When and how does customer engagement in CSR initiatives lead to greater CSR participation? The role of CSR credibility and customer-company identification

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of customers' perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on their CSR participation intention via customer-company identification (C-C identification). The authors also examine how CSR credibility strengthens the customers' CSR perception-C-C identification relationship and the indirect relationship between CSR perception and CSR participation intention through C-C identification. We conducted a survey of 567 South Korean bank customers and performed structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. C-C identification partially mediated the relationship between customers' CSR perception and CSR participation intention. The positive association between customers' CSR perception and C-C identification was more pronounced when CSR credibility was higher than when it was lower. CSR credibility further moderated the indirect effect of customers' CSR perception and CSR participation intention through C-C identification. This study deepens CSR research by showing how a cognitive CSR perception leads to a behavioral CSR participation based on a research model.