Mapping Georgian Bank Customer’s Preferences for Corporate Social Responsibility

Investing in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and supporting societal and environmental matters helps banks to enhance their brand image, develop stronger relationships with their customers, improve their competitiveness and generate positive attitudes. The banking sector suffers from reduced customer loyalty due to the homogeneity among bank services and banks need to make substantial efforts to create competitive advantage generating brand preference and purchasing intentions among customers. The banking industry is the largest contributor of CSR activities in Georgia (the country) and various Georgian banks invest in CSR, in the form of societal and environmental initiatives. Considering the intensive efforts of Georgian banks to demonstrate a socially responsible face, it is interesting to know whether this type of engagement is at all appealing to Georgian bank customers. With this paper we aim to explore whether bank customers in Georgia have a preference for CSR and to understand whether CSR activities of banks in the country influence customer behavior and purchasing intentions. For this purpose, we use a quantitative survey questionnaire to capture bank customer purchasing intentions, customer brand preference, customer attitude formation and information search willingness influenced by banks’ CSR activities in Georgia. We use the quantitative data collected through the survey to create a profile of Georgian bank customers relevant to CSR. We find that Georgian bank customers have a preference for CSR and they are influenced by CSR activities undertaken by banks. The findings will add to existing literature exploring the links between CSR and marketing outcomes and will benefit Georgian banks and the banking sector in general, as banks will be able to evaluate whether their CSR investments have positive influence on customer behavior.