Abstract

Corporates are facing increasing pressure to operate in a socially responsible ways. The importance of CorporateSocial Responsibility initiatives is due to their relation to competitive advantage, financial result, customerbehavior, and corporate reputation as well. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the mediating roleof consumer satisfaction and corporate reputation on achieving competitive advantage for corporates, and thenmeasuring the impact on creating competitive advantage for corporates that apply social responsibility in theKingdom of Saudi Arabia. The experimental results of the study have demonstrated that the initiatives of (CSR)are affected by the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary activities. The tests have also confirmed the directrelationship between the initiatives of (CSR) and competitive advantage as a strong positive relationship. Theresults of this study emphasize on the ability of customer satisfaction and corporate reputation to playcompletely mediating role between (CSR) and competitive advantage. Customer satisfaction also affects morestrongly the achievement of competitive advantage. It affects with direct and indirect relationship throughcorporate reputation. This has been concluded based on the results from a sample of 300 Saudi corporates. Theresults of this study indicate that (CSR) appears as an effective strategic objective. Therefore, Saudi corporatesshould consider the initiatives of (CSR) as a way to construct intangible assets such as customer satisfaction andcorporate reputation. Saudi corporates, therefore, need to exert all their efforts to engage in the activities ofcorporate social responsibility, which represent a powerful strategy for those corporates.

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