The effect of CSR initiatives on customer loyalty in the airline industry
ROMAN ASATRYAN Department of Economics Tomas Bata University in Zlin Mostní 5139, 76001, Zlín CZECH REPUBLIC romankempo2002@yahoo.com
Abstract: - Customer loyalty is one of the most essential consumers behaviours that firms endeavor to influence through the use of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a marketing tool. Over the years, researchers have studied the impact of CSR in direct relationship to customer loyalty. In the airline industry, firms are increasingly formulating and implementing CSR policy initiatives. When managers of airlines invests resources in social responsibility activities and see the investment as an aspect of the promotion and marketing of the firm, they want to know the possible impact of such measures, particularly those that relate to the knowledge and opinions of customers of CSR, and how these impacts on the relationship between customers and airlines. The main objective of this study is to examine customer knowledge and opinions of CSR, and examine the relationship between it and customer loyalty in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) airline market. The study found that, customers of airlines tend to be concerned with airline CSR initiatives although they perceive them to be less than satisfactory. Findings from a hierarchical regression analyses indicates that, when there is a control for relationship quality, airline CSR has a marginally significant and positive association with behavioral and attitudinal loyalty. This tends to show that, the respondents regard it as important for airlines to assume their social obligations to society. However, there is a concession; there is considerable room for improvement, in terms of the CSR performance of airlines. The study also found that CSR initiatives can enhance customer loyalty with airline CSR having a marginally significant influence on behavioral
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