Tweeting CSR: a double mediation study on customer engagement with hotels
(A2019-8747)

AUTHORS

Alberto Badenes-Rocha, University of Valencia; Enrique Bigne, Universitat de Valencia; Carla Ruiz-Mafé, Universitat de Valencia

KEYWORDS

CSR communication; Twitter; Customer engagement

ABSTRACT

This research studies the effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, communicated through Twitter, on customer engagement, considering two mediating factors: customer-company identification and trust. The study was carried out with 227 hotel guests who were exposed to Twitter CSR stimuli about hotel initiatives; a multistep mediation model was tested with SmartPLS. The results suggest that, from a behavioural perspective, customer-company identification and trust are full and joint mediators between CSR customer perceptions and customer engagement. Our study focuses on Twitter as a two-way communication tool for CSR initiatives in the hotel sector and combines two different theories (trust-commitment and social identity) to explain customer engagement as a result of the perception of the CSR profile of the hotel. This research contributes to research into social media effectiveness in CSR communication and tourism marketing.

REFERENCES

This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports for University Teacher Training (FPU17/01738)