Building Customer Trust through Corporate Social Responsibility: The Effects of Corporate Reputation and Word of Mouth

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program has become one of the primary concerns of companies worldwide. For many companies, treating the environment and the community well is important to business practice and reputation, and this is reflected in their CSR programs. CSR is a company’s obligation to consider the interests of its employees, customers, shareholders, communities, and the environment and to consider the social and environmental consequences of their business activities. CSR plays an important role in relationship building with customers. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between customer perception of CSR and customer trust. The model of this study considers two mediating variables, i.e., company reputation and word of mouth to link CSR to customer trust. This study employs a causal survey design. The respondents were 160 consumers who have purchased products and knew about CSR programs of a global food company. Data analysis was using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses. The results of this study revealed that CSR negatively impacts customer trust. Furthermore, CSR positively impacts corporate reputation and word of mouth. Besides, this study found corporate reputation positively impacts word of mouth and customer trust. While the mediating effect of reputation and word of mouth also positively impacts the relationship between CSR and consumer trust. A good reputation and word of mouth could be connecting buyers and enhances the power of suppliers.