Four Types Of Corporate Brand Association

1.1.4 Types of corporate association

Existing literature review reveals that ‘corporate brand association is a multidimensional construct which instigate to extent the study of the term. However, most of the studies have focused on limited corporate brand associations (Mann & Ghuman, 2014).

1.1.4.1 Corporate excitement

(Madrigal, 2000) study two types of corporate associations, corporate excitement and corporate environmental friendliness, and their effect on product responses and evaluation. According to (J. L. Aaker, 1997), suggest that brands have certain attributes comparable with human beings, and identified five factors of brand personality:

• Sincerity

• Ruggedness

• Competence

• Sophistication

• Excitement

As opposite to corporate

For example, many Latin American leaders, coming from business family, describe their compromise with the society as a way to do the “right thing” (Contreras, 2004). There is an increasing attention on strategies designed to exhibit CSR. For example, some companies focus on environmental friendliness, commitment to the diversity in hiring and promoting, community involvement, sponsorship of social activities or corporate philanthropy (Brown & Dacin, 1997). All those strategies have an important influence on how people think about the company, however those activities offer consumer little information related with the products or services it produces (Brown & Dacin, 1997). CSR is defined as those initiatives that “reflect the organization’s status and activities with respect to its perceived societal obligations” (Ellen, Webb, & Mohr, 2006). CSR efforts are intended to reflect an image of company as responsive to the needs of the society. Increasingly, CSR is viewed to play an important role on building corporate reputation. The consumer’s evaluations of a firm and its actions are considered regarding on the degree that consumers perceive egoistic or altruistic motives in the company (Handelman & Arnold, 1999). According to (Basu & Palazzo, 2008), engaging in CSR and

Some authors have studied CSR from two different perspectives, CSR from a business to consumer (B2C) and CSR from a business to business (B2B) context (see Table 2)(e.g., (Homburg et al., 2013)). However, despite of the importance of CSR in business practice, few studies have addressing CSR in a B2B context. According to (Peloza & Shang, 2011), positive customer perceptions of CSR activities are essential in creating customer benefits. Companies across the world, at times have been accused of using CSR initiatives as a public relations exercise to improve their image. However those initiatives have pushed them to move towards the next stage of success and to participate and interact with those problem which are the concerns of the societies in which they operates (Casanova & Dumas,