Brand reputation and customer voluntary sharing behavior: the intervening roles of self-expressive brand perceptions and status seeking

Purpose Prior research studying the mechanisms by which brand reputation influences consumer behaviors has largely relied on respondent measures of brand reputation, resulting in an inability to ascertain the causal direction of relationships. Using third party measures, this paper aims to study the effects of brand reputation, via self-expressive brand perceptions, on both firm-directed and other customer-directed customer voluntary sharing behaviors (CVSB). It then assesses the moderating effect of consumer status-seeking on the relationships studied. Design/methodology/approach To prevent common method bias and substantiate causality claims, a third-party brand reputation measure is combined with a consumer survey. Process is used to test the hypotheses using 359 consumer responses collected via Amazon MTurk. Findings The results indicate that higher inner-self and social-self expressive perceptions derived from strong brand reputations increase consumer knowledge sharing and social influence behaviors. The effect of social-self expressive brand perceptions on CVSB is positively moderated by consumer status-seeking. Practical implications Firms should leverage existing brand reputation investments to strengthen customer perceptions of their brands as self-expressive and facilitate greater social and knowledge-sharing engagement by status-seeking consumers. Originality/value This study identifies a new mechanism linking brand reputation and CVSB: consumer perceptions of the self-expressiveness of brands. Moreover, it distinguishes the effects of two dimensions of brand self-expressiveness and substantiates the customer engagement behavior value of investing in brand reputation as measured by third parties.