Research of influence mechanism of corporate social responsibility for smart cities on consumers' purchasing intention

Abstract

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to explore the influence mechanism of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for smart cities on consumers' purchase intention. The authors aim to identify the key components of CSR for smart cities based on the perspective of consumers, namely responsibility toward consumers, environment and community and validate their relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors exploit data collected by questionnaire surveys to estimate the effects of CSR for smart cities on consumers' purchase intentions and to investigate the statistical causality between them. The multilinear regression model is used to figure out the different impact levels of the three dimensions of CSR for smart cities on consumers' purchase intention.FindingsThe results illustrate that CSR for smart cities and its three dimensions all have significant positive impacts on consumers' purchase intentions. Besides, consumer–corporate identity (CCI) exerts a partial mediation effect on this influence mechanism.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is based on a rather small sample size. Besides, due to the time limitation and other factors, some other control variables are neglected in the regression model. Therefore, the impact level could be distorted.Practical implicationsThe authors put forward management implications according to research conclusions. Corporates should actively fulfill the CSR in the field of consumer responsibility to boost consumers' purchase intention. Corporate should strengthen the interaction with consumers to improve their corporate identity.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper is to provide convincing evidence of the impacts of CSR for smart cities on consumer purchase intention (CPI), thus proposing effective measures for corporates to win more consumers by taking on social responsibility for smart cities. This paper takes CCI as mediating variable to deepen the understanding of the impacts of CSR for smart cities on CPI, which is innovative and beneficial to enriching literature in related fields.