Exploring Customer Citizenship Behavior Through Customer–Organization Identification

This paper aims to investigate the influence of customer–organization identification from a customer–employee relationship perspective. Specifically, this paper examines the mediating effects of the customer–employee identification and customer–employee trust between the relationship between customer–organization identification and customer citizenship behavior. Based on social identity theory, this paper builds a research framework that is empirically tested using a sample of 465 patients or their families from one of the largest high-level hospitals in China. Structural equation modeling and a bootstrapping method were adopted to test the model and the mediation effects. Results of data analysis reveal that customer–organization identification has a direct positive influence on customer citizenship behavior, and customer–employee identification and customer–employee trust have positive mediation effects between customer–organization identification and customer citizenship behavior. Funding: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 71772186 to L. Xie and Grant 71802052 to X. Guan].