How Brand Symbolism, Perceived Service Quality, and CSR Skepticism Influence Consumers to Engage in Citizenship Behavior

Bassam Dalal and Ahmad Aljarah
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Bassam Dalal: Department of Business Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Girne American University, Mersin 10, Girne 99300, Turkey
Ahmad Aljarah: Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics, Girne American University, Mersin 10, Girne 99300, Turkey

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-18

Abstract: Brand symbolism, which stems from the vitality of the brand and feeds self-symbolism and social symbolism, has become an increasingly important strategy for firms to enhance consumer behavior. Building on attachment theory, social identity theory, and cognitive consistency theory, and using data from 439 customers of Starbucks in Lebanon, we used an integrative model to examine how brand symbolism, perceived service quality, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) skepticism jointly affect two types of Customer Citizenship Behavior (CCB): helping other customers and policing other customers. The findings revealed that brand symbolism has a significant positive impact on CCBs and is a stronger predictor of policing other customers than helping other customers in the hospitality context. Further, perceived service quality acts as a mediator between the brand symbolism and CCB dimensions. This study discovered that CSR skepticism negatively moderates the direct and indirect effects of brand symbolism on CCBs through perceived service quality. The findings contribute to the literature by examining the boundary conditions of how and under what conditions brand symbolism affects CCBs by enrolling perceived service quality as a mediator variable and CSR skepticism as a moderator variable in the brand symbolism–CCB relationship.

Keywords: brand symbolism; perceived service quality; corporate social responsibility skepticism; customer citizenship behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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