Effect of Corporate Social Discretionary Responsibility on Customer Loyalty: A Survey of Telecommunication Firms in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been used by many companies to gain public confidence through providing essential commodities of some high value to a customer, particular in telecommunication industry where only one mobile operator has dominated the market share for the last one decade. However, understanding how different CSR initiatives affect customer loyalty is still limited especially in developing countries. The study objective was to determine the effect of discretionary responsibility on customer loyalty. Carroll model and Stakeholder theory were used to explaining the study. The study employed an explanatory research design. The study targeted all customers of telecommunication companies in Uasin Gishu County. Stratified sampling was used to group the population while the systematic sampling technique was used to obtain 400 customers. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The reliability of the questionnaire was checked using Cronbach Alpha test. Data was purely quantitative. Data collected were coded and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that CSR initiatives positively impact on customer loyalty. The study found that discretionary responsibilities positively affect customer loyalty. It was therefore affirmed that mobile firms providing telecommunication services with a higher level of CSR discretionary responsibilities are likely to enhance customer loyalty towards its products. It’s therefore important for telecommunication firms to donate to charities, to the society, be involved in a project(s) with the local community and return a portion of revenues to the community and firm staff members to be involved in charity volunteer work on behalf of the firm. Telecommunication firms should engage in CSR in order to create a positive attitude on their customers to enhance loyalt