CSR communication through social media : a litmus test for banking consumers’ loyalty

Prior literature in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has largely focused on investigating its relationship with organizational-related outcomes, whereas the impact of CSR on consumer behavior is largely ignored in the recent literature. Further, most of the prior studies have investigated CSR with a philanthropic viewpoint, but its importance in achieving marketing-related outcomes is something that is to date, underexplored. Hence, the aim of the present study is to investigate the impact of CSR communication through social media on consumer loyalty with the mediating effect of consumers’ brand admiration in the banking sector of Pakistan. The banking sector was selected due to the reason that this sector is homogenized in nature and creating consumers’ loyalty due to this homogenized character of this sector is challenging. The data of the present study were collected from different banking consumers through an adapted questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale. A total of 448 fully filled questionnaires were received which included 289 male and 159 female banking consumers. The results of the present study revealed that CSR communications through social media have a positive impact on consumer loyalty, and consumers’ brand admiration partially mediates this relationship. The findings of the present study would help policymakers from banking institutions to use CSR strategy from the perspective of marketing which is undoubtedly very important for every organization in the current digital age.