The Robustness of Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Loyalty Relation: A Meta-Analytic Examination

Abstract

It is largely believed that genuine corporate efforts to embrace social responsibilities stimulate customers to respond positively to such corporations. However, empirical research about the robustness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and brand loyalty (BL) yields inconsistent findings. Therefore, we aggregated the results of 43 citations consisting of 28495 observations by means of meta-analysis to examine the robustness of the CSR-BL relationship. The findings of our research revealed that the overall effect size of the CSR and brand loyalty relationship is positive and yields a medium effect size. Furthermore, such a relationship was moderated by several contextual factors. We conclude with a theoretical contribution, managerial implications, limitations, and suggestions for future studies

Keywords:

• Corporate social responsibility
• loyalty
• culture
• methodology
• industry
• meta-analysis
• meta-regression

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Editor and Reviewers for their most helpful comments and their useful input.

Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.