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“I Need You Too!” Corporate Identity Attractiveness for Consumers and The Role of Social Responsibility

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Abstract

The extent to which people identify with an organization is dependent on the attractiveness of the organizational identity, which helps individuals satisfy one or more important self-definitional needs. However, little is known about the antecedents of company identity attractiveness (IA) in a consumer–company context. Drawing on theories of social identity and organizational identification, a model of the antecedents of IA is developed and tested. The findings provide empirical validation of the relationship between IA and corporate associations perceived by consumers. Our results demonstrate that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) contribution to company IA is much stronger than that of Corporate Ability (CA). This may be linked to increasing competition and of decreasing CA-based variation in the marketplace.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Doménech Melé, Carmen Valor, and two anonymous reviewers for many helpful comments and suggestions. They also thank Fundación Cajamurcia for its generous support. This research was funded by a grant SEJ2005-09358/ECON from the Spanish Ministry of Science & Technology and FEDER.

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  1. University of Murcia, Murcia, 30100, Spain

    Longinos Marin & Salvador Ruiz

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  1. Longinos Marin
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  2. Salvador Ruiz
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Correspondence to Salvador Ruiz.

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Marin, L., Ruiz, S. “I Need You Too!” Corporate Identity Attractiveness for Consumers and The Role of Social Responsibility. J Bus Ethics 71, 245–260 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9137-y

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