Corporate social responsibility on customer behaviour: the mediating role of corporate image and customer satisfaction

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays an important role in corporate profits, corporate reputation, and consumer attitudes; it has been identified as a critical marketing strategy for enterprise business activities and corporate sustainable development. How does CSR influence the consumer behaviour towards profit making for the enterprise? This issue has been an important research topic in the enterprise and management areas. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying how CSR can affect the consumer behavioural intention (CBI) have rarely been addressed in the literature. This study investigates the relationship between CSR and CBI, emphasising on using corporate image and customer satisfaction as the mediate factors. Focusing on the bicycle industry, a total number of 491 valid questionnaires from the consumers are retrieved and are then analyzed using the structural equation modelling. Our analyses show that CSR has a positive effect on corporate image, customer satisfaction, and price premium. In addition, CSR can affect the customer behavioural intention (purchase intention and price premium) through enhancing corporate image and customer satisfaction. Our results clarify the relationship between CSR and CBI, and can offer a sound academic support for future related research and practical applications.