The Impact Of Customers’ Perception Of CSR On Corporate Brand Loyalty: The Case Of The Romanian Mobile Telecom Industry
In the current economic context, both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and brand loyalty represent important theoretical and practical issues, especially due to the fact that they can produce several benefits for organizations. From the research which has been done by Kim and Park in 2011, CSR has been proven to enhance employee attraction and retention, as well as relationships with customers and other stakeholders, this additional research was conducted by Peloza and Shang in 2011. Most consumers expecting companies to engage in CSR, and taking this engagement into consideration when purchase decisions are made. Brand loyalty, on the other hand, has been proven to be positively associated with business performance and long-term profitability. Furthermore, the goal of the current research is to analyze the impact of customers’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on their loyalty towards mobile telecommunication companies within the specific socio-cultural and economic context of one of the largest national markets of Central and Eastern Europe.
Regarding the concept of brand loyalty, the main issues regarding CSR definition relate to its exclusive versus non-exclusive nature and, respectively, to its behavioral and/or attitudinal character. In order to achieve the goal, a survey was conducted among a sample of 1464 mobile telecommunication customers from the urban area of Romania, between January-March 2015. Several relevant and specific studies regarding the relationship between customers’ perceptions of CSR and brand loyalty in the mobile telecommunication industry have been identified. Thus, Salmones et al. in 2005 studied the impact of perceived CSR (considering economic, legal, ethical and social aspects) on the overall evaluation of the service and brand loyalty, conducting a survey among 689 mobile telecom services users from Spain. The authors concluded that there isn’t any direct relation between CSR perceptions and consumer loyalty towards the firm, but perceived CSR influences loyalty indirectly via the overall valuation the user makes of the service received.
Vlachos et al. in 2009 surveyed 830 randomly selected mobile telecom customers from Greece in order to investigate whether consumers’ perceptions of CSR motives influence their evaluation of CSR efforts, revealing that appropriately motivated CSR actions positively affect trust, and indirectly, customer loyalty, regardless of the performance of the firm on service quality provision. Ali et al. in 2010 investigated 250 young customers of mobile telecommunication companies from Pakistan in order to analyze the linkage between perceived CSR and service quality and, respectively, customer satisfaction, purchase intention and retention. Surprisingly, the authors found no linkage between perceived CSR and customer purchase intentions and retention.
A more recent survey conducted by He and Li in 2011 among 268 customers of mobile telecommunication services from Taiwan revealed that both CSR and service quality have direct effects on brand identification and customer satisfaction, and, respectively, indirect effects on service brand loyalty (via brand identification and customer satisfaction). Moreover, Stanaland et al. in 2011, after investigating 443 US customers of companies from several industries, found that perceived CSR (measured as commitment to ethics principles, respect to employees, long-term success, and playing a role in our society that goes beyond the mere generation of profits) impacts perceptions of corporate reputation, consumer trust, and loyalty.
Last but not least, Lee et al. in 2012, after conducting a survey among 250 young female customers of companies from several industries from Korea and focusing on the philanthropic side of CSR, showed that the perceived fit between consumers’ lifestyles/values and CSR activities influences the actual perceptions of CSR activities which, in turn, positively impact customer loyalty, both directly and indirectly.
All in all, the article point out the fact that Romanian mobile telecommunication customers’ loyalty is not significantly impacted by how they perceive their service providers’ responsibilities with regard to their employees or economic success, while their perceptions of companies’ responsibilities towards their customers, public authorities, the environment, community development, and sponsorship have a significant impact on loyalty.
The main limitations of this paper are given by the fact that potential mediating factors of the relationship between customers’ perceptions of CSR and customer loyalty were not included in the proposed and tested mode. Thus, as a future research opportunity, the current analysis should be extended by taking into consideration several mediating variables such as customer satisfaction, customer trust, company-consumer identification, price-quality competitive positioning, and/or perceived switching costs, and integrating them into a structural equation model along with perceptions of CSR as exogenous variables and customer loyalty as an endogenous variable.
