Correlation between Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Loyalty - Based on Meta-Analysis
Published Online: Mar 17, 2025
Received: Oct 30, 2024
Accepted: Feb 04, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0222
Keywords
© 2025 Yu Han et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
In today’s competitive business world, CSR is no longer a dispensable option, but has become a key factor affecting corporate development and brand image [1-2]. Brand loyalty, as an important cornerstone for long-term stable development of enterprises, has a close and complex relationship with CSR. Understanding and grasping this relationship is of great significance for enterprises to formulate strategies, enhance competitiveness and realize sustainable development [3-6].
Corporate social responsibility (CSR), in simple terms, refers to the enterprise’s responsibility to consumers, communities and the environment in addition to generating profits and assuming legal responsibilities to shareholders and employees. It covers a variety of aspects, such as environmental protection, public welfare and charity, employee welfare, product quality and safety. An enterprise that actively fulfills its social responsibility can send a positive signal to the society and establish a good image [7-10]. Brand loyalty refers to the behavior of consumers in the purchase decision, a brand has a preference for the choice and repeat purchase. A high degree of brand loyalty means that consumers are not only willing to buy the brand’s products or services, but also firmly choose it in the face of competition, and are willing to pay a higher price for it, and even recommend it to others [11-14]. There is a close positive correlation between CSR and brand loyalty. Enterprises that actively fulfill their social responsibility can win consumers’ trust and goodwill, enhance brand image [15-17], satisfy consumers’ emotional needs, and thus improve brand loyalty. Only in this way can social responsibility be truly transformed into a competitive advantage of enterprises and realize sustainable development [18-19].
The study proposes a hypothesis on the correlation between CSR and brand loyalty from 4 dimensions: consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility and community responsibility. It also proposes 3 potential moderating variables from the perspective of CSR communication. Meta-technical approach was used to collect and code relevant literature. The correlation coefficients between CSR dimensions and brand loyalty were processed as effect values using CMA 3.0 software. And the samples were verified for publication bias in the form of funnel plot. The empirical analysis part verifies whether the hypotheses are valid by heterogeneity test, main effect test, and moderating effect test.
CSR as a social obligation is oriented to formulate policies and implement decisions based on the enterprise’s social values and goals. Under this connotation, enterprises only bear economic and legal responsibilities, i.e., the responsibility of enterprises to fulfill the production, sales, and satisfy consumers’ needs, and the responsibility of fulfilling all obligations under laws and regulations.
As a stakeholder responsibility, CSR is not responsible to the whole society, but only to the stakeholders who have direct or indirect influence on the enterprise. Stakeholders mainly include: organizations (employees, consumers, suppliers and shareholders), communities (residents, special interest groups), and regulators (municipalities, regulatory systems).
CSR as a social obligation or stakeholder responsibility is driven by corporate self-interest and does not pursue selfless commitment. In contrast, CSR as a moral drive, the correctness of corporate behavior does not depend on the enterprise’s performance goals such as return on investment, profitability, or appropriate behavior defined by the enterprise’s stakeholders, but rather on righteous morality and conformity to social norms and standards.
CSR, as a management process, reflects the essential characteristics of enterprises in fulfilling their social responsibility. CSR is a management process in which the managers of an organization understand and describe the relationship with stakeholders, the roles they assume in the common good, and the management process of fulfilling such relationships and roles, i.e., the process by which the managers of an enterprise respond to the stakeholders and the external world.
Brand loyalty is influenced by the quality of the product, is a consumer of a brand to produce feelings and dependence, manifested in the behavioral response to the brand bias. The value of brand loyalty is that the longer the consumer is biased towards a particular brand, the less price-sensitive the commodity is, while bringing in new consumers, the more valuable the consumer is, which is manifested in the following ways: Firstly, it reduces the cost of publicizing products and services. The second is to increase corporate profits, the longer the consumer favors the corporate brand, the more the company increases its profits. Third, according to the number of consumers to calculate the growth of per capita business income. The fourth is the reduction of operating costs. Fifth, word of mouth among consumers is more likely to get the trust among other consumers. Sixth, there is a price advantage, as loyal consumers tend to pay higher prices than other consumers.
