Assessing the moderating roles of brand equity, intellectual capital and social capital in Chinese luxury hotels

Abstract To highlight the importance of intellectual property, the authors first introduce an integrated moderated mediation model to explore the relationships between intellectual capital (relational, organizational and human capital), brand equity (perceived quality, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand image) and social capital, in turn providing valuable guidance on hospitality industry management and empirical evidence for China's hospitality sector. As expected, interrelationships of intellectual capital exist, and relational capital may influence human capital through organizational capital. Additionally, the authors continue to expand on the concept of managerial ties and find a moderating effect of business and government ties. We in turn contribute to the theoretical development of intellectual capital, brand equity and social networks. The authors also discuss how this intriguing pattern of the moderated mediation model can be explained by brand equity and intellectual capital theory and can serve as inspiration for hotel managers.