The impact of corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty : a study of the banking industry in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city and the world’s third leading financial hub with a mature economy and highly competitive financial market. Despite growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR), empirical studies on banks were not available in Hong Kong. Hence, the author conducted research on CSR using the three note-issuing multinational banks (HSBC, BOC and SCB). The research question is “Does corporate social responsibility contribute positively to customer attitudinal loyalty of the banks in Hong Kong?”, and a CSR framework was used to investigate the influence of CSR on loyalty, mediated by perceived service quality and trust. It distinguished the CSR requirements of primary and secondary stakeholders, and introduced business practice CSR that influences the former and philanthropic CSR that affects the latter. An SEM research framework was developed and data were collected through survey questionnaires from 329 customers of the three banks. Statistical analysis was conducted using AMOS and SPSS. Research findings confirmed the relationships between perceived service quality, trust and attitudinal loyalty. Business practice CSR reputation targeting primary stakeholders was found to have a strong relationship with perceived quality and trust, but the relationship between philanthropic CSR reputation and trust was insignificant. The study has linked CSR to stakeholders, adapted a model from a business-to-business empirical study, and provided insight for mediating factors, perspectives on strategic CSR and a new CSR definition.