Customer evaluation of the corporate social responsibility practices: study on the Turkish banking industry

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the customers evaluate the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices of the two banks that are active in Turkey, one having a local image (Garanti Bank) and the other with a foreign image (HSBC Bank). The study also aimed to investigate whether the ethical ideologies (idealism and relativism) of the customers have an effect on the customer evaluation of CSR practices of the banks and the relation between overall CSR evaluation and CSR components (economic-legal, customer, society-sustainability, and environment), and the dependent variables such as customer satisfaction with the bank, bank’s fulfillment of the social responsibility practices, evaluating CSR as profitable, bank’s promoting the usage of internet banking, and evaluating the bank as honest and trustworthy. An exploratory study was carried out in order to see whether CSR items that are important in the Turkish Banking Industry are covered in the literature. In-depth interviews are held with three top project coordinators of the two banks (Finansbank and Citibank) and a NGO (Corporate Volunteer Association – Özel Sektör Gönüllüleri Derneği) which works in close relation with the banks. Two banks (Garanti and HSBC banks) were selected by using the content analysis method. Both Garanti Bank and HSBC banks appeared to address CSR practices with high importance. The data was collected from the customers by a questionnaire. The customers have been asked to identify the bank they have been mostly working with for the last three years and the questionnaire is completed only by those who answered this question as Garanti Bank or the HSBC Bank. 238 (121 from Garanti Bank’s customers, 117 from HSBC Bank’s customers) respondents completed the questionnaires. The results of the study showed that the ethical ideologies don’t have a significant impact on the customer evaluation of CSR practices. In other words, both idealist and relativist customers value CSR practices with the same importance. It was discovered that CSR has positive relations with all dependent variables (customer satisfaction with the bank, bank’s fulfillment of the social responsibility practices, evaluating CSR as profitable, bank’s promoting the usage of internet banking, and evaluating the bank as honest and trustworthy). It was also found out that Garanti Bank customers held more idealistic attitudes and they valued CSR practices more compared to HSBC customers.