In this study, CSR is categorized into consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environment responsibility and community responsibility. This paper will analyze the relationship with brand loyalty from the four dimensions and put forward hypotheses.
Consumer responsibility is the most basic responsibility of enterprises to consumers. Consumer responsibility includes providing consumers with high-quality products and services, and protecting consumers’ basic rights and interests. Consumer responsibility is the basis for consumers to build loyalty to corporate brands. Corresponding to the consumer’s CSR response process, the more consumer responsibility a company undertakes, the more visibility consumers have to the responsible behavior of the company, and the stronger the recognition of the company’s brand. In this process, consumers’ awareness and behavior of purchasing branded products and services will gradually become stronger, thus enhancing consumers’ loyalty to the brand.
Based on the above analysis, hypotheses are proposed:
H1: Consumer responsibility has a positive effect on brand loyalty (CR→BL).
The economic responsibility of enterprises can be divided into two aspects, the realization of their own economic interests and their contribution to the development of the national and local economy. Consumer consensus is that there is consistency between the accumulation of wealth of the enterprise and the accumulation of national wealth. If there is inconsistency between the two, there will be a bias in the consumer’s perception of the enterprise, which further affects the consumer’s attitudinal loyalty and the consumer’s behavioral loyalty [20]. Consumers have a clear consensus on the legal responsibility of the enterprise in the production and operation process, both by the protection of national laws and legal constraints, the enterprise needs to operate legally, can be recognized by consumers, corresponding to the response process, in the process will produce the desire to buy and behavioral loyalty, thus increasing brand loyalty. Employee responsibility can also affect consumer brand loyalty, consumers may be the same employee role, in the case of poor reputation of corporate employee responsibility, will reduce the consumer perception of goodwill, further affecting brand loyalty
Based on the above analysis, the hypothesis is formulated:
H2: Economic and social development responsibility has a positive effect on brand loyalty (SEDR→BL).
The content of green environmental responsibility includes controlling pollution emissions, saving resources, improving resource utilization, etc. With the improvement of consumer responsibility awareness, the Chinese government has put forward the requirements for the protection of the environment, and consumers have gradually paid attention to the requirements of green environmental protection responsibility borne by enterprises. The more the enterprise undertakes in environmental protection, the stronger the consumer perception, and thus has a certain impact on consumer loyalty.
Based on the above analysis, the hypothesis is proposed:
H3: Green environmental responsibility has a positive effect on brand loyalty (ER→BL).
The content of community responsibility has the contents of corporate support for community cultural, sports and traditional activities, support for community education, and support for community public welfare activities. The community proposed in this study refers to a region or country. Consumers as a part of the community, the responsibility of the enterprise to the community is closely related to consumers. The more community responsibility an enterprise undertakes, the stronger the consumer’s perception of it, and according to the consumer response mechanism to corporate social responsibility, the stronger the consumer’s perception and recognition, the stronger the consumer’s purchase intention and behavioral loyalty to the brand.
Based on the above analysis, the hypothesis is proposed:
H4: Community responsibility has a positive effect on brand loyalty (COR→BL).
CSR communication includes three aspects of CSR knowledge, CSR motivation perception, and consumer attitude towards CSR behavior, i.e., CSR communication is the intermediate process from enterprises doing CSR behavior to consumers increasing brand loyalty. In the platform of social media, the process of CSR communication is a two-way communication process between enterprises and consumers, and consumer participation is an important process of CSR communication. Based on the process of consumer response to CSR, CSR behavior increases consumer awareness and further increases brand loyalty through CSR communication.
Based on the above analysis, the hypothesis is formulated:
H5: CSR awareness influences the association between CSR and brand loyalty. H6: Perceived CSR motivation affects the association between CSR and brand loyalty. H7: Consumers’ attitudes toward CSR behaviors influence the association between CSR and brand loyalty.
Meta-analysis is a systematic aggregation technique that integrates different studies in a scientific manner and eliminates sampling and measurement errors [21]. The method is generally accepted by scholars because it has a relatively rigorous operational process and can obtain more reliable statistical results. This study intends to use Meta-analysis to summarize the relationship between CSR and brand loyalty. Firstly, this paper summarizes the literature on the same research topic through keyword search, secondly, categorizes these samples according to the perspective of countries, industries, etc., and utilizes the Meta technique to test the possible moderating effect and further explain the reasons for the formation of the research differences, so as to provide a systematic theoretical basis for the current research on corporate social responsibility and brand loyalty.
