*Article* **E**ff**ects of the Type of CSR Discourse for Utilitarian and Hedonic Services**

#### **Andrea Pérez \*, María del Mar García de los Salmones and Elisa Baraibar-Diez**

Business Administration Department, University of Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain; mariadelmar.garcia@unican.es (M.d.M.G.d.l.S.); elisa.baraibar@unican.es (E.B.-D.)

**\*** Correspondence: andrea.perezruiz@unican.es

Received: 25 May 2020; Accepted: 5 June 2020; Published: 12 June 2020

**Abstract:** In a context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, we explore whether the use of expositive versus narrative discourses interacts with the type of service commercialized by the company (utilitarian vs. hedonic) to determine consumer perceptions and responses to corporate communication. Our main proposal is that, as representative examples of utilitarian services, banking companies would benefit significantly from communicating their CSR efforts with expositive discourses, whereas narrative discourses would be more adequate for hedonic services (e.g., catering). To test the research hypotheses, we use a 2 (expositive/narrative discourse) x 2 (utilitarian/hedonic service) between-subjects experimental design where we expose 302 consumers to different combinations of CSR messages and we evaluate changes in their message attributions and internal and external responses to them. The findings show that the interaction effect is significant and it works in the expected direction for issue importance, CSR fit, and CSR attributions. However, for CSR impact, attitude, trust, purchase, and advocacy intentions, the findings suggest that narrative discourses work better than expositive discourses both for utilitarian and hedonic services. No significant differences between types of discourses are observed for CSR motives, CSR commitment, and C-C identification and the interaction effect is also not significant for these variables.

**Keywords:** CSR; communication; discourse; exposition; narrative; storytelling; banking; catering; utilitarian service; hedonic service

#### **1. Introduction**

Since the 2008 Great Recession, increasing attention has been devoted to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Not only has the international community realized the importance of achieving sustainable economic, social, and environmental development for stability and progress in the world economy [1], but CSR has also become paramount for institutions and companies to recover credibility, trust, and reputation [2,3].

Nonetheless, it is noticeable that the business returns to CSR are contingent on stakeholders' awareness of a company's CSR activities [4]. However, studies frequently report that CSR awareness is typically low, while stakeholders also demonstrate to be highly skeptical of the CSR motives behind companies that engage in CSR efforts [5]. These ideas highlight the necessity that companies have nowadays to design better communication strategies to reap strategic benefits from its CSR activities [4]. The way companies design their CSR communication strategies is crucial for the success of CSR and research should focus on this issue to provide companies with useful insight to design CSR and communication strategies more adequately.

For instance, an interesting line of research has focused on exploring the effect that different discourse strategies have on audiences when exposed to communication [6–8]. Scholars have frequently discussed the advantages and disadvantages of designing messages based on expositive (semantic or rational) or narrative (i.e., storytelling) discourses [9,10]. Based on the premises of the narrative paradigm theory (NPT) [11], scholars have mostly defended that discourse will always tell a story and insofar as it invites an audience to believe it or to act on it, the narrative paradigm and its attendant logic, narrative rationality, are available for (better) interpretation and assessment. Therefore, narrative discourses are expected to report better outcomes for companies than expositive discourses [12–14]. Nonetheless, the empirical evidence along this line of research is largely inconclusive [15], with studies alternatively demonstrating the superior performance of expositive [16] or narrative [15] discourses, or even showing mixed results within the same experiments [17].

Some scholars have suggested that the inconclusiveness of previous findings may be due to the existence of an interaction effect between the type of discourse strategy and the type of product/service context of the company [17–19]. More precisely, scholars suggest that the type of discourse chosen by the company in its communications should match their product/service type to be successful [15]. For instance, banking services are utilitarian services that, based on the premises of the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), would benefit from applying rational nonnarrative appeals to their communications [20]. On the contrary, catering services are hedonic services, which are focused on pleasing consumers and, consequently, would benefit more from emotional narrative discourses [20]. Nevertheless, support for this matching principle is again contradictory and little consensus has been reached yet. As an example, in her qualitative study, Mortimer (2008) observed that narrative discourses could be useful for both hedonic and utilitarian services and that the matching of the discourse strategy to the type of service context was not necessarily an adequate communication approach for companies [15].

Along this line of research, we have observed that the lack of conclusive findings on the matching principle between the type of discourse and the type of service is especially evident in the CSR communication literature, where very few studies have tested this interaction effect [21]. All the papers discussed above have explored the role of the type of discourse and/or the service context in conventional commercial advertising (i.e., communication focused on presenting the products and services that can solve a consumer's problem), whereas very little research has been implemented so far in the CSR context. Nonetheless, CSR communication differs from commercial advertising significantly because its main goal is not to "sell" products/services but to promote corporate sustainable development endeavors and define corporate values and personality [22]. It also differs from commercial advertising because of its normative or moralistic character. Therefore, the few conclusions (if any) that could be extracted from previous literature on the interaction effect between the type of discourse and the type of service could not be translated into the CSR literature straightforwardly and, as so, further research is needed in the context of CSR communication.

Based on these ideas, the research goal of the present paper is to explore whether the use of expositive versus narrative discourses interacts with the type of service (utilitarian vs. hedonic) to determine consumer perceptions and responses to CSR communication. To propose our research hypotheses, we base on the ELM [23] and the distinction between functional and self-congruity types of message processing [15,18] to propose that utilitarian (banking) services would benefit significantly from communicating their CSR efforts with expositive discourses, whereas narrative discourses should be left for hedonic (catering) services that would achieve better results with them. To measure the consequences of the interaction effect, we evaluate changes in consumer message attributions and internal and external responses to a CSR message [4] in a 2 × 2 experimental context where consumers are exposed to different combinations of expositive vs. narrative messages in utilitarian vs. hedonic service contexts. In testing this proposal, the paper will contribute to previous literature in two ways. First, the paper will provide further insight into the discourse by service interaction effect that has reported inconclusive findings in previous literature. Second, it will do so in the context of CSR communication, where previous literature has largely neglected the possibility of an interaction effect between both conditions.

We structure the paper as follows. First, we revise literature on discourse and communication strategies and types of services to propose the research hypotheses of the study. Second, we describe

the research method, paying special attention to its design, sample, and measurement scales. Third, we describe the main findings of the paper and we discuss them in the light of previous literature. We conclude by presenting the most relevant implications, limitations, and future lines of research derived from the study.

#### **2. Literature Review**

#### *2.1. Expositive and Narrative Discourses in Corporate Communication*

An extensive line of research in marketing and communication literature suggests that the success of corporate communication largely depends on the type of discourse used by companies in their public messages [6,8]. In this regard, designing a message that will be perceived as rational, emotional, or mixed in its discourse is a primary strategic consideration in corporate communication [24].

Along this line, companies have traditionally applied two opposite types of discourses to their corporate communications; they present messages that are mostly expositive or narrative in character [9,10]. Expositive (semantic, rational, or nonnarrative) perspectives on communication include "self-evident propositions, demonstrations, proofs, and verbal expressions of certain and probable knowing" [7]. Thus, exposition mainly bases on the description of rational arguments, statistics, numbers, names, and facts [12]. Expositive messages do not go any deeper into the reality behind those numbers and they avoid emotional connotations as much as possible [9]. In numerous occasions, this approach has been referred to as informational communication [15]. On the contrary, the narrative (storytelling) rationality implies that "facts need some narrative to bind them together to enhance their intelligibility" [7]. In narrative messages, companies may use storytelling, which refers to the art of telling emotional stories to engage with the audience. Corporate storytelling is the "practice of using narration from within the organization relating to its people, practices, policies and visions to effectively engage with staff (and external stakeholders)" [25]. Thus, narrative messages are aimed at generating emotional connections between stakeholders and companies [26,27] by adding favorable and unique associations to companies through messages that can better embrace the core corporate values [27].

Based on the narrative paradigm theory (NPT) [11], previous research has mostly defended that people tend to think narratively more than paradigmatically or in an expositive way [20]. Therefore, narrative discourses are expected to lead to better audience responses than expositive discourses [12–14]. Consisting of a sequence of story—understanding—shared meaning, storytelling, materialized in a compelling story, gains access to the mind and sensations of those who are listening or watching, enriched in their learning and feelings. This connection provokes empathy and, therefore, it allows the audience to understand and be sensitive to the experience that they are being told about, which derives into better attitudes and allows the formation of stronger relationships and engagement [28].

Nonetheless, empirical evidence is inconclusive when it comes to corroborating the role of expositive and narrative discourses on consumers' message attributions and responses to corporate communication. For instance, Mortimer (2008) examined a sample of service advertisements that had been recognized for their success and she found that the majority of advertisements utilized emotional discourses [15]. On the contrary, in a study that explored retail services advertising, Stafford and Day (1995) found the main effect for discourse across industries, in which rational discourses led to more positive levels of attitude towards the ad than emotional discourses [16]. Hill et al. (2004) tested the hypothesis that a successful visualization advertising strategy (i.e., an ad based on a narrative discourse) evoked clear and vivid mental images of the service on consumers, thus making CSR communication more successful [17]. However, their findings only supported this hypothesis for some outcomes such as perceived informativity, service quality, and likelihood to use, but it was not supported for perceived uniqueness.

