From CSR to Customer Loyalty: An Empirical Investigation in the Retail Banking Industry of a Developing Country

Abstract

The objective of the current paper is to investigate the impact of customers' perceptions of their service providers' corporate social responsibility (CSR) on customer loyalty, bringing relevant and useful insights regarding the nature of this relationship in the retail banking industry, and in the particular context of a developing country. The objective was accomplished by planning and implementing a consumer survey among a sample of 1449 Romanian retail banking customers, using an item-pool drawn up from the literature. The observed variables were grouped into several reflective latent variables, and afterwards included into a multiple regression model. The results indicate that customers' loyalty towards retail banking companies is significantly and positively impacted by how customers perceive their providers' CSR. Moreover, analyzing each category of responsibilities individually, banks' responsibility towards their customers can be emphasized as being the most important dimension in our research context. The results convey practical implications for customer loyalty enhancement in a European developing country's retail banking industry, by identifying those CSR dimensions on which organizations should focus on within their CSR policies implementation and communication.

From perceptual corporate sustainability to customer loyalty: a multi-sectorial investigation in a developing country

“…According to their view, customer loyalty is a function of psychological processes consisting in the biased behavioural response expressed over time by consumers with respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of brands (Moisescu, 2017). Oliver (1999) developed a relevant framework of customer loyalty in which he included a full spectrum of cognitive, affective, conative (behavioural intent) and behavioural dimensions, defining the concept as a deeply held commitment to rebuy a preferred product/ service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviour (Moisescu, 2017). Bloemer and Kasper (1995) assert that only the behaviour of rebuying is important, regardless of the consumer's degree of commitment to the brand (Moisescu, 2017).…”

“…Oliver (1999) developed a relevant framework of customer loyalty in which he included a full spectrum of cognitive, affective, conative (behavioural intent) and behavioural dimensions, defining the concept as a deeply held commitment to rebuy a preferred product/ service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviour (Moisescu, 2017). Bloemer and Kasper (1995) assert that only the behaviour of rebuying is important, regardless of the consumer's degree of commitment to the brand (Moisescu, 2017). Nevertheless, Bloemer and Kasper (1995) acknowledge that fully depicting customer loyalty implies taking into account behaviour antecedents, not just the behaviour of rebuying, thus making a distinction between true loyalty and spurious loyalty (Moisescu, 2017).…”

“…Bloemer and Kasper (1995) assert that only the behaviour of rebuying is important, regardless of the consumer's degree of commitment to the brand (Moisescu, 2017). Nevertheless, Bloemer and Kasper (1995) acknowledge that fully depicting customer loyalty implies taking into account behaviour antecedents, not just the behaviour of rebuying, thus making a distinction between true loyalty and spurious loyalty (Moisescu, 2017).…”

“…This approach is based on the fact that re-purchase behaviour alone cannot distinguish between true loyalty and spurious loyalty (Dick & Basu, 1994;Moisescu, 2017), psychological commitment and positive brand attitude being essential elements of the authenticity of customer loyalty. Thus, on one hand, attitudinal loyalty includes cognitive, affective and conative dimensions, while, on the other hand, behavioural loyalty reflects the repeat purchase behaviour, attitudinal loyalty being a driver of repeat patronage (Cossío-Silva et al, 2016).…”

“…Moreover, very little is currently known about the nature of the relationship between perceptual corporate sustainability and consumer responses within the particular socio-cultural and economic context of developing countries (Chomvilailuk & Butcher, 2016;Fatma & Rahman, 2016), especially those from Central and Eastern Europe (Gangone & Gănescu, 2014;Moisescu, 2017;Pop & Dabija, 2014).…”