心理契约破坏、品牌认同威胁对顾客品牌决策的影响

The healthy customer-brand relationship and strong brand loyalty are important sources of company's sustainable competitive advantage. Brands' functional value and symbolic value have big impact on brand loyalty, and they are the primary drivers for consumers building and keeping the brand relationship. When brands fail to adequately fulfill their promises for the value, it could have negative impact on the brand relationship and brand choice. The existing literature mainly focused on how brands failed to provide functional value (e.g.product harm crisis) leaded to negative brand attitudes and brand switches; however, little has been know about how is the effect when brands fail to fulfill their symbolic value promises which may result in consumers' psychological contract breach( PCB). Based on psychological contract theory, Two series of studies will be conducted to study the effect of psychological contract breach on brand relationship and brand choice, and to examine the mediating and moderating effect of PCB on brand choice. In study 1, A series of surveys will be conducted to study the effect of PCB on brand choice and its psychological process. We propose that two types of PCB (transactional vs. relational PCB) would have different impacts on brand relationship and brand choice. Furthermore, brand identity threat will mediate the effect of PCB on brand choice. In study 2, two series of experiments will be conducted to test the moderating effects. We propose that consumer's personal features, market features and institutional features will moderate the effect of psychological contract breach on brand relationship and brand choice. As for the consumer level, we propose that consumers' self construal and brand commitment will moderate the effect of PCB on brand choice. As for the market level, market competition intensity and product categories would moderate the effects. As for the institutional environment level,we propose that protection of consumer rights would be the moderator. The theory contributions of our project are:(1) revealing the different effects of two types of PCB on brand choice, (2) exploring the mediating effect of brand identity threat between PCB and brand choice; (3)systematically testing the moderating mechanism of PCB on brand choice. Practically, the expected results will provide great implications to the brand communication strategy, and brand relation recovery strategy .

健康牢固的品牌关系和持续品牌忠诚是企业竞争优势的重要来源。品牌的功能性价值和象征性价值是影响品牌忠诚的重要因素，是吸引消费者建立和保持品牌关系的动力。品牌未能兑现所承诺的价值将给品牌关系带来负面影响。已有研究多关注顾客对品牌产品的功能性价值失望（如产品伤害危机）对品牌忠诚的影响，然品牌产品的象征性价值未能实现（如心理契约破坏）如何影响品牌决策尚不得而知。本项目从心理契约破坏视角通过系列调查和多组实验：揭示不同心理契约破坏类型对品牌关系和品牌决策的影响及其中介过程；探索和检验顾客特征、市场特征和制度特征在心理契约破坏感影响品牌决策中的调节作用。本项目的理论创新在于：揭示心理契约破坏对品牌决策的影响，解构心理契约破坏影响品牌决策的中介过程；全面深入地揭示心理契约破坏影响品牌决策的调节机制。实践上，本研究将为我国企业的品牌关系诊断、品牌传播战略以及消费者权益保护制度的完善等提供理论指导。

心理契约破坏是顾客对企业品牌未能履行承诺时的主观评价。本项目从心理契约破坏视角通过系列调查和多组实验：揭示不同心理契约破坏类型对品牌关系和品牌决策的影响及其中介过程。首先，本项目通过实验法探究了不同类型心理契约破坏对消费者负面情绪。研究发现，心理契约破坏会引发顾客多种负面情绪，包括愤怒、失望、后悔和沮丧。不同类型心理契约破坏对负面情绪的影响存在差异。关系心理契约破坏导致的愤怒和失望显著高于交易心理契约破坏导致的愤怒和失望。其次，本项目通过实验法探究不同类型心理契约破坏对品牌关系的影响。研究发现，与交易心理契约破坏相比，关系心理契约破坏对品牌情感承诺、品牌信任的影响更大。进一步的中介效应检验发现，交易心理契约破坏以愤怒和失望为中介影响品牌关系。关系心理契约破坏以愤怒和后悔为中介影响品牌关系。再次，本项目通过实验法考察了心理契约破坏对顾客退出行为和角色外行为的影响。不同类型心理契约破坏对角色外行为的影响不一致，关系型心理契约破坏对顾客角色外行为（帮助行为、建言行为、推荐行为）产生显著影响；交易型心理契约破坏对顾客角色外行为中的帮助行为和推荐行为产生显著负向影响，但是对顾客角色外行为中的建言行为不显著。二者的中介机制也存在差异。最后，研究还发现，顾客自我建构调节心理契约破坏对顾客退出行为的影响。当关系型心理契约破坏发生时，依存型自我建构消费者比独立型自我建构消费者更容易产生退出行为；当交易型心理契约破坏发生时，独立型自我建构消费者比依存型自我建构消费者更容易产生退出行为。本研究从心理契约破坏理论视角探究了品牌负面事件如何影响顾客心理的过程以及不同类型心理契约破坏对品牌关系与顾客行为的影响差异。研究结论为企业如何理解品牌传播，提升品牌关系提供了理论指导。