#### *2.2. Interaction E*ff*ect between Discourse Strategy and Type of Service*

A plausible explanation for the inconclusiveness of previous literature is that responses to corporate communication do not only depend on the type of discourse adopted by the company, but also on the type of service context where the company operates [15–17,21]. Generally, in service literature, scholars differentiate between utilitarian and hedonic services [16,20]. For instance, banking services are utilitarian services that provide functional utilities, deliver cognitive benefits, and are characterized by low employee contact, moderate customization, an equipment-orientation, and direction toward things [16,20]. On the contrary, catering services are hedonic services that are consumed primarily for affective or sensory gratification purposes, provide consumers with emotions, and are characterized by high employee contact, considerable customization, and an orientation toward people, not things (i.e., they are more personal) [16,20].

Based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) [23] and the functional congruity and self-congruity types of message processing [15,18], we propose that an expositive discourse is especially adequate for communicating about the CSR of banking (utilitarian) services, whereas narrative approaches would be more suitable for the CSR communication of catering (hedonic) services.

In this regard, banking services are high-involvement services for consumers [29] and, as such, the amount this audience type would think about a message coming from a banking company would be high. Um (2008) shows that elaboration is higher when the argument is relevant to the person (i.e., high involvement), and lower when the argument is irrelevant [30]. Therefore, in the case of a banking company, persuasion is most commonly achieved through central and functional processing routes [15,24], which occur when the person who receives the information is likely to focus and process the finer points in the message (e.g., the quality of the argument) [18,24]. Therefore, for banking services, communicating CSR facts with a rational, expositive discourse would be more adequate than using a narrative, storytelling discourse because, as utilitarian services, the functional aspects of consumption are more important and rational decision is dominant over emotional responses [31]. Consumers evaluate utilitarian services using cognitive criteria [20]. This rationale matches the use of expositive discourses, which assume that consumers make rational decisions and, therefore, they prefer nonnarrative messages [21].

On the contrary, in catering services, the hedonic aspect of consumption is highly important and affective responses may overwhelm cognitive responses [31]. Catering services are value-expressive, which means that consumers will generally make their decisions to use the service based on the image that is associated to the company and the association that will be created between the company's image and his/her image [18]. Consumers are expected to be influenced by this type of hedonic service more at a personal level, making it difficult for them to disassociate themselves from the service and perceiving it as an extension of themselves [19]. Therefore, when the service is value-expressive, audience persuasion is influenced through an affective, peripheral, and self-congruity processing route [18], which occurs when the person focuses more lightly on source cues to form their attitudes [18] because these cues require little mental effort [24]. In this context, narrative discourses will be more adequate than expositive discourses. In this regard, "well-designed, well-told stories convey both information and emotion, both the explicit and the tacit, both the core and context" [32]. CSR stories have an ameliorative effect, enhancing the ability of audiences to exist more meaningfully and improve their mental models of others and themselves [33]. Thus, corporate storytelling generates an emotional connection between consumers and companies [26,27] and, consequently, it is expected to intensify consumer positive responses to CSR messages when they evaluate hedonic services.

#### *2.3. Message Attributions in CSR Communication*

To explore how the interaction between type of discourse and type of service affects consumer perceptions and responses to CSR communication, we test the differentiated effect of CSR messages on the prominent framework of CSR communication developed by Du et al. (2010) [4]. According to these authors, one key aspect to create stakeholder awareness and managing stakeholder perceptions of a company's CSR activities is the message content (i.e., the "what to communicate" question). Du et al. (2010) and subsequent researchers who have tested their conceptual framework empirically [34], defend that the content of a CSR message should emphasize: (a) the importance of the social issue, (b) the impact the company has on the cause, (c) the motives why it engages in the social cause, (d) the fit (i.e., congruence, similarity, compatibility) between the cause and the company, and (e) the company's long-term commitment to the cause.

Issue importance refers to the relevance of the social cause on a global scale. When companies include information about issue importance in the CSR message, they increase stakeholders' awareness of the cause, which will improve message diagnosticity, allow stakeholders to effectively process CSR appeals and, consequently, improve responses to the CSR message [35,36].

CSR impact reflects the results of the collaboration between the company and the social cause, that is, the impact the company has achieved on the social cause over the time they have collaborated. Mentioning CSR impact gives the message an objective charge, it enhances its credibility, and it let stakeholders evaluate the true level of a company's CSR involvement and commitment to the social cause, which can lead to positive communication outcomes [4,37].

As for CSR motives, it is generally agreed that the perception of a company's intrinsic (altruistic) motives to collaborate with a social cause increases perceived sincerity and positive emotions, whereas a behavior attributed only to extrinsic (egoistic) motives is perceived as dishonest, opportunistic, and misleading for stakeholders, arousing negative feelings [38,39]. Literature also defends that perceptions of corporate altruistic motives lead stakeholders to understand the company's commitment to the social cause as more lasting and stable over time [40] because it derives from the company's value system directly [41].

CSR fit refers to the congruence between the social cause and the company, which can be functional (i.e., the congruence of the type of product/service marketed by the company, and the type of social cause supported) or based on image cues (i.e., the holistic, symbolic, and peripheral judgement of company identity and its relatedness and similarity to the cause identity) [42–44]. A good cause–company fit may minimize negative judgments about the company's motives to collaborate with the cause [45] and, therefore, it leads to better communication outcomes [4,46]. On the contrary, a low perceived fit is likely to increase cognitive elaboration and make egoistic motives more salient, arousing negative feelings toward CSR messages [44].

Finally, CSR commitment relates to the company's long-term commitment to the social cause. CSR commitment improves stakeholders' responses because a long-term commitment (versus a reactive, shorter-term CSR action) provides more time to learn about a company-cause collaboration [4]. It also reflects a genuine concern for increasing community welfare and, consequently, it improves attitudes towards the company [35].

As reported in the previous section of this paper, we expect that these consumer perceptions of the message content are dependent upon the interaction between type of discourse (expositive vs. narrative) and type of service (utilitarian vs. hedonic) [15,16,18,21]. Thus, we hypothesize that consumers will perceive the different components of the CSR message discussed by Du et al. (2010) differently in each industry depending on the type of CSR discourse used by companies. Based on this idea, this study tests the following research hypotheses:

*H1: In a utilitarian service context, an expositive CSR discourse generates statistically significant higher perceptions of (a) issue importance, (b) CSR impact, (c) CSR motives, (d) CSR fit, and (e) CSR commitment than a narrative CSR discourse.*

*H2: In a hedonic service context, a narrative CSR discourse generates statistically significant higher perceptions of (a) issue importance, (b) CSR impact, (c) CSR motives, (d) CSR fit, and (e) CSR commitment than an expositive CSR discourse.*

#### *2.4. Consumer Responses to CSR Communication*

Then, message attributions generate internal and external outcomes among stakeholders, which refer respectively to their attitudinal and behavioral responses to the company's CSR communication strategy [4,34]. As stated by Du et al. (2010), when analyzing consumer responses specifically, internal outcomes mainly include CSR attributions, service brand attitude, consumer-company (C-C) identification, and trust, whereas external outcomes refer to purchase and advocacy intentions [4].

CSR communication makes consumers aware of such initiatives, then, it derives in positive CSR attributions [21]. Therefore, corporate communications are important in raising CSR attributions among consumers to induce positive attitudes and behavioral intentions. Without this sort of communication, consumers will purchase a similar service that does not have such CSR attributes [21].

Along with CSR awareness (i.e., associations), Keller (1998) considers that to gain consumer-based brand equity, the consumer should also hold brand associations that are strong, favorable, and unique in comparison to other brands offered in the same category [47]. These brand associations refer to service brand attitude as described by Du et al. (2010) [4]. A large component of Keller's (1998) model depicts various types of brand associations in the form of service-related and non-service-related attributes, such as CSR [48]. Improving brand attitude is important for companies because it is linked to the consumer intention to use the service directly [49].

C-C identification refers to the cognitive and affective state of connection that a consumer perceives between him/herself and a company because of the identification of substantial overlap between the consumer's perceptions of his/her identity and the perceptions of the company's identity [50]. A company that is skilled in meeting the consumer's needs for self-definition is also a company the consumer is satisfied with because C-C identification provides a more favorable context for consumers to respond to corporate performance experiences as against to prior expectations. In addition, the higher C-C identification, the higher consumer loyalty and the wish to establish long-term relationships with the company [51].

Trust is understood as the existence of a bidirectional relationship where one exchange partner (consumer) believes in the other's (company) reliability and integrity [52]. Achieving consumer trust is especially important for companies because it serves as a key driver of consumer retention strategies, especially in retail service markets. Along this line, in numerous occasions, research has confirmed the link between trust and other relevant outcomes of corporate strategies such as perceived value, purchase, advocacy, and loyalty [53,54].

Purchase intentions refer to consumer commitment to buy goods or use services from a company over time [55]. Therefore, it reflects a deeply held commitment of consumers to repurchase from the company [56]. Purchase intentions have always been defended as the primary criteria used by companies to assess the adequacy of their consumer retention strategies [57].

Finally, advocacy intentions refer to consumer positive word-of-mouth, that is, informal communication directed at other consumers about products, services, and companies [58]. Advocacy has a large influence on people close to the consumer because it may encourage them to also show interest in the company and buy its products or services [55].