The study conducted a literature search on major databases such as Elsevier, Science, EB SCO, and China Knowledge Network (CNN) using a number of keywords such as “Corporate Social Responsibility”, “Brand Loyalty”, and “Correlation Analysis”, as well as a combination of these keywords. Science, EB-SCO, and China Knowledge Network (CNN) databases. Due to the timeliness of the study, we took the literature published in 2000-2023 as the collection object, and further screened the searched literature, and the screening mainly followed the following four principles: (1) It must have a clear way of correlation analysis. (2) It must be an empirical study. (3) The data of the association analysis under the specific evaluation mode in the literature can be transformed into effect values. (4) If multiple literatures using the same research sample for empirical analysis are found, only one of them will be analyzed [22]. Through the above two stages of literature collation, we finally obtained 67 pieces of literature available for analysis.
After obtaining the required literature for the study, two researchers specializing in data coding work were selected to organize the data in order to ensure the reliability of the data obtained in this paper. The principle of collation was that each researcher independently made a unified definition of the research variables, and then categorized the data in the paper according to that definition. For the data whose error of coding results is within the 0.1 interval, it is solved by calculating the average value through mutual discussion, and the data larger than the 0.1 interval are directly deleted. Through the processing of the above methods, it can be ensured that the data obtained in this paper are independent of each other, which can effectively avoid data bias due to the interference effect between multiple non-independent data, and finally we obtained 72 correlation analysis data of CSR and brand loyalty from 67 pieces of literature. The literature focusing on CSR research, brand loyalty research, relevance research, and CSR communication research are 33, 15, 13, and 6 respectively. In the data obtained in this paper there are also some cases of singular values with large deviations, and the singular values can negatively affect the results of Meta-analysis. Based on the large span of effect sizes obtained in this paper, this paper adopts the conservative treatment of retaining singular values in Meta-analysis.
Due to the differences in research methods, sample sizes and measurement methods of the sample literature included in the study, it is necessary to integrate the effect sizes of multiple independent studies into a comprehensive effect value. In this paper, we mainly take the correlation coefficient
Firstly, the qualitative analysis is carried out in the form of a funnel plot, taking the CSR research literature with the largest number of samples as an example, the distribution of CSR and brand loyalty effect values is shown in Fig. 1. The Fisher’s Z value ranges between [-0.2, 0.56], and most of the researches in the figure are concentrated in the upper part of the funnel plot, and there is a certain symmetry in the distribution, which indicates that there is no publication bias in the relationship between CSR and brand loyalty across the samples, indicating that there is no publication bias in the relationship between CSR and brand loyalty. there is no publication bias across samples for the relationship between social responsibility and brand loyalty.
Corporate social responsibility and brand loyalty effect value distribution
The purpose of the heterogeneity test used in this study is to determine whether the findings of the literature used in the meta-analysis are representative of the sample estimates of the overall effect size. Since there are multiple time intervals of performance values in the collected literature on the evaluation of relevance, this paper uses the largest value in the time window interval of the corporate promotional branding event as the source data for calculating the effect value. Through the organization of the literature, it is found that the relevance effect value is mainly transformed by the
The results of the heterogeneity test for the correlation analysis of CSR and brand loyalty are shown in Table 1. In Meta-analysis, Q and I2 values are used to test the level of heterogeneity. K is the number of studies. N is the total sample size in the original study.
Heterogeneity test results
| CR→BL | SEDR→BL | ER→BL | COR→BL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K | 22 | 15 | 21 | 9 |
| N | 30261 | 7523 | 5631 | 2483 |
| 0.352 | 0.419 | 0.401 | 0.492 | |
| 95% Confidence interval | 0.235,0.426 | 0.249,0.635 | 0.325,0.514 | 0.426,0.571 |
| Q | 1536.624*** | 214.321*** | 354.214*** | 10.236 |
| I2 | 98.105 | 97.268 | 95.104 | 35.268 |
| τ2 | 0.062 | 0.091 | 0.061 | 0.001 |
| Fail-safe n | 7523 | 9123 | 4596 | 1268 |
This study further explores the relationship between CSR and brand loyalty, and the results of the main effects test are shown in Table 2. Consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility, and community responsibility are all significantly and positively related to corporate performance at the 1% level in both fixed and random effects models. It indicates that consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility, and community responsibility help to improve brand loyalty. Hypotheses H1~H4 are all verified.
