Vinod Sharma

Over the years, the number of organizations investing in CSR activities has increased considerably. This increase is partially attributable to the intention of the organizations to give back to the society to repair and reduce the loss their intentional or unintentional actions might have caused to the environment. The government’s decision to make it mandatory for businesses to invest a small part of their net profit in social welfare activities has also helped nudge the organizations towards CSR activities. However, the question whether this investment influences customers’ intention to purchase the product in any manner remains an unresolved paradox. Limited researches have been conducted in this area to explore and establish the relationship if any between CSR and consumer purchase intention. This research focuses on the five different factors of CSR comprising of loyalty, morality, awareness, behavior and environment, which are identified from the previous literature. With the help of these factors, the authors researched and established the relationship between them and consumer purchase intention. In this descriptive research, the research questionnaire was distributed to 1500 respondents, using convenient sampling method, out of which 319 responses were finally obtained for the analysis purpose. After testing the reliability and validity of the data, the five hypotheses were tested using SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). It was found that all the five hypotheses were supported and thereby acknowledged the significant influence of CSR related activities performed by companies on the consumer purchase intention. The CSR driven morality is emerging to be the most important dimension that appears to influence the consumer purchase intentions. These finding will help decision-makers to formulate their promotion activities in such a manner that it aligns with the value system of the consumers and increase the overall consumer base.

The telecommunication industry has witnessed a tremendous growth in recent times in India. It has not only been limited to voice calls, but also integrated into every aspect of human life. This has resulted in the rapid rise of market players, offering innovative products and services. In this changing scenario, we have tried to design and check a model of various factors such as loyalty, satisfaction and switching barriers (customer relationship management, alternative attractiveness and switching cost) influencing consumer retention strategies in Indian telecom service industry.

A structured and undisguised questionnaire and a convenient sampling method have been used to collect the data from respondents from three most populous cities (Indore, Bhopal, and Ujjain) of Central India. Around 450 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 318 usable responses were received for final analysis. The instrument was checked for validity and reliability before the data was analyzed. The hypotheses were tested through Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) for direct effect, and Multiple Moderating Regression Analysis (MMRA) for moderating effect.

The results suggested that loyalty, satisfaction, switching barriers and customer relationship management are positively related and have a direct influence on consumer retention, but the relationship with alternative attractiveness has been found weak. Switching cost, as moderating variable, was found to be very effective and showed significant deviation in the relationship between independent and dependent variables.