خدمات B2B هویت نام تجاری: توسعه و اعتبار مقیاس

Several brand identity frameworks have been published in the B2C and the B2B brand marketing literature. A reliable, valid and parsimonious service brand identity scale that empirically establishes the construct's dimensionality in a B2B market has yet to be developed. This paper reports the findings of a study conducted amongst 421 senior executives working in the UK IT Service sector to develop and validate a B2B Service Brand Identity Scale. Following established scale development procedures support is provided for a B2B Service Brand Identity Scale comprising five dimensions; employee and client focus, visual identity, brand personality, consistent communications and human resource initiatives. Concluding remarks discuss theoretical and managerial implications with limitations and directions for future research.

Since the early 1990s brand identity has been the subject of increased academic interest (Aaker, 1991, Aaker, 1996, Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000, Alsem and Kostelijik, 2008, Beverland, Napoli and Lindgreen, 2007, Beverland, Napoli and Yakimova, 2007, de Chernatony, 1999, de Chernatony et al., 2010, Kapferer, 1997, Kapferer, 2004, Keller, 1998, Keller, 2003 and Madhavaram et al., 2005). Organizations that present a cohesive, distinctive and relevant brand identity can create preference in the market place, add value to their offer and command premium prices (Bendixen et al., 2004, Bengtsson and Servais, 2005, Ohnemus, 2009 and Schmitt and Simonson, 1997). Building brand identity also fosters trust, facilitates differentiation (Ghodeswar, 2008) and helps customers' identification with the brand (Baumgarth & Schmidt, 2010). More broadly, developing a B2B brand has a positive affect on perceived quality (Cretu & Brodie, 2007), helps build customer loyalty (Persson, 2010) increases company power in the distribution network (Ohnemus, 2009), drives sales volume and revenue (Glynn, 2010) whilst adding to balance sheet value in the event of sale (Low & Blois, 2002). Consequently, research providing brand identity management insight has the potential to be of considerable academic and managerial interest. Although several brand identity frameworks have been published in the B2C literature (Aaker, 1996, Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000, de Chernatony et al., 2010 and Kapferer, 2004) only a small number of studies have considered brand identity in a B2B context (Beverland, Napoli and Lindgreen, 2007 and Beverland, Napoli and Yakimova, 2007). The development and validation of B2B related frameworks is of particular note given the unique characteristics of B2B markets. Such characteristics include multifaceted supply chain relationships (Bengtsson and Servais, 2005, Campbell et al., 2010, Gadde and Hakansson, 2008, Glynn, 2010, Lee et al., 2010 and Lindgreen et al., 2010), a complex selling process to a decision making unit (Bendixen et al., 2004, de Chernatony et al., 2010 and Lynch and de Chernatony, 2004), highly customized solutions (Baumgarth, 2010), a smaller number of more powerful clients (Beverland, Napoli, & Lindgreen, 2007), high value transactions (Campbell et al., 2010) and the predominance of personal selling (Beverland, Napoli and Lindgreen, 2007, Deeter-Schmelz and Kennedy, 2004 and Lynch and de Chernatony, 2007) which places a greater emphasis on managing the human resource which implement the brand strategy (Baumgarth, 2010 and Baumgarth and Schmidt, 2010). This research contributes to the dearth of empirical research on brand identity in a B2B service context by developing a valid, reliable and parsimonious B2B service brand identity scale. The scale provides a psychometrically sound way to measure and reveal the construct's dimensionality. To date, the nascent B2B brand identity literature has been conceptually orientated (Beverland, Napoli and Lindgreen, 2007 and Beverland, Napoli and Yakimova, 2007) and so our inquiry intends to address this gap given it is empirically informed. The paper opens by reviewing the conceptualization and dimensionality of brand identity with the latter providing the basis for exploring the content domain of B2B service brand identity. It then explains the methodology followed to collect data through a postal survey and the analysis procedures to establish the psychometric properties of the scale. Concluding remarks highlight theoretical contributions, managerial implications and limitations with avenues for further research also being suggested.

This is the first study of its kind that has adopted a grounded approach to B2B service brand identity scale development. Guided by the domain sampling model and the extant scaling literature this research has developed a parsimonious, valid and reliable B2B service brand identity scale. As a result of this scale development our research has empirically demonstrated, in the UK's B2B IT service sector, B2B service brand identity is a second order multidimensional construct comprising five dimensions. These are employee and client focus, visual identity, brand personality, consistent communications and human resource initiatives. The eclectic range of disciplines these dimensions span highlights the broad theoretical roots of service brand identity which give rise to the construct's multidisciplinary nature. Application of the service brand identity scale can facilitate subsequent theoretical development in marketing and other research domains. Marketing scholars can apply the scale to assess the construct's influence on a range of endogenous variables such as brand performance, revenue or reputation. Variables such as employee satisfaction or labor turnover can also now be treated as endogenous variables as part of a full structural model. Applying the scale in this way facilitates the development of theoretically grounded and empirically informed insights in a range of business related disciplines. From a philosophical perspective, this research moves the existing brand identity research paradigm from a conceptual to an empirical domain. This has been achieved by developing a theoretically informed and empirically validated scale with associated dimensionality. By doing this, our research challenges and advances the existing research paradigm ( Kuhn, 1996) where more conceptually orientated models predominate ( Aaker, 1996, Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000, de Chernatony, 2006 and Kapferer, 2004). The positive and highly significant dimension correlations indicate service brand identity is a holistic construct driven by synergistic dimension relationships (see Section 6.2). It is more appropriate to consider service brand identity as a synergistic network (Fig. 2).