CSR orientation and firm performance in the Middle Eastern and African B2B markets: The role of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

Abstract

Ample body of evidence suggests the presence of a direct relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation and firm performance. However, this finding seems spurious and imprecise, likely due to missing intervening factors that mediate this relationship. This gap in pertinent literature has motivated the present study, as a part of which customer satisfaction and customer loyalty were examined as two probable mediators in the relationship between CSR orientation and firm performance. The findings yielded by surveying the representatives of 326 Saudi Arabian businesses that have extensive business-to-business (B2B) operations across the Middle East and African (MEA) markets revealed that the link between CSR and firm performance is a fully mediated relationship. We found that firms' pursuit of CSR orientation positively affects firm performance, which is sequentially mediated by customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. These findings suggest a role CSR orientation plays in indirectly promoting firm performance by enhancing customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty. Therefore, as business and society are two intertwined, mutually interdependent entities, business owners are responsible for all stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, suppliers, and community), and this stakeholder-driven CSR orientation leads to sustainable firm performance.