Reaping Relationship Marketing Benefits from Corporate Social Initiatives

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is very prominent on the corporate agenda. Our research examines the individual-level dynamics of how a brand’s social initiatives can generate relationship marketing benefits. We find that positive CSR beliefs strengthen consumers’ relationships with the brand, generating benefits for the brand such as greater likelihood of purchase, increased loyalty, and greater consumer advocacy. More interestingly, we find that not all CSR initiatives are created equal; a brand that integrates its CSR strategy into the core business strategy is likely to reap greater relational benefits from its CSR initiatives. Regarding antecedent conditions of CSR beliefs, we demonstrate that perceived intrinsic (but not extrinsic) motives underlying CSR initiatives play an important role. Our research contributes to both relationship marketing and CSR literature.