Main effect test results
| Fixed effect model | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CR→BL | SEDR→BL | ER→BL | COR→BL | ||
| K | 22 | 15 | 21 | 9 | |
| N | 30261 | 7523 | 5631 | 2483 | |
| 95% Confidence interval | Lower limit | 0.106 | 0.248 | 0.377 | 0.412 |
| Upper limit | 0.457 | 0.633 | 0.508 | 0.596 | |
| Z | Z | 6.235 | 4.262 | 6.345 | 23.651 |
| p | p | 0.003 | 0.001 | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Random effect model | |||||
| CR→BL | SEDR→BL | ER→BL | COR→BL | ||
| K | 22 | 15 | 21 | 9 | |
| N | 30261 | 7523 | 5631 | 2483 | |
| 95% Confidence interval | Lower limit | 0.102 | 0.209 | 0.327 | 0.429 |
| Upper limit | 0.325 | 0.539 | 0.456 | 0.529 | |
| Z | Z | 9.452 | 4.385 | 8.214 | 33.544 |
| p | p | 0.001 | 0.000 | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Given that the results of the heterogeneity test of consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility and green environmental responsibility are all significant, they need to be analyzed in subgroups. The results of the moderating effect analysis of the relationship between consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility and green environmental responsibility and brand loyalty are shown in Tables 3, 4 and 5, respectively.
1) The moderating effect of CSR knowledge. CSR knowledge significantly moderates the relationship between consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility and brand loyalty (Qb=52.946, p<0.001, Qb=48.854, p<0.001, and Qb=13.909, p<0.001), and Hypothesis H5 is verified. In Table 3, the correlation coefficient between consumer responsibility and brand loyalty has a firm effect value of 0.246 (p<0.001) for high CSR awareness, which is greater than the firm effect value of 0.134 (p<0.001) for low CSR awareness and passes the test of heterogeneity (Qw=1473.468, p<0.001). The correlation between consumer responsibility and brand loyalty is stronger under high knowledge. In Table 4, the effect values of green environmental responsibility and brand loyalty are 0.442 (p<0.001) and 0.217 (p<0.001) for high and low CSR knowledge, respectively, which are significant at 1% level, where the correlation between green environmental responsibility and brand loyalty is stronger under high CSR knowledge.In Table 4, the effect values of green environmental responsibility and brand loyalty are 0.442 (p<0.001) and 0.217 (p<0.001) for high and low CSR knowledge, respectively, which are significant at 1% level, where the correlation between green environmental responsibility and brand loyalty is stronger under high CSR knowledge. In Table 5, the relationship between socio-economic development responsibility and brand loyalty was similarly moderated by CSR knowledge and passed the heterogeneity test (Qw=327.836, p<0.001).
2) Moderating effect of perceived CSR motivation. The effects of corporate consumer responsibility, green environmental responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility and brand loyalty with different perceived competencies are significantly heterogeneous (Qb=56.054, p<0.001, Qb=47.828, p<0.001, Qb=8.661, p<0.001). Hypothesis H6 was tested.
3) The moderating effect of consumers’ behavioral attitudes toward CSR. Different choices of consumers’ attitudes toward CSR behaviors contributed to significant differences in the effect of CSR on brand loyalty (Qb=51.681, p<0.001, Qb=40.747, p<0.001, Qb=14.2, p<0.001) and the results were significant. Hypothesis H7 was verified.
