Holistic consumer evaluation of retail corporate brands and impact on consumer loyalty intentions

• We offer a higher-order model of brand evaluation called perceived customer equity.
• The framework is derived from the customer equity theory.
• Brand, value and relationship equities measure perceived customer equity (PCE).
• PCE allows consistent measurement of consumers' holistic judgments.
• Empirical study supports the higher-order model of PCE.

We offer a holistic framework of consumer evaluation of retail corporate brands called perceived customer equity. Drawing upon the customer equity theory, we hypothesize that perceived customer equity is a higher-order consumer evaluation that is measured via brand equity, value equity and relationship equity. A major theoretical contribution of our study is that we offer a novel holistic (versus an atomistic) perspective to retail corporate brands. Additionally, consistent conceptualization as well as operationalization of perceived customer equity overcomes limitations in image-based measures that tend to rely on idiosyncratic approaches to capturing consumer perceptions. We offer a novel mindset to managing retail corporate brands. Our analysis, conducted using a consumer survey, supports our conceptualization of perceived customer equity as a second-order construct. Moreover, we observe that perceived customer equity significantly explains consumer loyalty intentions, and explains greater variance in the outcome relative to that achieved jointly by the three dimensions.

Chinese Abstract我们提出了名为“认知顾客资产”的零售企业品牌消费者评估整体框架。借鉴顾客资产理论，我们提出了认知顾客资产是一种通过品牌资产、价值资产及关系资产进行衡量的高层次顾客评估这一假说。我们的研究带来一大理论贡献在于，我们对零售企业品牌提供了新型的整体（与微观相对）观点。另外，持续概念化以及认知顾客资产的操作化超越了基于图像、倾向于采用特制方法来获取消费者认知的衡量方式的局限性。我们提出了关于管理零售企业品牌的新的思维方式。我们的分析采用了消费者调查的方式，对我们将认知顾客资产作为第二级建筑的概念化提供了支持。而且我们观察到，认知顾客资产显著诠释了消费者忠实度意向，并对与上述三方面相关联的结果提供了更大程度的说明。