Effects of corporate social responsibility on customer satisfaction and organizational attractiveness: A signaling perspective

• Author: Fangfang Zhang,Xin Li,Jing Liu,Mei Cao,Qingyu Zhang
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12243
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Date: 01 January 2020

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  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:20–34.

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

Corporate soc ial responsibility (C SR) has been studied f or decades,

and it has been ste adily evolving in terms of how it re lates to other

organization al goals. In the 1960s, C SR was introdu ced mainly as

the ethical an d social obligations of business an d corporate exter‐

nality contro l (McGuire, 1963). The st akeholder approach and the

corporate soci al performa nce model were pro posed in the 1980s

(Frederick, 1987; Freeman, 1984). In r ecent years, the b usiness

case for CSR an d sustainabil ity concept have be come the domi‐

nant theme of CS R studies (Bara ibar‐Diez & Luna‐Sotorrí o, 2018;

Carroll & Shab ana, 2010; Hildebrand, Dem otta, Sen, & Valenzuela,

2017; Panda, Modak, Ba su, & Goyal, 2015; Por ter & Kramer,

2011). Although the re search issue has sh ifted from “wh ether”

to “how” CSR crea tes value, there i s no conceptual or th eoretical

lucidity reg arding how and why C SR can bring fin ancial benefit s

(Albuquerq ue, Koskinen, & Zhang, 2018; Du, B hattacharya, & Sen ,

2011).

Received: 28 Marc h 2018 

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  Revised: 16 July 2019 

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  Accepted: 2 Augus t 2019

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12243

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Effects of corporate social responsibility on customer

satisfaction and organizational attractiveness: A signaling

perspective

Qingyu Zhang1 | Mei Cao2 | Fangfang Zhang1 | Jing Liu1 | Xin Li1

1Research Ins titute of Business A nalytics

& Supply Chai n Management, Coll ege

of Management, Shenzhen University,

Shenzhen, China

2School of Busi ness & Economics, Un iversity

of Wisconsin‐Superior, Superior, Wisconsin

Correspondence

Qingyu Zha ng, Research Inst itute of

Business An alytics & Suppl y Chain

Management, College of Management,

Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060,

China.

Email: q.yu.zhang@gmail.com

Funding information

National Natu ral Science Found ation of

China, Gran t/Award Number: 71572115;

Major Progra m of Social Science Fou ndation

of Guangdong, Grant/Award Number:

2016WZDXM005; N atural Science

Foundation of SZU, Grant/Award Number:

836

Abstract

In recent years, many res earchers have attemp ted to determine the mec hanisms of

how corporate social re sponsibility (CSR) brin gs financial benefits to a f irm. However,

many chief financial of ficers (CFOs) throughou t the world are uncer tain about the

strategic value of C SR, and no consensu s has been reached on d efining how CSR

creates value. Drawi ng on signaling theory, we explore th e effects of the multidim en‐

sional construc t of CSR on organizational p erformance by examinin g the relationships

among CSR, corporate reputation, customer satisfaction, and organizational attrac‐

tiveness from the pe rspectives of both customers as well as jo b seekers. Consistent

with the European Co mmission's view, CSR is define d as having three compone nts:

CSR for employees , CSR for customer s, and CSR for social p ublic welfare. Data a re

collected throug h an online survey of a convenie nt sample of 500 indi viduals from

different organ izations in China. Resul ts indicate that cor porate reputation p lays a

mediating role in the re lationship betwee n CSR and customer s atisfaction a nd that

between CSR an d organizational at tractivene ss. Further, the impact m echanisms of

the three compone nts of CSR are diff erent. For CSR for em ployees, both cognitive

and affective re putation work as mediators, with th e former playing a bigger mediat‐

ing role than the lat ter. For CSR for customers , only cognitive reput ation works as a

mediator, whereas for CSR for s ocial public welfare, only affect ive reputation works

as a mediator. This study's fin dings show that the abovementioned relatio nships are

more complex than pre vious studies have revealed. Thes e insights provide guidelines

for firms to better a djust their CSR s trategies to improve custo mer satisfact ion and

organizational attractiveness.