Do trust and corporate social responsibility activities affect purchase intentions? An examination using structural equation modeling

Abstract

Organizations place great value on corporate social responsibility (CSR), as it has been found to influence customer attitudes and intentions. This study analyzed the impact of CSR on consumers’ purchase intentions. The significance of this study arises from the fact that all progressive companies are increasing their expenditure on CSR activities. In this study, purchase intention was considered as a dependent variable, while trust, ethical, and legal CSR activities were the independent variables. Data for the study was collected from 210 randomly chosen respondents from amongst consumers of Delhi and National Capital Region of India. The data, analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling, found that trust, ethics, and legal CSR activities directly impacted consumer purchase intentions. These results indicate that legal factors do not significantly influence the corporate decision on spending on CSR activities. On the other hand, ethical factors and trust factors significantly influence the corporate decision on expenditure on CSR activities. The findings highlight companies’ requirements to be conscious of their social image. Probable limitations of the study could include sample size and the number of variables chosen.