Do competitiveness and corporate social responsibility affect brand image? A case study of Vietnamese financial leasing companies

Abstract

Financial leasing companies in Vietnam have been established for more than 20 years. However, little is known about the determinant factors of the brand image of these companies. This study aims to measure the associated factors of the brand image of financial leasing companies in Vietnam by employing a cross-sectional study from March to June 2021. An online survey using Google Forms has been sent via email to 350 people, including directors, deputy directors, relevant heads of departments, and employees of financial leasing companies in Vietnam. A total of 298 participants agreed to participate in the survey (the response rate is 85.1%). The Cronbach’s alpha of every factor is higher than 0.8 (ranges from 0.824 to 0.949). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) results show that the values of Composite Reliability are all higher than 0.7 and ones of Average Variance Extracted are all higher than 0.5, which assure the reliability and validity of the scale. Structural Equation Model (SEM) has been applied, and model fit indexes have been calculated to test the research hypotheses. The findings show that cooperate social responsibility positively affects the brand image of financial leasing companies in Vietnam. Moreover, the result confirms the mediating role of enterprise strategy and operational efficiency for companies’ competitiveness and brand image. These results indicate that managers at finance leasing companies and stakeholders should have suitable policies to increase competitiveness and corporate social responsibility for the sustainable development of financial leasing companies in Vietnam. AcknowledgmentThis paper is a collaboration between the School of Business and Economics and the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Research of Duy Tan University. The authors thank the leaders of the two institutions for helping to make the research cooperation successful.