Stock ownership as a motivation of brand‐loyal and brand‐supportive behaviors

The purpose of this paper is to explicate the psychological motivations underlying this influence as well as to provide empirical evidence of it. Individuals' consumption psychology and investment psychology have been traditionally viewed as rather separate realms. However, researchers have recently begun to imply that an individual's stock ownership in a company may positively influence his/her brand loyalty towards the company.

A survey study of 293 individual stockowners of three companies is presented.

The analysis shows that, for a large proportion of individuals, becoming a stockowner of a company leads to positive, increased motivation to exhibit brand loyalty towards the company, in terms of his/her personal purchases of the company's products. Second, the analysis shows how stock ownership often leads to increased motivation to engage in other brand‐supporting behaviors, such as positive word‐of‐mouth.

The self‐reported data used on individuals' motivations somewhat restrict the results, which can be dealt with in further research.

The findings imply opportunities for managers to benefit from the tendency of individual stockowners to engage in repeat purchasing of the company's products and word‐of‐mouth, so as to increase the sales of the company.

The paper explicates the individual psychology motivations underlying the influence of a consumer's stock ownership in a company on his/her brand loyalty towards the company – and provides empirical evidence of the motivations.