Purpose -In the present paper, the authors aim to study the relationship between corporate associations and loyalty by analyzing the role of identification with the company and satisfaction in this connection. Design/methodology/approach -The effects of corporate associations on consumers' loyalty were tested through a structural equation model for a sample of 781 financial services users. Findings -The results confirm the value of commercial expertise (CE) as one of the most important determinants of both consumer satisfaction and identification with their financial services provider. Besides, corporate social responsibility (CSR) contributes to building consumer identification with the company, which is positively correlated to satisfaction too. Satisfaction is thus presented as both an affective and cognitive consumer response in the financial industry, which, along with identification, finally determines the attitudinal loyalty a consumer shows towards their provider. Originality/value -With this study, the authors try to contribute to a better knowledge of the consumer loyalty formation process as it begins with the perception of corporate associations for its commercial expertise and its social commitment. The researchers take into account the role of two variables -i.e. identification and satisfaction with the company -that had not been studied in depth in research analyzing the role of corporate associations in consumer loyalty. Moreover, CSR associations are also studied from a multidimensional point of view, as suggested in recent studies and in comparison to the vast majority of previous research, which has concentrated on specific and narrow dimensions of the concept, especially the social dimension.

Purpose-The authors of this paper propose a cognitive-affective-conative sequential model to study how three dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) image (society, customers and employees) impact customer affective (identification and satisfaction) and behavioural (recommendation and repurchase) responses in the banking industry. The authors also test how the type of company (savings banks vs. commercial banks) moderates customer responses to these three dimensions of CSR image. Design/methodology/approach-A multi group structural equation model (SEM) is tested using information collected from 648 savings banks customers and 476 commercial banks customers in Spain. Findings-The findings demonstrate that the perceptions of customer-centric CSR initiatives positively and consistently impact customer identification with the banking institution, satisfaction, recommendation and repurchase behaviours in the savings banks and commercial banks samples. The dimensions of CSR image that concern the activities oriented to society and employees only positively impact customer responses in the savings banks sample. Practical implications-The findings of this study can assist scholars in creating more informative CSRbased loyalty models that take into consideration new variables (satisfaction and type of company) and better approaches to the conceptualization of CSR image (e.g., the formative approach). The findings can also assist savings banks and commercial banks in better designing their CSR and communication initiatives to benefit from customer affective and conative responses. Originality/value-The contributions of the paper are threefold: (1) the authors include satisfaction as a new variable in the study of the CSR-based loyalty model; (2) CSR image is conceptualized as a formative construct and this provides new justifications for the mixed results reported by previous scholars who have analysed the effects of CSR image on customer loyalty and (3) the authors explore the moderating role of the type of company on the CSR-based loyalty model proposed in the paper.

Because previous scholars have offered few comprehensive models to understand the benefits of corporate social responsibility image in terms of customer behaviour, the authors of this paper propose a hierarchy of effects model to study how customer perceptions of the social responsibility of companies influence customer affective and conative responses in a service context. The authors test a structural equation model using information collected directly from 1,124 customers of banking services in Spain.The findings demonstrate that corporate social responsibility image influences customer identification with the company, the emotions evoked by the company and satisfaction positively. Identification also influences the emotions generated by the service performance and customer satisfaction determines loyalty behaviour. The findings have significant implications for service managers because they demonstrate that there are two paths to explain the satisfaction and loyalty of service customers. The first path is composed of the beliefs and emotions generated by the company at the institutional level. The second path is composed of the thoughts, attitudes, emotions and feelings generated by the company's services.

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