Antecedents and Consequences of Customer-Company Identification: Expanding the Role of Relationship Marketing.

2005/01/01 by Michael Ahearne, C. B. Bhattacharya, CB Bhattacharya +1 · 80 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · #Business #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Context (archaeology) #Corporate Identity and Reputation #Customer Service Quality and Loyalty #Empirical research #Identification (biology) #Marketing #Organizational citizenship behavior #Organizational commitment #Organizational identification #Perception #Product (mathematics) #Psychology #Social psychology #Test (biology)

paper · doi:10.1037/0021-9010.90.3.574

published in Journal of Applied Psychology 90(3), 574-585 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 2005/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26

Abstract

This article presents an empirical test of organizational identification in the context of customer-company (C-C) relationships. It investigates whether customers identify with companies and what the antecedents and consequences of such identification are. The model posits that perceived company characteristics, construed external image, and the perception of the company's boundary-spanning agent lead to C-C identification. In turn, such identification is expected to impact both in-role behavior (i.e., product utilization) as well as extra-role behavior (i.e., citizenship). The model was tested in a consultative selling context of pharmaceutical sales reps calling on physicians. Results from the empirical test indicated that customers do indeed identify with organizations and that C-C identification positively impacts both product utilization behavior and extra-role behavior even when the effect of brand perception is accounted for. Second, the study found that the organization's characteristics as well as the salesperson's characteristics contributed to the development of C-C identification.

Citations

• Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness

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