Based on the interaction effect suggested in this study, the following research hypotheses are proposed:

*H3: In a utilitarian service context, an expositive CSR discourse generates a statistically significant higher level of (a) CSR attributions, (b) service brand attitude, (c) C-C identification, (d) trust, (e) purchase intentions, and (f) advocacy intentions than a narrative CSR discourse.*

*H4: In a hedonic service context, a narrative CSR discourse generates a statistically significant higher level of (a) CSR attributions, (b) service brand attitude, (c) C-C identification, (d) trust, (e) purchase intentions, and (f) advocacy intentions than an expositive CSR discourse.*

#### **3. Method**

#### *3.1. Research Design*

To test the research hypotheses, we used a 2 (expositive/narrative discourse) x 2 (utilitarian/hedonic service) between-subjects experimental design.

We collected data in a northern city in Spain (i.e., Santander, Cantabria) between April and July 2018, after we had properly trained research assistants for the task. Each research assistant was assigned randomly to collect data in one of the four experimental conditions. We used a convenience sampling procedure based on gender and age to select respondents and assign them to each scenario. In total, 302 participants took place in the experiment and they were distributed across scenarios as shown in Table 1. The sample comprised 49.7% women and 50.3% men. Participants' age ranged from 19 to 90. More precisely, 22.2% of the participants were younger than 35, 38.7% were between 35 and 55, and 39.1% were older than 55. Sampling quotas were very similar in the four scenarios and they were representative of the population in the Spanish region where data was collected.


**Table 1.** Sample sizes.

For each scenario, research assistants gave short explanations to the participants before the procedure started. The explanations did not convey the real purpose of the study. Instead, participants were told that the purpose was to understand their level of interest in CSR activities. Participants became aware of a fictitious company and its CSR program by evaluating website content (Appendix A, Figures A1 and A2). The experiment contained stimuli from fictitious websites portraying information on the CSR activities implemented by the company over the last year, which were focused especially on the fight against childhood leukemia in two service contexts: a bank (utilitarian) and a restaurant (hedonic).

We purposely used fictitious stimuli to control for participants' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions concerning real companies, therefore avoiding their influence on the conceptual model proposed in this study [59]. We focused on the website for several reasons. First, website audiences generally perceive home pages primarily as an advertisement designed to entice them to experience the site [24]. Thus, communication theory matches this online context well. Second, a website is the most frequent medium used to engage in CSR communication because it provides a highly accessible but inexpensive medium to avoid accusations of spending more on communication than on the CSR activities themselves [38]. Third, websites are a preferred medium to communicate CSR commitment because of the richness of argumentation and opportunities for interactivity they provide [38]. We chose childhood leukemia as the social cause of our study based on previous studies that had considered health as a critical issue for CSR assessment [60].

To avoid potential confounding effects, all experimental website content used the same images and structure so that the only difference between them was the company itself and the discourse strategy used to present the information [61]. In the four treatments, information about key characteristics of the focal company and its CSR activities (e.g., numbers, figures) were kept constant. The website content conveyed that "Your Bank" (bank, utilitarian service) or "Ecofood" (restaurant, hedonic service) had invested "x" amount of money to collaborate with the childhood leukemia cause and it had achieved "x" results because of the collaboration during the last year. In the narrative treatments, the company's CSR activities were described through an emotional story that involved the son of a company's employee who suffered from childhood leukemia. In the expositive treatments, the same

information was described, although this time it was presented objectively and in a rational way, with bullet points, only using facts, figures, and statistics, and without referring to the employee's son who suffered from the disease.

Participants were asked to read the fictitious information about the company and its CSR website at their own pace. After reading it, they had to complete a questionnaire that included manipulation and post-test measures. The experiment included a manipulation check to test for perceived differences between utilitarian and hedonic services in terms of competence (*expert* vs. *inexperienced*/*competent* vs. *incompetent*) [62] and attractiveness (*attractive* vs. *unattractive*/*pleasant* vs. *unpleasant*) [62]. Utilitarian services usually rate higher in functional components than emotional components of customer experience and companies offering this type of services tend to be perceived as more competent and experienced than companies providing hedonic services [63]. On the contrary, participants were expected to perceive hedonic services as more delightful, enjoyable, and attractive than utilitarian services [21]. A manipulation check to evaluate message authenticity (*The information presented in the website seems able to occur in the real world*/*is authentic*/*provides an abundance of facts so that I believe it is authentic*) [64] and participants' skepticism towards the information presented in the websites (*Claims are exaggerated*/*are intended to mislead*/*are not believable*/*are not true*) [65] tested for perceived differences between expositive and narrative discourses. Expositive discourses do not go deep into the reality behind the rational arguments, statistics, numbers, names, and facts that they provide [12]. On the contrary, CSR stories make social causes much more real to the audience and they make the messages more convincing and memorable [26]. Therefore, they are expected to be more authentic and elicit less skepticism than expositive discourses. Measurement of all items took place on seven-point Likert-type and semantic differential scales.

#### *3.2. Measurement Scales*

Seven-point Likert-type and semantic differential scales were used to evaluate post-test measures. We measured issue importance with the three-item scale proposed by Russell and Russell (2010) [66]. To measure CSR impact, we applied the five-item scale proposed by Connors et al. [67]. CSR motives were evaluated by adopting the three-item scale originally proposed by Becker-Olsen et al. [68]. The five-item scale used to measure CSR fit was adapted from Speed and Thompson (2000) and Skard and Thorbjornsen (2014) [69,70]. We measured CSR commitment using a five-item scale taken from Walton (2014) [71]. CSR attributions were measured with a three-item scale taken from Wagner et al. (2009) [72]. We evaluated service brand attitude with the four-item scale also proposed by Wagner et al. (2009) [72]. To measure C-C identification, we applied the five-item scale proposed by Currás (2007) [62]. To measure trust, we used the three-item scale proposed by Morgan and Hunt (1994) [52]. Finally, we evaluated purchase and advocacy intentions with two three-item scales adapted from the original proposals of Groza et al. (2011) and Romani et al. (2013), respectively [73,74]. Table 2 presents all the items.

When building the questionnaire, we also discussed sources of common method variance (CMV), such as social desirability bias, to refine the gathering of empirical data [75]. To avoid the transient mood state of the participants, we aimed at reducing evaluation apprehension by guaranteeing anonymity. For this purpose, we instructed the research assistants to assure the participants that their answers were anonymous and that there were no right or wrong answers. In doing so, the participants were encouraged to answer questions as honestly as possible [75]. After collecting data, we also applied statistical analyses to control for CMV. More precisely, we conducted Harman's single-factor test, which corroborated that all the scales items loaded on more than one single factor. Therefore, they were not concentrated in any one general factor, which corroborated that the correlation among variables was not influenced by their common source [75]. Thus, CMV did not influence the findings of our quantitative research significantly.



#### **4. Findings**

#### *4.1. Manipulation Checks*

We performed two independent-samples t-tests on the manipulation check questions to verify if the participants rated corporate competence and attractiveness and message authenticity and skepticism differently in the alternative experimental conditions. As per expectations, the participants perceived the hedonic service to be more attractive (meanU = 5.090, meanH = 5.880; t = 4.983, *p* < 0.050) and pleasant (meanU = 5.190, meanH = 5.970; t = 5.369, *p* < 0.050) than the utilitarian service, whereas there were no significant differences in the competence dimension (meanU = 5.050, meanH = 5.303; t = 1.953, *p* > 0.050), where both types of services were perceived equally expert (meanU = 5.010, meanH = 5.180; t = 1.268, *p* > 0.050). Although the test did not report significant differences concerning skepticism towards the message (meanE = 3.171, meanN = 2.901; t = 1.808, *p* > 0.050), the narrative discourse was perceived to be more realistic (meanE = 5.170, meanN = 5.480; t = 2.210, *p* < 0.050) and authentic (meanE = 4.890, meanN = 5.300; t = 2.822, *p* < 0.050) and to provide more abundance of authentic

facts (meanE = 4.900, meanN = 5.330; t = 2.894, *p* < 0.050) than the expositive message. Therefore, the results indicated that the experimental manipulation was successful because the different scenarios were perceived differently by the participants.

#### *4.2. Evaluation of the Measurement Scales*

We implemented a first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to analyze the psychometric properties of the measurement scales. To evaluate the quality of all the indicators that are explained in this section, we followed the recommendations of Hair et al. (2014) [76].

Table 3 shows the results of the analysis implemented with the scales that measured message attributions. The findings corroborated that all the comparative fit indexes were very close or exceeded the recommended value of 0.900, thus corroborating the goodness of the model fit (NFI = 0.897, NNFI = 0.932, CFI = 0.943, IFI = 0.943). The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value was also below the maximum limit of 0.080 recommended in the literature (RMSEA = 0.060). Additionally, scales yielded acceptable psychometric properties: factor loadings were greater than 0.500, composite reliability (CR) indicators were greater than 0.700, average variance extracted (AVE) indicators were greater than 0.500, and these AVE indicators were also greater than the squared correlation with any other construct.


**Table 3.** Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) message attributions (n = 302).

Model fit: S-Bχ2(d.f. = 176) = 368.745 (*p* < 0.010); NFI = 0.897; NNFI = 0.932; CFI = 0.943; IFI = 0.943; RMSEA = 0.060.

Similarly, Table 4 shows the results of the analysis implemented with the scales that measured consumer internal and external responses to CSR communication. These scales also reported acceptable psychometric properties in the analysis.


**Table 4.** CFA consumer responses (n = 302).

Model fit: S-Bχ2(d.f. = 173) = 353.142(*p* < 0.010); NFI = 0.928; NNFI = 0.953; CFI = 0.962; IFI = 0.962; RMSEA = 0.059.

#### *4.3. Hypotheses Testing*

We contrasted the hypotheses applying multivariate ANOVA (Table 5).


