Linking Corporate Social Responsibility, Consumer Identification and Purchasing Intention

Abstract

Apart from the broad oversight of a company’s supply chain practices, more businesses are recognizing the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its influence on societal well-being. In addition to their financial success, ratings are being developed to analyze how well most corporations perform regarding their CSR operations. This grade can then be used to determine the market success of each firm. This study’s objective was to examine the mechanisms of how customers intend to pay premium prices for companies’ CSR activities, i.e., how CSR affects consumer–company identification and purchasing intention. We employed a questionnaire-based study to evaluate our research model generated from the literature. Using PLS-SEM, a quantitative analysis based on responses from major businesses in Pakistan was conducted. The results indicate that CSR is significantly correlated with brand image, consumer–company identification and identity attractiveness, and further leads to higher consumer satisfaction and purchasing intention. This paper contributes to the literature by confirming that consumers in Pakistan intend to buy CSR-conscious products and are willing to sponsor companies’ CSR activities. It implies that investing in CSR may improve a company’s financial performance and competitive advantage. On the other hand, the stability of this association calls for additional testing and empirical investigation.

The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Brand Image and Brand Equity and Its Impact on Consumer Satisfaction

“…In addition to brand image, and based on the literature, there are reasons to believe that CSR can also positively affect brand equity (Cowan and Guzman 2020;Kim and Manoli 2020;Zhao et al 2021;Nguyen et al 2022). According to Prayag et al (2019) and He and Li (2011), consumer satisfaction may also result from CSR activities, and thus, when they are successfully achieved, they positively affect consumer satisfaction (Agyei et al 2021;Mohammed and Rashid 2018), since when customers see companies as responsible, they are more satisfied (Zhang and Ahmad 2022). CSR is a key precursor to promoting brand image and customer satisfaction (Bianchi et al 2019).…”

Smart City Logistics on the Basis of Digital Tools for ESG Goals Achievement

“…Greening city logistics technologies lead to the development of modern assistance systems and special vehicles with low emissions [39,40]. For the last amendments to the ESG concept approach, it is important to mention that some authors claim that there is a transition from ESG to DESG (digital ESG) concepts [40][41][42][43][44]. As intelligent corporate internal control systems are becoming a part of ESG, the digitalization process is described under sustainability restrictions with DESG concepts.…”

“…Partly, the same methodological approach toward assessing performance indicators related to corporate social responsibility and consumer satisfaction ratings is presented in [43]; indicators previously collected as empirical grades are then analyzed with static and dynamic models. Importantly, in most cases, the indicators are detailed to a significant level [42][43][44]. In the context of achieving the ESG goals, more-complicated performance indicators and complex systems are considered to be of higher research interest.…”

“…We reckon that the first notion has a broader application field and includes an assessment process. In [44], the assessment of performance indicators is referred to as monitoring and is considered part of BPM (business process management).…”

Antecedents and Consequences of Banking Customers’ Behavior towards Social Media: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

“…Corporate social responsibility significantly impacts positive and negative electronic word of mouth [ 3 ]. Corporate social responsibility also has a strong connection with customer buying intentions [ 4 ]. Corporate social responsibility can lead to higher customer satisfaction [ 5 ].…”