Title: Does perceived corporate social responsibility improve customer engagement? - An empirical evidence from Indian banks

Authors: T. Praveen Kumar; M. Kirupa Priyadarsini; K. Soundarapandiyan

Addresses: School of Business and Management, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, India ' PSG Institute of Management, Coimbatore, India ' Department of Commerce, B S Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, Vandalur, Chennai – 48, India

Abstract: In recent years, banks are trying to embed their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and societal outreach initiatives into their strategic process to improve their competitive advantage and performance. A previous study reveals that CSR initiatives and efforts of the banks will likely to positively influence the customer's attitudes toward that bank and generate favourable behavioural outcomes. This study will provide a deeper investigation of whether the perceived CSR discriminate against the customer engagement level in the bank. This paper attempts to measure the discriminating power of CSR towards customer engagement. Maignan and Ferrell's (2004) scale was used to ascertain the corporate social responsibility, and for measuring customer engagement, the Gallop scale (2001) was used. Primary data was collected through a simple random sampling technique from 612 customers across different banks. The discriminant analysis was carried out to find out the discriminating power of CSR towards customer engagement. Discriminating function model results exactly predicting customer engagement level based on the CSR initiatives. The findings are supportive and helpful for the banks in formulating effective CRM Strategy to satisfy and engage their customer at a high level through effectively articulated CSR plans and policies.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR; relationship; discrimination; customer engagement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPSPM.2024.138039

International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management, 2024 Vol.13 No.3, pp.350 - 368

Received: 27 Feb 2020
Accepted: 12 Aug 2020
Published online: 18 Apr 2024 *

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