**Table 5.** Multivariate ANOVA.

*F*-value (d.f. = 1), *p*-values in parentheses, type of service (utilitarian vs. hedonic), CSR discourse (expositive vs. narrative).

As shown in Table 5, the findings indicated that the type of service (S) had a significant influence over all message attributions and consumer responses to CSR, whereas the discourse strategy (D) also had some significant influence over issue importance, CSR impact, CSR fit, CSR attributions, service brand attitudes, trust, purchase intentions, and advocacy intentions, but not over CSR motives, CSR commitment, or C-C identification. These three variables had similar means in the expositive and the narrative scenarios.

As for the interaction effect between the type of discourse and the type of service over message attributions, multivariate ANOVA detected a significant interaction for issue importance (F = 8.228, *p* < 0.050) (Figure 1): the expositive discourse outperformed the narrative discourse in the bank context, whereas the narrative discourse outperformed the expositive discourse in the restaurant context. These results supported the hypotheses H1a and H2a. Similarly, results revealed a significant interaction, in the expected direction, for CSR fit (F = 14.590, *p* < 0.050) (Figure 2). Therefore, the hypotheses H1d and H2d were supported. For CSR impact, CSR motives, and CSR commitment, multivariate ANOVA did not detect any significant interaction effect. However, as seen in Table 5, the discourse strategy had a significant effect over CSR impact, which was statistically higher for the narrative (vs. expositive) discourse (meanE = 4.744, meanN = 5.258; F = 17.419, *p* < 0.050). Therefore, the hypothesis H2b was supported by the findings, whereas the hypotheses H1b, H1c, H1e, H2c, and H2e were not supported.

**Figure 1.** Effects of service type and discourse strategy on issue importance.

**Figure 2.** Effects of service type and discourse strategy on CSR fit.

Concerning the interaction effect of discourse strategy and type of service over consumer responses to CSR, multivariate ANOVA results showed that a significant interaction existed for CSR attributions (F = 6.823, *p* < 0.050) (Figure 3): the expositive discourse outperformed the narrative discourse in the bank context, whereas the narrative discourse outperformed the expositive discourse in the restaurant context. These results supported the hypotheses H3a and H4a.

**Figure 3.** Effects of service type and discourse strategy on CSR attributions.

The analysis also detected interaction effects for trust (F = 4.098, *p* < 0.050) (Figure 4) and advocacy intentions (F = 5.228, *p* < 0.050) (Figure 5). Nonetheless, in these two cases, the narrative discourse reported higher responses for both the utilitarian and the hedonic service. In these cases, the interaction effects highlighted that the difference in trust and advocacy intentions reported by the participants when exposed to the narrative (vs. expositive) discourse was statistically higher in the hedonic (vs. utilitarian) scenarios. Based on these results, then, the hypotheses H3d and H3f were not supported by the findings of the study, whereas the hypotheses H4d and H4f were supported.

**Figure 4.** Effects of service type and discourse strategy on trust.

**Figure 5.** Effects of service type and discourse strategy on advocacy.

For service brand attitude, C-C identification and purchase intentions, multivariate ANOVA did not detect any significant interaction effect. However, as seen in Table 5, the discourse strategy had a significant effect over service brand attitude (meanE = 5.328, meanN = 5.676; F = 7.414, *p* < 0.050) and purchase intentions (meanE = 4.528, meanN = 4.934; F = 6.313, *p* < 0.050), which were statistically higher for the narrative (vs. expositive) discourse. Therefore, the hypotheses H4b and H4e were supported by the findings, whereas the hypotheses H3b, H3c, H3e, and H4c were not supported.

#### **5. Discussion**

As a first interesting finding of this paper, the research shows that there were significant differences in message attributions and consumer responses across different types of services. In this regard, the catering service reported statistically significant higher valuations than the banking service for all the dependent variables in our conceptual model. This finding is not surprising as previous empirical literature in the services sector has already proved that hedonic services receive better outcomes from their communication strategies than utilitarian services [16,17,77,78]. Along this line, scholars have proposed that affect may provide a richer understanding of the experiential aspects of service consumption and such consumption emotion may even serve as a stronger motivator for purchase than utilitarian attributes [31]. Additionally, scholars also defend that experiential services are inherently more interesting to consumers than utilitarian services and, then, consumers are more involved with the category domain and more motivated to process promotional information [16,77]. Based on these ideas, research has mostly defended the superior role of hedonic services to generate more positive consumer responses [20], even to the point that several studies have demonstrated that, roughly speaking, any sort of corporate communication is frequently more effective for hedonic than utilitarian services [16,17,77,78]. Although this idea has been tested mostly in the context of conventional commercial communication, our paper contributes to this line of thought by corroborating the same finding in the context of CSR communication.

As for the effect of the type of discourse strategy on message attributions and consumer responses to CSR communication, our findings suggest that this is not as clear as the effect of the service type. On the contrary, here it is important to analyze the interaction effect between discourse strategy and type of service to get a better picture of the implications of choosing between an expositive and a narrative discourse when designing CSR communications. In this regard, our findings align with previous results in academic literature, as some empirical studies have also observed the difficulty to ascertain clear general conclusions derived from the application of different discourses [17].

For instance, there were no significant differences according to the type of discourse strategy for CSR motives, CSR commitment, and C-C identification. A possible explanation is that these three variables were among the lowest-rated attributes of CSR communication in the diverse scenarios explored in the study. Even though the two types of discourses evaluated in the study elicited positive outcomes in most of the message attributions and consumer responses, they were not able to transmit enough altruism nor enough long-term commitment on the part of the company to collaborate in the specific leukemia cause. This finding reinforces the arguments of previous scholars who have defended that consumers are highly skeptical of companies and their CSR activities [79], which undermines the power of CSR communication to transmit altruistic motives and long-term commitment for the company-cause collaboration, even if the company relies on narrative messages to communicate its CSR activities through storytelling. Similarly, C-C identification was the lowest-rated consumer response in both the expositive and narrative scenarios. This result may be explained by the utilization of fictitious information (companies and social cause) for the experiment. As it has happened in other studies, to feel identified with a company and its CSR efforts, consumers must cognitively categorize themselves as members of the company (i.e., actual customers). Awareness of belonging and connection to a company is a way for consumers to achieve a positive social identity and, as a consequence of this sense of connection, the company is psychologically accepted as part of that personal identity and the consumer feels identified with it [80]. However, when analyzing fictitious companies in experiments, participants do not have the time to develop a strong connection to the company and, as so, C-C identification ranks low.

The superiority of expositive (vs. narrative) discourses for utilitarian services was confirmed only for issue importance, CSR fit, and CSR attributions, whereas the superiority of narrative (vs. expositive) discourses for hedonic services was proved for issue importance, CSR impact, CSR fit, CSR attributions, service brand attitude, trust, purchase, and advocacy intentions. Indeed, in most cases, the results showed that, in both the banking and restaurant contexts, message attributions and responses to CSR communication were significantly higher when consumers were exposed to the narrative discourse. This was especially the case for CSR impact, service brand attitude, and purchase intentions, for which no interaction effect between discourse strategy and service type was observed. For the three variables, the narrative discourse always reported better results than the expositive discourse for both the utilitarian and the hedonic services. This finding was also corroborated for trust and advocacy intentions and the findings in these cases are especially worth mentioning. For trust and advocacy intentions, the interaction effect between discourse strategy and service type was significant but it worked in a different direction than our previous expectations. Consumers reported higher trust and advocacy intentions when exposed to the narrative discourse in banking and restaurant scenarios. Nonetheless, in these two cases, the difference between using an expositive and a narrative discourse was notably higher in the hedonic condition than in the utilitarian condition. This finding suggests that making a wrong decision when choosing the discourse strategy (i.e, selecting an expositive message instead of a narrative one) would be more damaging to a company commercializing hedonic services than utilitarian services. In doing so, hedonic services face the risk of losing a greater amount of trust and advocacy intentions than a company commercializing utilitarian services taking the same decision.

Although these findings do not fully align with the principles of the ELM defended in previous literature, an interesting explanation for them may be found in the arguments provided by Stafford (1996) concerning the use of documentation strategies for corporate communication [77]. A documentation strategy refers to the provision of facts and figures within corporate messages that explain or demonstrate the benefits, value, quality, or advantages of the information provided [17]. As reported in her study, using a documentation strategy has positive effects on consumer responses in hedonic settings, whereas it has no significant effects in terms of informativeness, uniqueness, perceived quality, or likelihood to use the service in utilitarian service contexts [77]. In our experiment, the expositive and narrative scenarios used the same documentation strategy (i.e., the same facts, numbers, etc.), while the findings reported that the matching principle fitted the narrative–hedonic combination much better than the expositive–utilitarian combination. More precisely, while 8 sub hypotheses of the 11 initially proposed were supported by our findings for the restaurant context, only 3 out of 11 sub hypotheses were supported for the banking service. Therefore, the findings seem to corroborate the more positive

effect of documentation in the hedonic context. In this regard, Singh and Dalal (1999) defend that, regardless of their nature, all corporate messages 'inform' because they create awareness, impressions, knowledge, and beliefs about services, companies, and messages [24]. Thus, the difference in corporate communication depends largely on the emotional connection that it establishes between the company and consumers.