CR→BL Adjustment analysis
| Relation | Regulating variable | Grouping | K | Estimated value | 95% Confidence interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CR→BL | Corporate social responsibility knows | High awareness | 8 | 0.246 | (0.128,0.248) | 20.418 |
| Low awareness | 17 | 0.134 | (0.155,0.297) | 19.23 | ||
| Awareness of corporate social responsibility motivation | Strong perception | 10 | 0.273 | (0.135,0.287) | 20.094 | |
| Weak perception | 12 | 0.186 | (0.123,0.244) | 19.73 | ||
| Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility | Identification | 18 | 0.201 | (0.131,0.256) | 20.969 | |
| Disapprove | 21 | 0.107 | (0.176,0.223) | 19.499 | ||
| Regulating variable | Grouping | Q | I2 | Qw | Qb | |
| Corporate social responsibility knows | High awareness | 200.63 | 98.375 | 1473.468*** | 52.946*** | |
| Low awareness | 203.599 | 96.795 | ||||
| Awareness of corporate social responsibility motivation | Strong perception | 217.899 | 98.575 | 1735.603*** | 56.054*** | |
| Weak perception | 195.665 | 95.323 | ||||
| Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility | Identification | 131.098 | 98.381 | 1477.101*** | 51.681*** | |
| Disapprove | 211.658 | 97.314 |
SEDR→BL Adjustment analysis
| Relation | Regulating variable | Grouping | K | Estimated value | 95% Confidence interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEDR→BL | Corporate social responsibility knows | High awareness | 4 | 0.442 | (0.483,0.574) | 11.418 |
| Low awareness | 13 | 0.217 | (0.471,0.596) | 10.23 | ||
| Awareness of corporate social responsibility motivation | Strong perception | 7 | 0.477 | (0.438,0.512) | 10.094 | |
| Weak perception | 9 | 0.203 | (0.43,0.6) | 11.73 | ||
| Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility | Identification | 15 | 0.464 | (0.48,0.515) | 11.969 | |
| Disapprove | 20 | 0.235 | (0.462,0.558) | 11.499 | ||
| Regulating variable | Grouping | Q | I2 | Qw | Qb | |
| Corporate social responsibility knows | High awareness | 100.63 | 89.375 | 219.797*** | 48.854*** | |
| Low awareness | 102.599 | 87.795 | ||||
| Awareness of corporate social responsibility motivation | Strong perception | 115.899 | 90.575 | 203.694*** | 47.828*** | |
| Weak perception | 96.665 | 88.323 | ||||
| Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility | Identification | 32.098 | 91.381 | 204.664*** | 40.747*** | |
| Disapprove | 110.658 | 90.314 |
ER→BL Adjustment analysis
| Relation | Regulating variable | Grouping | K | Estimated value | 95% Confidence interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ER→BL | Corporate social responsibility knows | High awareness | 10 | 0.499 | (0.352,0.476) | 26.418 |
| Low awareness | 20 | 0.326 | (0.345,0.479) | 26.23 | ||
| Awareness of corporate social responsibility motivation | Strong perception | 11 | 0.421 | (0.325,0.474) | 27.094 | |
| Weak perception | 4 | 0.347 | (0.381,0.488) | 26.73 | ||
| Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility | Identification | 20 | 0.494 | (0.344,0.402) | 27.969 | |
| Disapprove | 4 | 0.397 | (0.306,0.468) | 26.499 | ||
| Regulating variable | Grouping | Q | I2 | Qw | Qb | |
| Corporate social responsibility knows | High awareness | 160.63 | 96.375 | 327.836*** | 13.909*** | |
| Low awareness | 165.599 | 91.795 | ||||
| Awareness of corporate social responsibility motivation | Strong perception | 178.899 | 95.575 | 323.878*** | 8.661*** | |
| Weak perception | 155.665 | 92.323 | ||||
| Attitudes towards corporate social responsibility | Identification | 93.098 | 94.381 | 332.13*** | 14.2*** | |
| Disapprove | 172.658 | 93.314 |
Based on 67 empirical papers, the study analyzes the correlation and contextual conditions between CSR and brand loyalty from four dimensions: consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility and community responsibility by applying Meta-analysis, which reveals that consumer responsibility, socio-economic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility, and community responsibility have a strong and positive correlation with brand loyalty. CSR knowledge, perceived CSR motivation, and consumer attitudes toward CSR behaviors all play a moderating role between the relationships of consumer responsibility, socioeconomic development responsibility, green environmental responsibility, and community responsibility and brand loyalty (p<0.001). Hypotheses H1 to H7 proposed in this paper are valid.