Promoting the advocacy behavior of customers through corporate social responsibility: The role of brand admiration

• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Author: Naveed Ahmad,Zia Ullah,Esra AlDhaen,Irfan Siddique
• Date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12320

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Promoting the advocacy behavior of customers

through corporate social responsibility: The

role of brand admiration

Naveed Ahmad

1,2

| Zia Ullah

3

| Esra AlDhaen

4

|

Irfan Siddique

2

1

Faculty of Management, Department of

Management Sciences, Virtual University

of Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan

2

Faculty of Management Studies,

University of Central Punjab, Lahore,

Pakistan

3

Leads Business School, Lahore Leads

University, Lahore, Pakistan

4

Department of Marketing, College of

Business and Finance, Ahlia University,

Manama, Bahrain

Correspondence

Naveed Ahmad, Faculty of Management,

Department of Management Sciences,

Virtual University of Pakistan, Lahore,

Pakistan.

Email: naveeddgk2010@gmail.com

Abstract

Given that personal source of information is preferred

by the customers over company-generated marketing

communications, promoting advocacy behavior among

customers is of much importance for every organiza-

tion. Literature suggests that an organization's corpo-

rate social responsibility (CSR) activities significantly

influence individual behavior. However, the advocacy

behavior of customers (ADB), from a CSR perspective,

did not receive due attention. To address this literature

gap, the current study attempts to explore the relation-

ship among CSR and ADB with the intervening role of

brand admiration (BA). To collect the data, customers

of a large fast-food service organization in Pakistan

were approached. The proposed relationships were

tested through the structural equation modeling (SEM)

technique. The statistical evidence verifies a positive

link between CSR and ADB, while BA mediated this

relationship. These findings will be supportive to the

fast-food business to realize the critical role of CSR for

a meaningful customer-company relationship in the

face of competition.

KEYWORDS

customer advocacy behavior, brand admiration, corporate

social responsibility, customer behavior, food preferences

Received: 9 March 2021 Accepted: 16 November 2022

DOI: 10.1111/basr.12320

© 2023 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University.

Bus Soc Rev. 2023;128:367–386. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/basr 367

1|INTRODUCTION

The competitive landscape in every business sector is changing due to globalization, a boom in

information technology, changing customer preferences, and several other factors. Realizing

the importance of customers for the success of a business has become an important business

imperative (De Jong et al., 2018;V

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anescu et al., 2021). Scholars have been investigating

the factors that affect the positive behavior of customers, for instance, loyalty (Ahmad,

Mahmood, Ariza-Montes, et al., 2021) and purchase likelihood (Gupta et al., 2021). Literature

suggests that customers' behavior is affected by organizational factors (Wang & Chen, 2019;

Wiederhold & Martinez, 2018) and personal factors (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014; Nguyen

et al., 2019).

At an organization's level, literature mentions the critical role of a business's corporate

social responsibility (CSR) efforts to influence different customer outcomes (Ahmad et al., 2022;

Xu et al., 2022). Nevertheless, a careful exploration of past literature indicates that past

researchers have explored the role of CSR either to foster customers' loyalty (Ahmad, Scholz,

Ullah, et al., 2021; Glaveli, 2020) or purchase intentions (Bianchi et al., 2022; Ferraris

et al., 2019). Although approaching CSR with such a perspective is worthwhile, there is another

behavior of customers, which is more important than loyalty and purchase preferences, that is,

the advocacy behavior of customers (ADB). Cross and Smith (1995) define ADB as a behavior of

customers in which they not only promote a brand in their social circles but also defend it

against detractors. A critical reason why ADB is receiving increasing attention from contempo-

rary scholars lies in changing customer evaluation criteria. Current evidence suggests that cus-

tomers prefer personal recommendations over mass media communication when they make a

purchase decision (Sweeney et al., 2020). Especially in a service context, ADB is of utmost

importance because the specific and complex service characteristics make personal recommen-

dations very effective (Sweeney et al., 2020). Though the literature recognizes CSR as an enabler

in influencing customer behavior, nonetheless, the discussion on CSR and ADB remained an

understudied area. To fill this literature gap, this study tends to examine the potential relation-

ship between CSR and ADB. Similarly, at a personal level, the role of emotions in influencing

individual behavior was emphasized at different levels in the available literature. To this end, it

was realized that brand admiration (BA), which is an emotional factor, could significantly influ-

ence customer behavior (Trivedi & Sama, 2020). BA is the feeling of love, trust, and respect that

customers attach to a brand so much that they tend to develop a personal connection with an

admired brand (Park et al., 2016). The mediating role of BA to shape the customer behavior

was recently realized (Trivedi & Sama, 2020). Yet, the mediating impact of BA between CSR

and ADB remained less explored. Responding to this literature gap, the current study attempts

to investigate the mediating impact of BA between CSR and ADB.

Using the theoretical lenses of attribution theory (Fritz, 1958), social exchange theory

(Blau, 1964), and norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), this study tends to explain the hypothe-

sized relationship in fast-food sector of Pakistan. The attribution theory helps understand how

individuals explain the reasons for behaviors and events. This theory has been extensively uti-

lized in different studies related to customer behavior (Chakraborty & Bhat, 2018;

Jackson, 2019; Sharma, 2021). We argue that the attribution process helps customers specify a

brand as socially responsible, which then influences their brand evaluation process. Hence,

when customers specify a brand as socially responsible, they prefer it over competitors (Ginder

et al., 2019). Likewise, the theory of social exchange and the theory of norm reciprocity suggests

that when people obtain some benefit (in the form of CSR, for example) from an exchange

368 AHMAD ET AL.