Under these premises, it is also easy to understand why the narrative discourse outperformed the expositive discourse in our study, even in the utilitarian conditions. It seems that, along with documentation features, adding visualization elements (e.g., narrative discourses based on storytelling) to corporate communication [17] generates a favorable general context for communication, which aligns with the principles of the NPT [11]. According to this theory, corporate stories activate narrative rationality, making the information contained in the message more salient, accessible, and intelligible for consumers to interpret and assess the message [7]. This theory suggests that well-designed and well-told stories not only convey information but they also convey emotion [32], which enhances the potential of the message to make its information more real to consumers, easier to remember and more convincing [12,81]. Not in vain, Mortimer (2008) showed how the majority of successful advertisements utilize emotional appeals for not only experiential but also utilitarian services [15]. Therefore, our findings align with those of Mortimer (2008), as she also detects that narrative discourses can be adequate for both utilitarian and hedonic services.

The superior performance of narrative over expositive discourses in our paper can also be justified by the communication context explored in the study. More precisely, we analyzed consumer responses to CSR communication that, in itself, is more affective and emotional than conventional commercial communications such as advertising. As opposed to commercial advertising, CSR communication does not directly seek to "sell" a product/service. CSR communication is institutional communication that mostly seeks to improve corporate image. Therefore, emotional elements in the message may be more important to the consumer than the functional, objective elements when evaluating CSR communication. This idea is supported by the insights provided by previous scholars such as Batra and Ahtola (1990) or Kempf (1999) [20,82]. More precisely, Batra and Ahtola (1990) showed that consumer attitudes are compounded of two distinct dimensions, hedonic and utilitarian attitudes, and that different service attributes contribute to each dimension differently [82]. For instance, experiential sensory attributes are closely associated with the hedonic component of attitude, whereas more functional attributes are associated with the utilitarian part of attitude [20]. Along this line, it can be argued that CSR is a hedonic attribute of the company, which especially affects the hedonic component of consumer responses and, as so, fits into the narrative–hedonic matching principle proposed in this paper much better than functional, rational attributes.

#### **6. Conclusions, Implications, Limitations, and Future Lines of Research**

The main goal of this paper has been to determine whether the use of expositive versus narrative discourses interacts with the type of service commercialized by a company to determine consumer perceptions and responses to CSR communication. For this purpose, we have developed a conceptual model based on the theoretical framework of CSR communication of Du et al. (2010) that we have tested empirically with a sample of consumers who have evaluated a fictitious CSR message coming from a banking and a catering company, respectively. In this regard, although research from diverse disciplines has defended an interaction effect between the discourse strategy and the service context, scholars have scarcely explored this idea in the CSR context, where a significant gap exists between the theory and practice of CSR communication. This scarcity of previous literature highlights the contribution of our paper.

The findings of the paper demonstrate that the matching principle suggested by the ELM does not apply as clearly to the context of CSR communication as it does to conventional commercial communication (e.g., advertising). As expected, it is confirmed that for hedonic services, narrative discourses outperform expositive discourses in terms of message attributions and consumer attitudinal (i.e., internal) and behavioral (i.e., external) responses to CSR communication. Nonetheless, and in accordance with the NPT, the use of narrative discourses can also be useful for utilitarian services as they also generate some better message attributions (i.e., CSR impact) and consumer responses (i.e., service brand attitude, trust, purchase, and advocacy intentions) than expositive discourses. Unfortunately, the findings also show that companies that commercialize utilitarian services, such as banking companies, do not profit from CSR communication as much as companies in the context of hedonic services. In our study, the bank reaped more modest responses to its CSR efforts than the restaurant. Along this line, the findings demonstrate that the choice between expositive and narrative discourses has a noticeably higher effect on consumer responses in hedonic than utilitarian contexts, indicating that the decision of the type of discourse strategy to follow is more strategic for hedonic than utilitarian services.

Based on these findings, we highlight some managerial implications that could help companies improve their CSR communication.

In this regard, the most significant implication of the study relates to the benefits that companies can gain by presenting CSR through attractive and compelling stories, especially in the context of hedonic services. CSR stories make social causes real to the audience, they reframe arguments in an easy-to-grasp and easy-to-remember format and they make messages memorable in multiple ways (visually, factually, and emotionally) [26]. In doing so, CSR storytelling generates an emotional connection between the audience and the company [26,27] and, consequently, it intensifies consumer positive attitudes and responses to CSR messages [64,83]. This way of presenting CSR information matches the characteristics of hedonic services especially well as hedonic services are characterized by affective gratification purposes [20] and they mostly provide consumers with emotions [31]. Therefore, we recommend that companies that commercialize hedonic services design CSR messages based on storytelling instead of using expositive discourses that lack emotional bases to engage consumers. Nonetheless, recent studies have identified that companies are missing opportunities to maximize the impact of narrative discourse strategies, especially in the online context [15,81]. More precisely, storytelling is a relatively unpopular form of communication in companies' websites, as very few companies and brands use it [81,84,85]. The scarcity of stories in corporate communication is especially evident in the context of CSR communication, where companies have only recently started to transmit messages through storytelling [86].

In the case of utilitarian services, companies should first decide the communication objectives they want to prioritize and, based on that, select the best discourse strategy to achieve those goals. If the objective is to improve the overall CSR image of the company (i.e., CSR attributions), or improve the visibility of the social cause (i.e., issue importance), companies such as banks should better use an expositive discourse. On the contrary, if they want to focus on consumer behavioral responses (i.e., purchase, advocacy), it is best to use a narrative discourse.

One additional implication, which can benefit both utilitarian and hedonic services, relates to the messages attributions that companies should try to improve in their future CSR communication. On the one hand, the findings of the present study demonstrate that CSR motives are the most poorly rated attributions in CSR communication. Consumers have demonstrated to be highly skeptical of corporate motives to relate to social causes; they have a natural tendency to perceive egoism behind company–cause connections [87]. Nonetheless, avoiding skepticism and improving motives attribution is key to success in CSR communication, as this variable relates closely to consumer behavior such as purchase, advocacy, and loyalty intentions [88]. Therefore, companies must focus their CSR messages on providing convincing reasoning for their motives to engage with social causes, which should be as altruistic as possible to reduce consumer skepticism and improve their support responses. On the other hand, companies should also focus on improving C-C identification, which rated notably low in all the conditions of our experiment. C-C identification has been proved to be an essential attitudinal response to CSR communication that derives in positive outcomes for companies, including trust, satisfaction and loyalty [50].

Finally, this study is not without limitations and future research should consider them to improve our knowledge of CSR communication. First, the use of fictitious companies and fictitious CSR messages can limit the generalization of our findings. Future studies should explore consumer responses to the CSR communication of real companies to determine whether our research findings also apply to CSR messages and consumers in real contexts. Second, future research should also focus on studying additional interaction effects between discourse strategy and other variables that may affect message attributions and consumer responses to CSR communication more intensively than the discourse–service match tested in this paper. For instance, an interesting interaction effect could emerge between discourse strategy and the CSR stimulus (i.e., social cause) chosen by the company as the focus of its CSR efforts [21]. Then, we suggest that future authors test our conceptual model for diverse social causes to corroborate (or not) our findings. In addition, previous research has suggested that the type of CSR support provided by companies (i.e., monetary vs. in-kind support) may affect consumer responses to CSR messages in CSR communication [89]. Consumers tend to react to in-kind support more favorably than to monetary support [89] and this fact may determine the effect of different discourse strategies. In testing these ideas, we suggest that scholars delve further into CSR literature to build their arguments. Given the differences between conventional commercial communication and CSR communication, we believe that scholars can develop hypotheses that are more accurate if they base their arguments on CSR theories instead of grounding them solely on communication and advertising literature.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.P. and E.B.-D.; methodology, A.P. and M.d.M.G.d.l.S.; software, A.P.; validation, A.P., M.d.M.G.d.l.S. and E.B.-D.; writing—original draft preparation, A.P., M.d.M.G.d.l.S. and E.B.-D.; writing—review and editing, A.P., M.d.M.G.d.l.S. and E.B.-D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Appendix A. Website Stimuli Evaluated by the Participants**

**Figure A1.** Expositive discourse strategy. Website A (utilitarian service), Website B (hedonic service).

*Sustainability* **2020**, *12*,

**Figure A2.** Narrative discourse strategy. Website C (utilitarian service), Website D (hedonic service).

#### **References**


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

### *Article* **CSR Communication through Social Media: A Litmus Test for Banking Consumers' Loyalty**

**Naveed Ahmad 1,\*, Rana Tahir Naveed 2, Miklas Scholz 3,4,5,\*, Muhammad Irfan 6, Muhammad Usman <sup>2</sup> and Ilyas Ahmad <sup>2</sup>**


**Abstract:** 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.

**Keywords:** social media; CSR; admiration; consumer loyalty; sustainability

#### **1. Introduction**

The development in communication technologies has forced organizations to use new communication strategies to deliver their important messages to different stakeholders including consumers [1]. Research has long established that traditional communication channels and strategies are losing their effectiveness with the rise of social media in today's digital age. Thus, businesses are pushed to be involved in the conversation with consumers through social media. Social media offer organizations the opportunities to deliver their CSR messages and stories with different stakeholders [2]. The main advantage of social media includes its wide availability to diverse stakeholders in a short period of time through using different social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others. The organizations may share their stories and videos to convince the

Scholz, M.; Irfan, M.; Usman, M.; Ahmad, I. CSR Communication through Social Media: A Litmus Test for Banking Consumers' Loyalty. *Sustainability* **2021**, *13*, 2319. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042319

**Citation:** Ahmad, N.; Naveed, R.T.;

Academic Editor: Andrea Pérez

Received: 2 February 2021 Accepted: 13 February 2021 Published: 20 February 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

stakeholders about their contributions to the wellbeing of the consumers and their families, as well as to the lives of the consumers, the shareholders, the environment and the society as a whole. Another advantage of social media over traditional communication strategies is its ability to provide interactive communication to the organizations. The organizations can offer their services to the stakeholders and receive immediate feedback and can discuss with the stakeholders to establish better relationships [3].

