DOES CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MATTER EVEN IN B2B MARKET?: EFFECT OF CSR ON CUSTOMER TRUST

Abstract

Recently, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an important social issue all over the world. Most businesses are required to take social responsibility from the perspective of stakeholders. Moreover, CSR has been recognized as one of the important marketing activities for maintenance of relationships with consumers (Balmer & Greysner, 2006). In the past, most academic researches of CSR have been conducted in the field of business-to-consumer (B2C) side. Homburg, Stierl, and Bornemann (2013) note that CSR is not only exclusively reserved for B2C companies but rather represents a universal necessity which also includes companies operating in B2B markets. In this study, we try to extend research field of CSR into business-to-business (B2B) context. Therefore, this study suggests that identifying the role of CSR can be an important factor of corporate marketing strategy. Even though the strategic meaning of CSR is becoming very critical, previous research about CSR in the context of B2B market is very rare (Homburg et al., 2013).