The Moderating Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on the Factors Influencing Customer-Based Brand Equity in Chinese Retail Banking Sector

Abstract

Brand influencing factors including customer experience, brand innovativeness, word of mouth, and advertising, are studied in the previous research. However, there is a dearth of exploratory endeavors in the study of the relationships between customer experience, brand innovativeness, word of mouth, advertising, corporate social responsibility, and customer-based brand equity in the context of retail banking sector in developing nations. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the roles of customer experience, brand innovativeness, word of mouth, and advertising in customer-based brand equity, and evaluate the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility on the relationships in the Chinese retail banking context. The objectives of the study are to explore the factors affecting customer-based brand equity and assess the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility on the relationships between brand influencing factors and customer-based brand equity. A quantitative survey research method was adopted to achieve the research objectives. A total of 389 samples were employed in the data analysis of the present study. The empirical results show that corporate social responsibility displays significant moderating effect on the influences of brand innovativeness, word of mouth, and advertising on customer-based brand equity. Nevertheless, empirical results showed that the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility on the relationship between customer experience and customer-based brand equity is insignificant. With the R² value of 79 percent that exhibits satisfactory explanatory power obtained in the model, this study has valuable theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the present study develops a theoretical model that incorporates corporate social responsibility as a moderator on the effects of factors influencing customer-based brand equity. Practically, the study acknowledges the important roles of corporate social responsibility in building customer-based brand equity and corporate sustainability.