According to stakeholder theory, not only do the organization's shareholders emphasize the importance of social responsibility for the sustainable growth of the organizations, but other stakeholders, including consumers, suppliers, governments, environmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and local communities also acknowledge its importance [4]. Freeman et al. [5] described the stakeholders as "a group and persons benefiting or harmed, as well as persons whose rights have been violated or respected due to the organizational business activities". This means that different people have their own positions in collective actions, so organizations must be accountable for satisfying their needs and rights in a socially responsible manner. Organizations are not only accountable to their shareholders, but they are also answerable to their stakeholders with diverse interests in the organization.

Social media have emerged as a powerful and effective tool for sustainable business communication [6]. Most of the people around the world use social media for communication and information sharing purpose. Hence, people can use such media to create content or express their opinions about corporate characteristics or ethics [7]. Social media are a source to share information that can be disseminated in a short time to a larger community. It is also used by the organizations to deliver their messages, as well as to attract various stakeholders and to maintain competition in the digital age [8]. Statistics show that about 3.6 billion individuals were using social media in 2020 [9]. Given the importance of the social media in modern communications, organizations communicate important messages through social media. It is claimed that media services produced by unpaid communities such as consumers have the potential to change the mindset of general audience and create a good brand image for a specific brand [10].

The organization's use of social media is also important to communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Different studies have highlighted the importance of using social media for effective CSR communication because the communication from different social media platforms is considered to be more transparent and can better shape the behavior of consumers to support sustainability objectives of an organization [1,3]. By engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, organizations not only provide feedback but also create supportive environment for different stakeholders [7]. Hence, the aim of the present study is to investigate the impact of CSR communication through social media on consumers' outcomes such as consumer loyalty and consumer brand admiration in the banking sector of Pakistan. The present study contends that CSR communication through social media develops positive emotions among consumers, in the shape of consumers' brand admiration, which in turn affects their loyalty towards a particular brand.

This is evident from the recent literature that businesses are required to incorporate CSR in their business decisions in order to meet the expectations of different stakeholders and to build a better brand image [11]. However, this perspective is largely ignored by contemporary CSR researchers as most of the studies related to CSR largely focused on firm-centric outcomes to be achieved through CSR initiatives [12,13]. Consumers prefer organizations that perform CSR functions, and modern organizations realize the importance of CSR communication to shaping consumer behavior positively. The ecology-related information to society and consumers via environmental advertising raises the awareness level of consumers and other stakeholders, and they urge organizations to practice sustainability in a real sense [14]. Moreover, sustainability has emerged as one of the most important concerns for modern businesses [15]. Likewise, Abbas et al. [16] noted the positive effect of CSR on consumer behavior. Therefore, a general link between CSR activities

and consumer behavior is logical to consider, and different studies have also identified a positive link between CSR and consumer purchasing intentions [17,18]. Organizations with appropriate CSR policies have good consumer preferences. In relation to consumers, Brown and Dacin [19] identified two types of CSR activities which include association and participation. Association refers to consumers' understanding of corporate ethics in social matters, and participation speaks about the level at which they participate in the implementation of CSR plans with organizations. For example, Hur et al. [20] noted the importance of a socially responsible profile of an organization in defining consumer commitments and to achieve organizational objectives. This means that the higher the level of CSR engagement of an organization, the greater the willingness of consumers to contribute to the achievement of the sustainability goals of an organization. CSR collaboration and consumer services are critical for achieving community-based outcomes [21]. The development and maintenance of sustainable relationships between business and consumers through effective communication, identification, discussion and exchange processes, or a combination of these factors, are critical for achieving sustainable organizational objectives. Similarly, Zasuwa [22] analyzed the impact of CSR participation on consumer behavior and concluded that CSR activities increase the level of consumer involvement with the organization. Businesses that work to improve the well-being of consumers and their families have better relationships with their consumers, which in turn show a higher level of commitment with the organization. Shareholders and prospective investors also recognize the importance of the CSR [23]. The prior literature also acknowledged the association between CSR communication and favorable consumer behavior [24,25]. The main purpose of entrepreneurs' coverage of their CSR services on social media is to attract the attention of different stakeholders [26]. For example, if CSR initiatives are properly delivered to consumers, it is expected that such initiatives will positively impact consumer behavior [27]. The literature provides ample evidence to the positive impact of CSR initiatives on consumer behavior in different countries and in different business areas [28,29].

Prior studies on the topic of CSR have largely investigated the impact of CSR activities on financial outcomes of an organization [30,31] but the potential impact of CSR on consumer-centric outcomes, such as on loyalty and on positive emotions, has been largely missed by contemporary CSR researchers. These consumers-related outcomes of CSR are very important for any organization to base their competitive advantage on solid foundations [32]. Likewise, there have been some studies on the topic of CSR and consumer behavior [33,34], but how CSR is related to emotional outcomes (such brand admiration) and attitudinal outcomes (loyalty) is underexplored in recent literature.

The contributions of the present study are critical for existing CSR and consumer behavior literature for the following reasons. First, the prior literature has largely focused on cognitive aspect of consumer behavior [35–37], whereas the emotional side of consumer behavior has been rarely explored in existing literature. We, in this regard, argue that although cognitive side of consumer behavior is important, the emotional side of individuals is far more effective in shaping positive consumer behavior in comparison to the cognitive one. Hence, we build an argument in this study that well-planned CSR communications of an organization may generate a sense of brand admiration among consumers (emotional aspect of behavior) and they feel admiration for that organization that practices CSR proactively. This argument receives support from existing literature [38,39]. Ultimately these emotions (admiration) build a higher level of loyalty among consumers, which is very important for any organization.

Secondly, the banking sector of Pakistan is purposefully chosen for the present study because this sector is facing a high level of competition and retaining the existing consumers is of utmost importance to each bank in this sector [40,41]. However, the problem with the banking sector of Pakistan, as with other developing regions of the world, is that the character of the banking sector is homogenized in nature, where mostly banks offer, more or less, the same kinds of products/services to the consumers, which creates the challenge of how to hold the current share of consumers and how to uphold their loyalty level so that

there is less likelihood of consumers' switching to other brands. In this connection, CSR may be a good strategy in the context of marketing objectives because CSR initiatives of a bank create positive emotions (admiration) in consumers to stay connected with a bank, which in turn takes them towards a higher level of loyalty.

Thirdly, different researchers in recent studies have argued that the phenomenon of CSR and consumer loyalty are complex to understand, and their relationship is better explained in the presence of moderator(s) and mediator(s) [42,43]. Hence, we have logically introduced the consumers' brand admiration as a mediating variable between the relationship of CSR communication through social media and consumer loyalty. Lastly, the majority of prior research studies have been conducted in developed countries [44,45]; we argue here that as the concept of CSR is contextual in nature and produces different results in different contexts, it will not be logical to generalize the results from developed countries in the context of developing countries. The remainder of this article is arranged as follows: the second part of the present study discusses the literature review, the third section is concerned with methodology, the fourth section is about results and the analysis phase, and finally the last section includes the discussion and implications of the present study.

#### **2. Theoretical Framework**

Over the years, CSR has emerged as one of the most popular strategies in the business world. CSR is defined as "an honest business practice that helps sustain economic development by working with employees, their families, local organizations and the general public to improve their living conditions" [46]. This research study defines CSR in line with the definition of founding father Carroll [47] in the field of CSR, who defines it as "CSR is the economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic obligation of a business towards society". In his definition, the first set (economic, legal) is required by society, and the second set (ethical, philanthropic) is expected by society.

CSR aims to reduce the environmental impact of organizations along with the wellbeing of employees, their families, consumers and society [48]. The main business principle in CSR is to effectively seek business opportunities, strengthen relationships with the community and solve common societal problems. In the recent era, businesses are facing social, political and economic changes that encourage the growth of a new culture in the organizations. Globalization along with technological development also contributes to the emergence of a new social model with new actors and behaviors. New questions and expectations about the management, communications and social responsibility have been emerging in the present era [49]. As a result, many companies in all industries understand the importance of their role in the society for developing a successful CSR model because they know the benefits of doing business in line with CSR philosophy. For example, companies can make significant profits from one of the CSR beneficiary groups, such as consumers [17].

In recent times, the concept of sustainability has emerged as a "new normal" for modern businesses [50] in which sustainable practices are not only concerned with the philanthropic orientation of an organization, but these practices are also important from a marketing point of view. For example, modern consumers are well aware of the importance of sustainability for a better and sustainable future, and they consider it while making purchase decisions [51]. Marketers need to realize the importance of sustainability for attaining consumer preferences towards their brand, and hence they need to incorporate this element of sustainability into their marketing communication objectives [52]. This argument of incorporating sustainability into marketing communication is also supported by Nyilasy et al. [53] who mentioned that green advertising enhances consumer purchase intentions.

