When does customer CSR perception lead to customer extra-role behaviors? The roles of customer spirituality and emotional brand attachment

Abstract

The first objective of this study is to test the mediating role of emotional brand attachment in the relationship between customers’ perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and two types of customer extra-role behavior: customer participation behavior and customer citizenship behavior. The second objective is to examine the moderating effects of customer spirituality on the customer CSR perception–emotional brand attachment relationship and the indirect relationship between customer CSR perception and customer participation/citizenship behavior through emotional brand attachment. We conducted a research survey with 615 South Korean bank customers and performed structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. Emotional brand attachment partially mediated the relationship between customer CSR perception and customer participation/citizenship behavior. The positive association between customer CSR perception and emotional brand attachment was more pronounced when customer spirituality was high than when it was low. Customer spirituality further moderated the indirect effect of customer CSR perception and customer participation/citizenship behavior through emotional brand attachment. This is one of the first studies to explore the boundary conditions of customer spirituality that strengthen the association between customer CSR perception and customer extra-role behaviors via emotional brand attachment. The study advances customer CSR perception and spirituality research by proposing and testing a moderated mediation model.