A study of the Relationship among Automobile Brand Community, Community Identification, Relationship Quality and Brand Loyalty

• Main Authors: Hong-syu, Chang, 張宏旭
• Other Authors: Chih-Hui, Hsiao
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/18183084619974815384

碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 管理研究所 === 95 === The Brand has always been the most important issue in marketing a business. A strong brand is the wealth to a business. Although a business can survive with a strong brand, it has to promote its brand value all the time and keep good relationships with its customers. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) indicate that whether a business is competent lies in the value that it creates together with its customers. The formation of such a brand community is one of the best ways that a business can do to increase its brand loyalty. This research adopts the two theories: the Brand Community Integration Relationship, given by McAlexander, Schouten and Koenig (2002), and the An integration of Relationship Benefits and Relationship Quality, proposed by Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner and Gremler (2002). By taking the members of the automobile brand community in Taiwan as the research populations, this research studies the impacts of the integration of the brand community relationships on the community identification, relationship quality and brand loyalty. This research investigates the community of top automobile sales in 2006, including Nissan,Toyota, Ford, Mazda, Honda and Mitsubish. The data sets are questionnaires collected from the internet. A total of 315 samples were collected, among which 301 samples are effective. Pearson’s correlation analysis and structural equation modeling are applied to verify the hypothesis of this research. We have the following conclusions. From the perspective of brand community integration relationship and community identification, the relationship between the brand community member and the brand, and, the relationship between the product and other brand community members have significant impact on the community identification. From the perspective of brand community integration relationship and relationship quality, the relationship between the brand community member and the brand, and, the relationship between the product and the business have significant impact on the relationship quality. Additionally, brand community integration relationship, community identification and relationship quality also have significant impact on the brand loyalty. However, the community identification and relationship quality have medium impact on brand loyalty. In summary, the formation of the brand community of the automobile industry in Taiwan does enhance customers’ brand loyalty.