The present study uses the lens of attribution theory as a grounding theory. The theory was originally proposed by Fritz [54] and further advanced by Kelley [55]; the theory investigates how people explain the causes of behaviors and events. Attribution theory has been heavily exercised in consumer behavior studies [56–58]. In the context

of the present study, we argue that attribution process influence consumers' evaluation of a brand based on their CSR perceptions for that brand. Hence, the higher the level of consumers' evaluation of a brand to be labeled as a socially responsible brand, the greater the likelihood that consumer will prefer that brand over competitors [59]. By portraying the image of a socially responsible organization, businesses can increase loyal consumers by turning consumers into business ambassadors and advocating consultants due to their sense of admiration in response to well-planned CSR initiatives and communicating with stakeholders of an organization. For instance, this can lead to positive word-of-mouth communications for their admired organization, willingness to pay premium prices and less consideration of the rival brands [60]. It should be noted that CSR communication tools are very important in providing CSR messages and building the image of a socially responsible organization. In addition to company experience, in high-end products and models, socially responsible organizations receive empowerment from different stakeholders including consumers and reflect compliance with issues that are distinctive from the usual cultural norms. The main challenge in developing a CSR approach is to involve consumers and other stakeholders for reducing their uncertainty in achieving sustainable organizational goals [61].

Recent CSR research has shown that engaging stakeholders in CSR programs allows companies to build a strong image [62], strengthen consumer relationships [16] and improve the reputation of businesses [63]. Hence, CSR activities inculcate the feelings of admiration among consumers as they are admired being the customers of an organization that is socially responsible and actively contributes to uplift society and the environment [38]. Ultimately, this sense of admiration takes them towards a higher level of loyalty [64]. Providing accurate CSR information to stakeholders not only increases their participation in the organization, but also promotes the company's representation on different social media platforms [65]. Advances in technology have changed the way businesses use CSR planning and its implementation.

Social media platforms expand communication and collaboration between groups of individuals. It also promotes the quick dissemination of information, and it is a tool that allows people to express their ideas and communicate with others; people can come up with new ideas and use them to improve organizational approach in building a sustainable environment [66]. There have also been different studies highlighting the importance of CSR communication to the stakeholders using conventional media [67–69], acknowledging that CSR communication with stakeholders has positive outcomes for an organization. However, the rise of social media is the dawn of a new horizon in the field of marketing communication [70,71]. In particular, social media can be categorized into two categories, such as expressive and collaborative. Expressive social media include sites such as blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Flickr, and collaborative social media include sites such as Wikipedia and Craigslist. Social media have changed the future of businesses due to its low cost, wider range and interactive environment which attracts companies to use it for advertising, consumer marketing or consumer company communication. Instead, the consumer role is changing with the rise of social media technologies [72]. Dwivedi et al. [73] contended that consumers' brand attachment on social media positively impacts consumerbased brand equity.

Consumers are no longer recognized as an isolated entity, as they are well-concerned and connected with the organizations from which they purchase their products or services. They not only have the knowledge needed to make a decision, but also provide important feedback to organizations for improving the overall performance of their products in line with the philosophy of sustainability [74]. Social media are a powerful communication tool for disseminating information on CSR-related activities, seeking strong links between socially responsible organization and consumers and attracting partners through in-depth reviews on products' performance [75]. In brief, social media are a powerful modern tool for informing consumers about CSR initiatives of an organization.

The present study introduces the construct of consumer sense of brand admiration as a potential mediator between CSR communication on social media and consumer loyalty and defines this as "consumer brand admiration is the process that involves consumers with a brand personally through evoking positive emotions, trust, love and respect". This definition is also supported by eminent contemporary researchers such as Park et al. [76] and Trivedi and Sama [77]. The reason to think about consumer brand admiration as a potential mediator lies in the logic that when consumers are informed about the social responsibility of an organization they develop positive emotions on their part for that organization and start associating them with the brand positively, all this in turn takes consumers towards a higher level of loyalty. Further, the present study defines consumer loyalty in line with the definition of Oliver [78] who contends that consumer loyalty is a tendency of consumers to prefer a brand in the long run over its competitors.

Prior literature has also recognized that well-planned CSR plans in the context of the banking sector are associated with positive emotions of consumers [42,79]. It is also established in the recent literature that positive emotions, such as feelings of admiration, are positively related to consumer loyalty [80,81]. To summarize, we conclude that the rise of social media has changed the traditional business model that was a sort of one way communication model, as the emergence of social media has been highly acknowledged by the organizations and consumers due to its flexibility, broader range, quick dissemination of information and, above all, its interactive communicative options. The consumers, in this regard, behave like ambassadors of an organization through their positive word-ofmouth communications toward an admired organization; all such activities inculcate a higher level of loyalty in the consumers. Hence based upon above discussion, we argue that CSR activities directly and indirectly (through brand admiration) are associated with consumer loyalty. Therefore, the following set of hypotheses is framed. Further, the proposed relations of the studied variables are framed in Figure 1 for the readers.

**Figure 1.** Proposed research model showing path directions for mediation. Where corporate social responsibility (CSR) (X) = the independent variable, consumer loyalty (Y) = the dependent variable, admiration (M) = the mediating variable, a\*b = the indirect effect of the mediator on Y, and C- = indirect direct effect of X on Y with the effect of the mediator, C = direct effect of X on Y without mediator.

**Hypothesis 1 (H1).** *CSR communications of a bank through social media are positively related to consumer loyalty*.

**Hypothesis 2 (H2).** *CSR communications of a bank through social media are positively related to consumers' brand admiration.*

**Hypothesis 3 (H3).** *Consumers' brand admiration mediates the relationship between CSR communication through social media and consumer loyalty*.

#### **3. The Data Collection and Measures**

The proposed model of the present study is intended to be tested on banking consumers. The banking sector for the present study was selected due to two specific reasons. First, due to the homogenized character of the banking industry, it is very difficult to differentiate the services of a bank from its competitors in order to gain consumers' attention. Second, the banking sector of Pakistan is facing a stiff competitive environment where the ordinary strategies for consumer retention might not be helpful, and hence some extraordinary thinking is necessary to address the situation on the part of policymakers and marketers from the banking institutions.

The rise of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic posed some serious challenges on the data collection phase of the present study due to smart lockdown in different regions of the country. Likewise, it was also not feasible for us to maintain physical contact with the consumers of different banks in order to invite them to participate in the survey. In this regard, an online survey was the only option that could work for the present study in the context of data collection. Before disseminating the questionnaire online, we carefully assessed the banking institutions of Pakistan which were actively involved in CSR initiatives. We came out with a list of four banks named Habib Bank Limited (HBL), United Bank Limited (UBL), MCB Bank Limited and Allied Bank Limited (ABL). The selection of these banks was made as these banks are the four largest banks in the country with widespread branches all over the country; furthermore, all these banks have their CSR presence on social media (Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, etc.). To start with the data collection phase, we prepared an online self-administered survey and sent it to different individuals through emails and WhatsApp. The online survey includes two screening questions regarding the CSR knowledge of the respondents and whether they have a bank account in any of these four banks. We initially floated 1000 surveys to different individuals for the purpose of data collection. As was expected, the online strategy of data collection resulted in a poor response rate as we received only 116 questionnaires from respondents; among those 116 surveys we had to discard 11 questionnaires because they were partially filled and could not be included into final dataset because these contained missing information on the part of respondent, and researchers were unable to address these kind of questionnaires. Thus, we deleted these questionnaires and recorded 105 questionnaires in our first phase of data collection. This strategy is in line with the guidelines of Ahmed et al. [82]. We started the second phase of the online survey using the same procedure as in the previous phase. This time, we received 118 filled questionnaires. Our repeated efforts and poor response rate pushed us to start another phase of data collection; this time, we invited our colleagues and peers to support us in data collection process by using their personal contacts. We sent the online questionnaire to our colleagues with this request to share it with their fellows through email and WhatsApp and asked them to fill in the questionnaire. This strategy eventually worked for us, and we were able to collect a feedback of 448 respondents (105 in the first phase, 118 in the second and 225 in the last phase). We used already established scales for measuring our study variables: for example, we adapted the items for CSR from the studies of van Asperen et al. [83] and Eisingerich et al. [84]. The scale consisted of five items; likewise, the items of brand admiration were adapted from Sweetman et al. [85]. This scale consisted of a total of five items. Lastly, the three-item scale of consumer loyalty was adapted from Dagger et al. [86]. We used a five-point Likert scale for recording the responses from respondents.

#### **4. Results**

#### *4.1. Common Method Bias, Sample Profile, Validity and Reliability*

As the data for all variables of the present study were collected from the same individuals, there is a likelihood for the presence of common method bias (CMB) in our data. In order to handle CMB, we followed the guidelines of [81], and we performed a single factor confirmatory factor analysis in AMOS. The results revealed a poor model fit which means that there was no single dominating factor in our data. This is a positive symbol because it pushes away the fear of common method bias from our data. Hence, we took the data analysis phase at further levels. We in this regard, first of all presented the descriptive statistics of our sample (Table 1).

**Table 1.** Demographic profile.


Next, we performed a factor analysis in order to observe whether all items of a variable have acceptable factor loadings greater than 0.5 (See Table 2). The empirical results revealed that all the items having factor loadings greater than the cut-off value of 0.5; hence, we established that all items are well-loaded onto their respective variable. Similarly, the results of standard deviation (SD) for all variables are also described in Table 2. All values for SD analysis are fewer than 1 and closer to 0; that means there is less variability in our data which is good as less variability means that our data are close to mean values.


