Does Corporate Social Responsibility Matter Even in B2B Market?: Effect of CSR on Customer Trust

Abstract

Introduction Recently, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an important social issue all over the world. Most businesses are required to take social responsibility from the perspective of stakeholders. Moreover, CSR has been recognized as one of the important marketing activities for maintenance of relationships with consumers (Balmer & Greysner, 2006). In the past, most academic researches of CSR have been conducted in the field of business-to-consumer (B2C) side. Homburg, Stierl, and Bornemann (2013) note that CSR is not only exclusively reserved for B2C companies but rather represents a universal necessity which also includes companies operating in B2B markets. In this study, we try to extend research field of CSR into business-to-business (B2B) context. Therefore, this study suggests that identifying the role of CSR can be an important factor of corporate marketing strategy. Even though the strategic meaning of CSR is becoming very critical, previous research about CSR in the context of B2B market is very rare (Homburg et al., 2013). B2B CSR Recently in B-to-B market, there is a growing consensus that buying companies demand for social responsibility activities to their supplying companies. Global companies, such as IBM, Sony, Philips, recently made CSR-based procurement standards for parts and components. These companies are requiring some acceptable standards to their suppliers to continue their business relationships. Nike terminated their 30-year business relation with Daewoo International because Daewoo International did not take social responsibility faithfully. A series of similar cases show that the range of CSR extends from consumer market to business-to-business market, especially to suppliers. The reason for requiring CSR activity to business partner is quite simple. Supplier's insensitivity of social responsibility has a strong influence on customer trust of buyer's products. As global outsourcing is being increased, requirement and assessment of CSR will spread to whole industrial society (Choi, 2008). Therefore, suppliers should take strategic corporate social responsibility activities for maintaining better relations with their business partners. Trust and Underlying Factors for Successful B2B Relationship Relationship is a core concept to the successful B2B transactions. A lot of researches focused on relationship marketing in B2B field. It has emphasized that relationship is very important in business to business context. Therefore, B2B companies need to make more effort to relational exchange.