Perceived Organizational Purpose and Brand Loyalty: Explicating the intervening roles of Consumer- Company Identification and Sustainability orientation

Abstract

Organizations that focus their efforts on a central purpose can effectively inspire, engage, and energize their stakeholders, thereby securing their trust and loyalty. Grounded in social identity theory, consumer-company identification (CCI) posits that consumers can align themselves with firms by resonating with the firm's values and ideologies, thus fostering loyalty towards the firm. This study examines an individual's sustainability orientation (SO), which reflects the degree to which individuals prioritize sustainable practices in their daily lives, consumption patterns, and lifestyle choices. Building on this framework, this study aimed to investigate the positive relationship between perceived organizational purpose (POP) and brand loyalty (BLY), with CCI serving as a mediating variable. This study also explored whether SO functions as a moderator between POP and brand loyalty (BLY). Two major publicly listed companies were selected as stimuli for testing our model. We collected 260 usable responses from Indian residents via a web survey to conduct Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and assess the robustness of the proposed structural model, followed by construct validity tests. Subsequently, the PROCESS model was employed to test the effect of POP on BLY, considering CCI as a mediator and SO as a moderator. The results indicate that CCI fully mediates the relationship between POP and BLY. Additionally, the moderating role of SO was found to be insignificant. Subsequently, we discuss the findings, and the theoretical and managerial implications are outlined.