Three Essays on Brand Management in the Business-to-Business Context: Brand Identity, Brand Culture, and Brand Essence

This dissertation examines the overarching research question of how the suppliers’ brand management in the form of brand identity, brand culture, and brand essence influences buyer-seller relationships in three independent essays. In Essay 1, I address the structure, capabilities, and outcomes of brand identity from a supplier perspective. Through qualitative interviews with suppliers, I examine how widespread the concept of brand identity is in practice and what exactly practitioners understand by it. Going further, I look at what capabilities and conditions are necessary for brand identity to be successful and what outcomes suppliers hope to achieve. Using an Information-Display-Matrix (IDM) test and a sample of Master of Business Administration (MBA) students, I examine the relevance of brand functions in more detail. In Essay 2, I use a dyadic dataset with matched buyer-seller dyads to examine the causes and effects of perceptual congruence and incongruence of brand culture strength on the buyer-seller relationship, while considering relationship-specific investments and interaction mechanisms as moderating effects. I show that congruence and incongruence have different effects on customer loyalty and price sensitivity and that these are strongly context-dependent. In Essay 3, I deal with brand essence strength interactions and their effects on the buyer-seller relationship. I use a dyadic dataset with matched buyer-seller dyads to show how brand essence strength influences customer loyalty and customer profitability, and how it interacts with key customer attitudes and other important buyer-seller relationship closeness indicators. This dissertation makes a significant contribution to the literature on brand identity, brand culture, and brand essence in buyer-seller relationships. Furthermore, my dissertation offers practical implications for managers at B2B suppliers who (re)shape their brand management with a focus on the inner parts of the brand.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Passau

Year

2022

Author dc:creator

• Resch, René Matthias

Contributors dc:contributor

• Totzek, Dirk
• Schumann, Jan Hendrik

• brand management
• business-to-business
• brand identity
• brand culture
• brand essence

Statement dc:rights

• Standardbedingung laut Einverständniserklärung

Repository record source_url

https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-uni-passau/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1158

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kobv.de-opus4-uni-passau:1158