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Jaakko Aspara is a Professor (acting) at the Dept. of Marketing and Management, Helsinki School of Economics. P.O. Box 1210, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland, tel. +358 50 5468891, [email protected]. Rami Olkkonen is a Professor (acting) at the Dept. of Marketing, Turku School of Economics, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, FI-20500 Turku, Finland, [email protected]. Henrikki Tikkanen is a Professor and Head of Department at the Dept. of Marketing and Management, Helsinki School of Economics. P.O. Box 1210, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland, [email protected]. Prof. Tikkanen is also a Visiting Professor at the ESCP-EAP European School of Management, Paris, France. Johanna Moisander is a Professor (acting) at the Dept. of Marketing and Management, Helsinki School of Economics. P.O. Box 1210, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland, [email protected]. Petri Parvinen is a Professor (acting) at the Dept. of Marketing and Management, Helsinki School of Economics. P.O. Box 1210, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland, [email protected]. The authors wish to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their highly valuable comments and suggestions.
A Theory of Affective Self-Affinity: Definitions and Application to a Company and its Business
Introduction
Marketing researchers increasingly recognize the fact that individuals may come to have perception- and affect-laden relationships to companies that may influence their personal behaviors and the behaviors of organizations they represent - behaviors that are relevant to those companies' business (Bengtsson 2003; Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Fullerton 2005; Neville, Bell, and Mengüc 2005; Weiss, Anderson, and MacInnis 1999). It has been suggested that these relationships may even involve identification with the company (Ahearne, Bhattacharya, and Gruen 2005; Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Cardador and Pratt 2006; Scott and Lane 2000), which is consistent with the increasingly popular notion that consumption, markets, and companies' products and brands are of significance in individuals' identity work, becoming entangled with their sense of self (e.g., Belk 1988; Fournier 1998: Holt 2002; McCracken 1986).
Moreover, there seems to be increasing appreciation among researchers in both marketing and management of the fact that all heterogeneous business-relevant actors, including organizations, are eventually represented by individuals (or individual agents) (Ahearne, Bhattacharya, and Gruen 2005; Freeman 1984; Rowley and Moldoveanu 2003). This is consistent with Jones's (1995) and Scott and Lane's (2000) view that the various stakeholders of a company basically consist of individuals and groups of individuals.
However, earlier marketing...