A Study of Customers’ Attitudinal and Behavioral Responses toward Lodging Companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives

Despite the increasing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) marketing practices, the role of CSR has little been explored in the area of hospitality marketing. The main purpose of the study was to propose and assess a theoretical model on the effects of hotels’ CSR and corporate ability (CA) on customer-company identification (CCID), customers’ corporate evaluation (CE), and purchase intention (PI). On-line survey was conducted and a total of 683 responses were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling method. The results demonstrated that (1) corporate ability (CA) still had a stronger effect on customers’ corporate evaluation (CE) and purchase intention (PI) than CSR associations, (2) CSR showed stronger impact on customer-company identification (CCID) than corporate ability (CA), and (3) both CSR and CA showed positive effects on the relationships toward corporate evaluation (CE) and purchase intention (PI) mediated by customer-company identification (CCID). The study concluded with discussion and future research.