Resumo

The concept of Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) emerges as the replication of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies and values for the public sector, in an effort to develop and improve the relationship between public institutions and citizens. The relation between public brand image and the quality of the services provided have developed an increased interest in public organizations’ brand personality, concerning their names and brands, and demanding from public managers the identification of strategies to enhance the image of such institutions.

Considering the relevance of the personality attributed to public brands in citizen relationship management, as well as the lack of research with this scope in public administration, this article seeks to test a structural model in which public brand personality is a predictor of citizen relationship perception.

Brand personality is a marketing construct that aims to evaluate how consumers perceive a brand’s personality, using the same heuristics of human personality. There is a notorious contribution of the brand personality in the managerial perspective and the growing importance of enhancing public brands in the eyes of citizens. In this regard, CiRM also engenders as an alternative to overcome public sector challenges, improving public services and bringing public managers closer to social needs and, thus, strengthen the relationship between government and citizens.

An exploratory and quantitative investigation was carried out through a survey with 284 public service users in the context of an one-stop public service desk in Federal District in Brazil, a subnational unit in an entity of the Federative Republic of Brazil that accumulates state/municipal attributions and offers services of federal and district public agencies in a single service desk. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed to obtain evidence of internal validity, construct validity, and reliability of models for measuring public brand personality and citizen relationship perception.

The structural equation modeling revealed good indexes of adjustment for the structural model, attesting the influence of the public brand personality, especially the efficiency dimension, on citizen relationship perception, regarding their relationship with public institutions. The internal validity, construct validity, and reliability of the used scales were also verified. The study’s results also revealed that more than 70% of citizen relationship perception is influenced by the personality of public brands.

This article reports a seminal study focused on testing an unprecedented model relating public brand personality and citizen relationship perception in the context of public administration, opening an avenue of possibilities for investigations associating public marketing and brand management strategies with relationship management. Furthermore, we unveil the potential that public brands recognized as efficient, relevant, and credible have in the way citizens evaluate their relationships with public institutions.

Carvalho, D., Demo, G., Medeiros, J., & Scussel, F. (2021). Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM): passado, presente e futuro de um conceito emergente. Cadernos EBAPE.BR, 19(1), 32–44. https://doi.org/10.1590/1679-395120200057 Carvalho, D., Demo, G., Scussel F., Montezano, L., & Amazonas, B. (2022). How do citizens see public institutions? Development and validation of the public brand personality scale, Brazilian Journal of Marketing, 21(3), 673-700. https://doi.org/10.5585/remark.v21i3.21231