**Table 2.** Correlations, validities and reliabilities.

**Loadings \*:** Factor loading range (max: min); α: Cronbach's α coefficient; CR: composite reliability; AVE: average variance extracted; \*\*: significant values of correlations; MSV: maximum shared variance; ASV: average shared variance. The bold diagonal values represent square root of AVE for a variable.

> Next, we report the results of correlation analysis amongst the study variables. According to the results, all three variables are positively related to each other: for example, the value of correlation amongst CSR and brand admiration is 0.213 \*\*, which is significant and positive, meaning that these two variables are correlated positively. The bold diagonal values in the table (Table 2) present the results of discriminant validity values; in doing so, we calculated the square root values of average variance extracted (AVE) for each variable and then compared it with the values of correlations of other variables. The rule of thumb is that if square root of AVE is greater than the correlation values, then it is established that

the items of one variable discriminate with other variable items, and hence discriminant validity of the data is maintained. Table 2 also disuses the results of convergent validity for achieving convergent validity. We calculated AVE of each variable: the AVEs for each variable are larger than 0.5, which means convergent validity is well-maintained for our instrument. The reliability values (alpha and composite reliabilities) are also reported in Table 2, which are more than 0.70 and prove that the reliability of our instrument is also fine. Lastly, we also reported the results of normality. We, in this regard, are in line with the recommendation of Brown [87], who recommended that the data normality is established when the values of standard deviation (SD) are in the range of ±1.5, skewness ±3 and kurtosis ±10. These results establish our confidence to state that there is no issue of data normality in our data. All these measures encourage the researchers to take the data analysis further for hypotheses testing.

In next step of data analysis, we tested model fit indices. Initially we tested model fit index values for each construct individually, which produced good results (CSR: *χ*<sup>2</sup> /*df* = 2.81 RMSEA = 0.054 NFI = 0.943, CFI = 0.949, GFI = 0.946; Admiration: *χ*2/*df* = 3.11 RMSEA = 0.063 NFI = 0.928, CFI= 0.930 GFI = 0.928; Loyalty: *χ*2/*df* = 2.91 = RMSEA = 0.058 NFI = 0.919, CFI = 0.927 GFI = 0.922) for each variable. Finally, we checked model fit results for our threefactor model that is our hypothesized model too. The model fit results for our three-factor model produced more appropriate results (see Table 3).


#### *4.2. Hypothesis Testing*

We used the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for hypothesis testing. In this regard, we used AMOS software and we conducted our analysis in two steps. In the first step, we checked the results of direct effects, and in second step we checked the results of mediation analysis. We have reported these results in Table 4. According to these results, the direct effect model suggests that our hypotheses 1 and 2 are true (H1; *β* = 0.277 \*\*, LLCI = 0.193, ULCI = 0.374, *p* < 0.05 H2; *β* = 0.198 \*\*, LLCI = 0.490, ULCI = 0.832, *p* < 0.05). Further, for testing the mediation results, we used the bootstrapping option in AMOS software by choosing a larger bootstrap sample of 2000. The results of the mediation analysis showed that the variable "brand admiration" is playing the role of a mediator between CSR and consumer loyalty (H3; *β* = 0.093 \*\*, LLCI = 0.117, ULCI = 0.367, *p* < 0.05). It is to be noted that the beta value is reduced from 0.198 \*\* (direct effect) to 0.093 \*\* (indirect effect) which means that there is partial mediation effect of brand admiration between CSR and consumer loyalty.


**Table 4.** Hypothesis testing.

**CSR** = corporate social responsibility, **S.E** = standard error, **LLCI** = lower limit confidence interval, **ULCI** = upper limit confidence interval.

#### **5. Discussion and Implications**

The present study aims at investigating the impact of CSR communication through social media on consumer loyalty in the context of banking sector of Pakistan with the mediating effect of brand admiration. The results of the present study revealed that CSR initiatives directly and indirectly, via admiration, influence the banking consumers' loyalty. The results further affirmed that the involvement of a bank in CSR communication using social media produces better outcomes for building sustainable image of a bank. These results are also in line with the studies of Aramburu and Pescador [88] and Bediako [89]. When an organization uses social media to communicate its CSR activities with different stakeholders including the consumers, it creates positivity among consumers for that organization which ultimately increases their loyalty. The recent study of Bilgin [10] also acknowledged the importance of social media to enhance brand loyalty.

The rise of social media and information technology has brought a paradigm shift in business communication models. Traditionally, the business communication model was based on one-way communication, but with the rise of the digital age, this one-way communicative model is being replaced with an interactive communication model in which different stakeholders, including consumers, have their voice and say in the business decisions of an organization. Modern consumers are more informative and empowered due to the access of information and availability of different knowledge platforms. Our research affirmed that when consumers see that their bank is communicating its CSR activities on social media with them, it inculcates a sense of admiration among them for the bank, and this sense of admiration actually builds a higher level of loyalty in consumers. Hence the results confirmed that CSR initiatives are positively related with admiration; this finding is also supported by contemporary researchers in their studies [64,90]. Likewise, the mediating role of admiration between the relationship of CSR communication through social media and consumer loyalty is also an important factor in this relationship.

The present study has some important implications for theory and practice. For example, the present study adds to extant CSR literature in the context of consumers, whereas the majority of the previous studies have addressed CSR relation in the organizational context. Likewise, another important theoretical implication of the present study is that it introduces the novel construct of consumers' brand admiration as mediator between the relationship of CSR communication on social media and consumer loyalty. Likewise, the study adds to contemporary literature of CSR from a developing country context where this phenomenon is still underexplored. Further, the present study enriches the extant literature from the perspective of marketing by highlighting that CSR initiatives of an

organization can be helpful in attaining marketing-related objectives of an organization, including consumer loyalty.

Likewise, the study has some important practical implications: for example, it highlights to the policymakers of banking institutions that looking at CSR from the perspective of marketing may generate better marketing-related outcomes in an industry which is labeled as homogenized and where differentiation of products and services is very difficult. Well-planned CSR activities of a bank may be a key resource that can build a competitive advantage for a specific bank. Currently, the majority of banking institutions of Pakistan are practicing CSR activities with a philanthropic mindset, and they intentionally or unintentionally have ignored the marketing aspect of CSR plans to enhance consumer loyalty. This is the time for the banking institutions of Pakistan to change their approach towards CSR initiatives and think of CSR in terms of consumer-related outcomes. Our study, in this regard, is a pioneering one which highlights the importance of CSR communication through social media for establishing consumer loyalty. Furthermore, the usage of social media for communicating CSR initiatives produces positive emotions on the part of consumer as they feel admiration for an organization that truly practices CSR activities and informs their stakeholders about such initiatives. Ultimately, the consumers become a strong advocate for such organizations and develop positive word-of-mouth communications on social media for the brand. It is noteworthy that when an organization is being promoted by the consumers, it produces better results as compared to advertising outcomes, because the feedback given by consumers to other potential consumers is considered to be honest and transparent. Our results further affirmed that CSR communication on social media is very important for consumer loyalty.

Traditional CSR communication can also affect consumers behavior as mentioned in prior studies [67,91], but the point to note here is that social media are an interactive medium which provides the organizations with a platform to interactively communicate with different stakeholders. In this connection, CSR communication through social media works on the emotional aspects of consumer behavior, which is very strong as compared to the cognitive aspects, because once the consumers develop positive emotions (admiration), they are less price-sensitive and are even willing to pay a premium price to the bank for which they feel admiration. Likewise, such consumers are less likely to switch to the competing brands. The banking institutions are required to work on these new insights from this study in order to place the CSR initiatives as core to their business strategies, with the mindset that CSR is double edged sword as on one hand it addresses the social obligations of a bank towards society, and on the other hand it can create consumer-related outcomes by building higher levels of consumer loyalty and positive emotions.

#### *Limitations and Future Research Directions*

The present study also faces some limitations which may be considered a way forward for future researchers. The first limitation of our study lies in the fact that our target population was only the banking sector, which creates the question of generalizing the results of the present study into other service sectors. In order to address this issue, the future researchers are suggested to test our model in another service sector, such as the insurance and healthcare sectors for better generalizability. Secondly, the data for the present study were cross-sectional, which limits us in establishing any causation effect with confidence. One remedy to answer this issue in future research is to use longitudinal data which are able to provide historical information about the issue at hand, and hence are considered better for establishing causality. Thirdly, the present study only took the perception of consumers for CSR initiatives, whereas it has neglected the inputs from other stakeholder such as employees, who are equally important for an organization. Thus, for future researchers it is suggested examination of the effect of CSR initiatives on employees and assessment of whether properly planned CSR initiatives create positive emotions among employees. Fourthly, the study only considered the impact of CSR communication on consumer loyalty, whereas other important variables such as service quality, trust and brand image were not considered to predict banking consumer loyalty. Thus, the future researchers are encouraged to address this issue by considering these variables in our model as a mediator or moderator. Lastly, the influence of age, gender and income are not considered in this research. For future research, testing the possible impact of age, gender and income levels as moderators can be a meaningful extension of this research. Likewise, the present study has investigated the impact of CSR communication through social media on consumer loyalty; future researchers are encouraged to investigate further brand-related variables such as brand equity, which is one of the most cited variables in the field of marketing. It will be interesting for future researchers to investigate which brand equity, consumer based or finance based is the most affected though CSR activities.

**Author Contributions:** All of the authors contributed to conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, methodology and writing and editing the original draft. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from the respondents of the survey.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data will be made available on request from the corresponding author.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors acknowledge Andrijana Markovic for her support and efforts during the publication process of this manuscript.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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