Corporate image, customer participation and service quality: From social identity theory perspective

As the marketing philosophy evaluated from goods-dominant logic to service-dominant logic, more and more service firms begin to improve service quality by encouraging customers participating in the service production and delivery process. Hence, how to encourage customers to participate in the service production process is also a question which confused service firms´ manager. Based on the social identity theory, this paper proposes a concept model that delineated corporate image affects service quality through customer participation. Through a survey of 324 consumers in hairstyle industry, a structural equation model was performed to check the model. The results indicate that customer participation partially mediated the relationship between corporate image and service quality.