Influence of bank’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on consumer attitude and satisfaction in India

Sustainable Businesses Speak to the Heart of Consumers: Looking at Sustainability with a Marketing Lens to Reap Banking Consumers’ Loyalty

Achieving consumer loyalty will remain a prime objective of every business in the current volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment (VUCA), which demands some out-of-the-box thinking on the part of policymakers to sustain the competitive advantage. Sustainability has been emerging as a “new normal” for all industries of the present era, which forces all sectors to incorporate it into their business operations. There have been studies on the relationship between sustainability and consumer loyalty, but these studies are inconclusive, further establishing the importance of more research in this area. In this frame of reference, the present research objective is to test the dimensional impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities (economic, environmental, social) on banking consumers’ loyalty in the context of Pakistan. The data were collected from different bank account holders, which were then analyzed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique in AMOS. The results revealed that all three dimensions of CSR positively relate to consumer loyalty. The banking industry policymakers can benefit from the findings of the present study to understand sustainability from the lens of marketing to drive a higher level of consumer loyalty.

Top management commitment, corporate social responsibility and green human resource management

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between top management commitment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and green human resource management (GHRM).

Design/methodology/approach

A self-administered questionnaire was adopted to perform a systematic collection of data from manufacturing and service organisations in Malaysia. The partial least squares method was used for the conceptual framework of the study.

Findings

The observed findings indicate a significant positive relationship between top management commitment and CSR, as well all dimensions of GHRM. However, counterintuitively, the relationship between CSR and GHRM was found not to be as significant as expected (except for CSR and green analysis/job description), which can be explained through the emerging perspective that CSR and HRM should be linked.

Research limitations/implications

The findings provide insights as to the nature of GHRM and how it is affected by CSR and top management commitment in an emerging economy – in this particular study, Malaysia. Moreover, the observed results highlight the crucial importance of top management commitment in implementing GHRM practices and CSR efficiently in order to create positive environmental performance.

Originality/value

The authors believe that, to date, no study has explored the links between top management commitment, CSR and GHRM using empirical data from Malaysia, as well as that this research is an important emerging topic for researchers, academicians and practitioners.