Jamshid Salar; Ramzan Gholami Avati
Abstract
1- INTRODUCTION
Today, brand engagement is considered one of the most influential marketing strategies. Brand engagement creates a sustainable competitive advantage for companies and increases their performance. Therefore, companies seek appropriate strategies to improve customer engagement with their ...
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1- INTRODUCTION
Today, brand engagement is considered one of the most influential marketing strategies. Brand engagement creates a sustainable competitive advantage for companies and increases their performance. Therefore, companies seek appropriate strategies to improve customer engagement with their brands. This research aimed to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility on brand engagement regarding the mediating role of brand trust and brand identification in the hotel industry.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Brand engagement is considered a crucial strategy in marketing literature. Various research has been done on brand engagement, but little has been done about the effects of corporate social responsibility, brand trust, and brand identification on brand engagement. Also, little research has investigated the role of brand trust and identification in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and brand engagement. Previous research has examined the direct relationship between corporate social responsibility and brand engagement and has rarely examined mediating variables in the relationship between these two variables. Therefore, this research seeks to investigate the effect of social responsibility on brand engagement with the mediating role of brand trust and identification in hotels in Ramsar, one of the most vital Iranian tourism destinations. This research tries to answer this research gap and provide a comprehensive model in this field.
3- METHODOLOGY
This study is applied cross-sectional research concerning the purpose and a descriptive survey regarding the data collection method. The population of this research includes the customers of Ramsar hotels, 300 of whom were selected as the statistical sample. The questionnaire's content, convergence, and divergence validity were confirmed. Also, its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and composite reliability. In the descriptive part, SPSS 27 statistical software was exploited, and in the inferential part, structural equation modeling was conducted in SmartPLS 4 software to test the research hypotheses.
4- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
According to the research findings, corporate social responsibility has a positive effect on brand engagement, brand trust, and brand identification. Corporate social responsibility creates an emotional connection between the company and consumers. As a result, consumers feel like they are part of the company. Companies should have social responsibility strategies to build trust among consumers. If the organization participates in social responsibility activities, its identity and high values will be shown to customers. Brand trust positively affects brand engagement and mediates the relationship between corporate social responsibility and brand engagement. The company's reliability makes the customers provide better information and have more relationships with the company. Additionally, brand identification positively affects brand engagement and mediates the relationship between corporate social responsibility and brand engagement. Companies should differentiate their products and services from their competitors so that customers will identify with the organization's brand.
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Companies should strengthen social responsibility, brand trust, and brand identification to increase customer engagement with their brand. As a result, it is suggested that hotels observe their organizational social responsibility, give importance to environmental issues in their activities, support cultural and sports events, provide more job opportunities to people, put customers as their priority, fulfill their promises, produce high-quality products, take care of their customers and establish an emotional relationship with customers so that they identify themselves with the hotel. Also, hotels should perform their activities so that customers feel the hotel has the same identity as their identity.
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Brand Engagement, Brand Trust, Brand Identification
Khalil Safari; ramezan gholami; iman hakimi
Abstract
1- INTRODUCTION
Based on theories of social exchange and leadership substitutions, if there are necessary infrastructures, human resource management strategies can be replaced by servant leadership in promoting employees' emotional commitment and psychological empowerment. The present ...
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1- INTRODUCTION
Based on theories of social exchange and leadership substitutions, if there are necessary infrastructures, human resource management strategies can be replaced by servant leadership in promoting employees' emotional commitment and psychological empowerment. The present research seeks to examine the possibility of the replacement of servant leadership with the high-commitment human resource management system in the Fars Governorate Organization.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
To achieve a competitive advantage, managers are constantly looking for ways to increase employees' commitment and empower them. In this regard, the question is how human resource management and leadership interact. Previous research suggests that, in certain conditions, human resource management and leadership can substitute and complement each other. Therefore, the current research seeks to investigate how servant leadership can be replaced by high-commitment human resource management to affect employees' emotional commitment and psychological empowerment. If the socio-emotional needs of employees are met by human resource management practices, organizational leaders need less ability and effort to meet them. For this reason, it is proposed that the high-commitment human resource management system and servant leadership can moderate the effect of each other on employees' emotional commitment and psychological empowerment.
3- METHODOLOGY
This research was a correlational survey with a statistical population of 1200 employees in the Fars Governorate Organization. A sample size of 320 people was investigated by conducting stratified random sampling. The data collection tool was a pre-made questionnaire with 35 items. To analyze the gathered data, a partial least square approach to structural equation modeling was utilized in SmartPLS software.
4- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Employees’ opinions indicated that the use of high-commitment human resource management practices is less than average in the Fars Goveronate Organization (2.72 out of 5). It was determined that about 23 percent of the variance in emotional commitment was explained by servant leadership and high-commitment human resource management practices. Additionally, servant leadership was able to explain about 12 percent of the variance in psychological empowerment. Examining the moderating hypotheses indicated that none of the servant leadership and high-commitment human resource management can moderate each other's effect on outcome variables. Moreover, Comparing the two groups of male and female employees revealed that women feel less influence in the workplace.
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
The low level of high-commitment human resource management practices determined that the conditions are not available for the replacement of servant leadership with the high-commitment human resource management system in the Fars Governorate Organization. Therefore, first of all, this organization needs to develop high-commitment practices. In terms of moderating hypotheses, non-significant effects can be attributed to the low levels of moderators and employees' maturity. Future researchers, of course, are recommended to investigate these issues. As the results indicated, the relationship between the high-commitment human resource management system and psychological empowerment was not statistically significant. Based on this, it can be said that servant leadership cannot be replaced by the high-commitment human resource management system in the Fars Governorate Organization due to the lack of necessary infrastructure.