Analyzing the Correlation between Relationship Marketing and Brand Equity of Bank: the Moderating Role of Business Ethics

In order to improving competitive powers, banks are looking for increasing their brand equity by applying relationship marketing. Business ethics plays a major role on protection, development and improvement of relationships between customer and organization and increasing brand equity of organizations. The main aim of this study is to analyze the relation between relationship marketing and brand equity of bank with considering the moderating role of business ethics.
The methodology of research is a descriptive-correlative study. The statistical population is special customers of Sepah Bank in Isfahan city and statistical sample included 190 selected customers. First, some branches from each geographical region were selected through cluster sampling. Then, the selection of customers referred to the branches was performed through availability and some questionnaires were distributed among them. Data were analyzed by SPSS and PLS Software and the structural equations method based on the three-stage approach of partial least squares.
The results showed that all dimensions of relationship marketing except bonding have significant relation with brand equity of bank. Also, the business ethics moderate relationship between shared values and brand equity, however, the business ethics do not show moderating effect on other relations.
The business ethics seems necessary for every business but cannot disrupt the relation between relationship marketing and brand equity of bank.