An expanded model of bank reputation in the context of the Covid-19 crisis: a vietnamese contribution

Reputation is a crucial intangible asset of any business. The model of corporate reputation determinants, including both cognitive and emotional dimensions and their interactions, may vary in different contexts and industries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of bank reputation in the context of the Vietnam banking sector during the Covid-19 crisis. The conceptual framework was developed from both exploratory research with in-depth interviews and the literature. A structural equation model linking both emotional and cognitive antecedents to each other and bank reputation is tested using data from a sample of 318 Vietnamese individual bank customers. The research results indicate that apart from customers’ perceptions about their banks’ products and services, social responsibility, vision and leadership, financial capacity, customer satisfaction and trust which are suggested from the literature, banks’ ability to provide risk management solutions to customers also has a positive impact on bank reputation. In addition, customer trust totally mediates the effects of customers’ perceptions about their banks’ offerings and social responsibility on bank reputation. The findings imply multiple ways in which both cognitive and emotional variables should be considered to build bank reputation, in which, building customer trust and providing risk management solutions to customers are the keys. The study is noteworthy that given a special research context, it finds the invalidity of some bank characteristics in signalling bank reputation though they have been repeatedly mentioned as determinants of corporate reputation from the relevant classical postulates.