Abstract:

This paper examines the impacts of contents of entrepreneurs’ micro-blogs（company-related or individual-related） and ways of emotion descriptions （emotional or unemotional） on the evaluation of entrepreneur image， and discusses the effects of entrepreneur image on the corporate brand image. Through a 2×2 between-subjects experiment design， the authors find individual-related micro-blogs have more effects on entrepreneur’s image than company-related micro-blogs do. Compared with unemotional micro-blogs， emotional micro-blogs lead to a better entrepreneur image， which significantly influences the evaluation of corporate brand image. This study also examines the moderating effects of the perceived congruence between entrepreneurs’ image and brand image on the positive relationship between entrepreneurs’ image and brand image. The results are helpful for entrepreneurs to enhance the corporate brand image through effective management of their micro-blogs.

Key words: Micro-blog, Entrepreneur image, Corporate brand image, Perceived congruence