The influence of corporate reputation on consumers’ purchase intention in a new energy vehicle product-harm crisis: Moderating effect of product knowledge

This research investigates how corporate reputation influences consumers’ purchase intention in a new energy vehicle product-harm crisis, taking Tesla as an example of a high-visibility brand. Drawing on signaling theory, this paper compares corporate social responsibility (CSR) reputation and corporate capability reputation and extends the concept of product knowledge as a selective boundary condition for signal interpretation. An integrated signaling-based framework was developed in which corporate reputation serves as the independent variable, consumer satisfaction and consumer brand identification operate as internal evaluative mechanisms, consumer purchase intention is the dependent variable, and product knowledge is introduced as a boundary condition. Questionnaire data were collected from new energy vehicle users or prospective consumers. The results show that both CSR reputation and corporate capability reputation positively influence consumer satisfaction and consumer brand identification, and that both attitudinal variables positively influence purchase intention. Product knowledge significantly strengthens the effects of corporate capability reputation on consumer satisfaction and consumer brand identification, whereas its moderating role in the CSR reputation pathways is not significant. These findings suggest that product knowledge functions as a selective boundary condition of competence-based rather than value-based reputation signals in new energy vehicle product-harm crises.