Multilevel Antecedents of Brand Commitment: Implications for Brand Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

Researchers in consumer behavior have long been interested in the brand commitment of external consumers but paid fairly limited attention to that of internal consumers (i.e. employees), leaving the full picture of brand management undermined. To fill the gaps in the literature, this study employs a multilevel analysis and a dyadic data collection approach to identify antecedents of employees’ brand commitment. More specifically, the study addresses the self-congruity theory to explore individual-level factors, including employees’ perceived own brand image and person-brand fit, and the social information processing (SIP) theory to examine the group-level factor, i.e. team behavioral integration, and its effects on employees’ own brand commitment, which in turn advances brand citizenship behavior. Analytical findings based on a sample collected from Taiwan and U.S. support our theoretically-derived model. The study contributes to the branding and internal marketing literature by an examination of how psychological and social contexts shape employees’ attitude towards own brand commitment and their consequential brand citizenship behaviors.