Entrepreneur Image, Consumer-entrepreneur Admiration and Consumer Brand Attitude

Abstract

The personal image of an entrepreneur, which truly reflects his firm’s brand image, is an important source of the subordinate brand associations and even the brand equity of the firm. In the context of the mobile internet, many entrepreneurs create personal brand images and attract fans for their firm brands by using personal social network accounts (eg. WeChat or Weibo), participating in TV shows and personally being an endorser in ads of their firms. The previous researches in this field mainly focus on the concept of entrepreneur image and show that it would make consumers have a positive attitude toward the firm’s brand, and further strengthen their purchase intentions. However, these studies lack the concern about the emotional relationship between consumers and entrepreneurs, and how entrepreneur image affects consumer brand attitude towards an enterprise. The specific mechanism of this process has not yet been fully revealed. Based on the theory of admiration in positive psychology, this paper divides the entrepreneur image into two dimensions (ability and virtue), and introduces the construct of consumer-entrepreneur admiration in order to study the influential mechanism of entrepreneur image on consumer brand attitude. Study 1 uses Netnography to collect qualitative data on Sina Weibo and Baidu Post Bar. The data analysis and interpretation confirm the existence of consumer-entrepreneur admiration, and identify its causes and consequences. Many fans follow their favorite entrepreneurs on social networks and express their admiration for entrepreneurs including the specific emotion of praise, respect, appreciation, adoration, and pride. This result provides further evidence for the conceptual model and hypothesis of this paper. Study 2 collects 476 valid questionnaires by a professional online survey firm in China to empirically test the models and hypothesis. The scales of each variables show good reliability and validity. The moderated mediation analysis shows that entrepreneur ability and virtue both have significantly positive impacts on consumer brand attitude. Consumer-entrepreneur admiration plays a significant partial mediating role during the above two influential processes, and this mediation process is significantly moderated by consumers’ attainability. Based on the theory of admiration in positive psychology, this paper introduces and conceptualizes consumer-entrepreneur admiration and finds that the consumer admiration for entrepreneurs is crucial in building the images of entrepreneurs as a marketing strategy. This result enriches the researches on consumer-entrepreneur relationship, opens up a new perspective for the study of entrepreneur image, and is a further application and expansion of admiration theory in the field of marketing. This paper not only deepens and expands the theoretical research on entrepreneur image, but also provides some suggestions on how entrepreneurs establish their own images to effectively attract consumers for their firms’ brands. For example, cultivating consumers’ admiration for the entrepreneurs is the key to build an entrepreneur image. Entrepreneurs need to build their images in both aspects of ability and virtue in order to elicit consumers’ admiration and thus enhance their brand attitudes for their firms. Also, Entrepreneurs need to enhance consumers’ attainability through more emotional interactions to attract more consumers for the brands. Limitations and future research directions are also provided.