engage in each of the following behaviors: • Mention to others that you buy products from Company X. • Recommend buying the products of Comp”
Interpreting Social Identity in Online Brand Communities: Considering Posters and Lurkers (2017, background): “A consumer who identifies with a company is likely to have positive thoughts and feelings towards it (Einwiller et al., 2006).”
A Coal in the Heart: Self-Relevance as a Post-Exit Predictor of Consumer Anti-Brand Actions (2011, background): “95) such as “This brand connected with a part of me that really made me tick” and “This brand made a statement about what was important to me in life” (Aaker et al. 2004; Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Einwiller et al. 2006; Luhtanen and Crocker 1992).”
Effects of Reputation, Relational Satisfaction, and Customer–Company Identification on Positive Word-of-Mouth Intentions (2009, background): “Since Ashforth and Mael's seminal study, a number of empirical research about identification has been set in a context in which participants are employees, members, or alumni of an organization (eg, Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000 ; Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995 ; Dutton et al, 1994 ; Mael & Ashforth,”