Keywords

1 Introduction

The increasing expectations of universities globally to satisfy different stakeholders (such as the society, employees, parents, the government and students), and to address social and ecological issues have imposed on them huge social responsibility (Kunstler 2006). In a bid to better respond to these societal demands and expectations, universities have had to glean from the corporate experience. This explains why universities and academia at large are nowadays characterized by managerialism and corporate models, an example of which is the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies (Hammond and Churchman 2008).

Also, currently, universities are faced with challenges similar to that of corporations; they struggle for funds, good employees, reputation, and student enrolment (which will be clienteles in the case of corporations). As a result, higher education institutions (HEI) are embracing an approach that is more business-like; realizing the significance of corporate image, corporate identity, corporate reputation and are employing socially responsible actions as a strategy to build a reputable image and competitive advantage (Atakan and Eker 2007; Porter and Kramer 2006). Thus, high competition among universities nationally and internationally is a reality (Sanchez-Hernandez and Mainardes 2016); and in a competitive environment, marketing is essential to organizations’ growth and survival. In other words, organizations in a competitive market have to remain attractive to prospective customers (which are students in the case of universities) to survive. Therefore, marketing concepts and theories that have been employed in the corporate world are now useful in the marketing of universities (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2006). From this perspective, one of the new developments in the marketing of universities is social responsibility (Sanchez-Hernandez and Mainardes 2016). While CSR is a means for universities to enhance societal well-being, implementing CSR strategies provide universities with the opportunity to gain a sustainable competitive edge over competitors (Burcea and Marinescu 2011). The global dynamics and challenges of universities are also valid in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC). TRNC (which is our study context) is a global edu-tourism hub, and the HEI in TRNC have also begun to adopt an approach that is more business-like, as the dynamics of the country’s very competitive higher education sector are not so different from the other parts of the world.

The impact of an organization’s CSR activities on the attitudes and behavioral intentions of most of its stakeholder group is well documented in the literature (Rahim et al. 2011; Vahdati et al. 2015; Jung et al. 2018). This study argues that the CSR activities of universities can favorably influence the attitudes and behavioral intentions of their students. However, the effectiveness of this hinges on the students’ awareness of their universities’ CSR activities. Stakeholders’ awareness of an organization’s CSR activities is additional advantage to the organization and a prerequisite of benefits like customer retention (Ali et al. 2010; Engizek and Yasin 2017), positive word of mouth (Szymanski and Henard 2001; Zapata-Ramos and Kim 2018) and positive responses (Tian et al. 2011).

Steckstor (2012) described positive word-of-mouth intention (WOM) as the attitude of an individual to engage in complimentary WOM with other consumers. Jalilvand et al. (2017) explained WOM as a sort of informal information about services and products among persons who have used the services or products and individuals who may be interested in the services or product. WOM has been researched as possible behavioral intentions following an individual’s interaction with a brand, service, product, or organization (Swanson and Davis 2003).

A few theories have been employed by researchers to predict and explain behavioral intentions. Ajzen (1991)’s theory of planned behavior (TPB), has been used to predict behavioral intentions (Wang et al. 2016). Ajzen (1991) explained that three variables jointly result in an individual’s behavioral intention formation. These variables are perceived behavioral control (PBC), attitude, and subjective norms. However, scholars have reiterated over the years that one specific construct that could be added as an extension to boost the predictive ability of TPB is self-identity (Reid et al. 2018). Rise et al. (2010) describe self-identity as a prominent and persistent aspect of an individual’s self-perception. This might be in the form of social categorizations that have certain expectations and meanings associated with it (e.g., perceiving oneself to be a ‘socially responsible’ individual might be connected to certain expectations like recommending a socially responsible organization to friends and family). Therefore, using an extended model of TPB, the present study will investigate the effect of students’ awareness of their university’s CSR on their word-of-mouth intentions. This is instrumental to deepening the available knowledge on CSR, as literature that has explored the influence of CSR on stakeholders’ behavior have hardly considered the higher education sector thus leaving a void in literature this research aims to fill.

The current study continues with a review of relevant literature, which is followed by a development of the study’s hypotheses. The methodology by which the study is carried out is presented before reporting the results of the study. In the final section, the findings of the study are discussed.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility Within the HEI Context

The concept of CSR has developed over the years as one of the major subject matter of the current capitalist society. Even though large corporations had been at the center of CSR research, with time and with more progressive studies, other forms of organizations such as small and medium-sized businesses, government organizations and universities were also included (Nejati et al. 2011). Within the HEI context, Vieira et al. (2018) argued that universities could have substantial environmental and social impact. Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar (2008) argued that a number of these impacts are due to the large size of these institutions, huge consumption of materials, expressive movement of vehicles and people, as well as the complex and diversified activities that make up the higher education services. Due to their significant environmental and societal impact, it is expected that universities be responsible to all their stakeholders, the environment, and the society (Nejati et al. 2011). Similarly, Dahan and Senol (2012) highlighted that because of the complexity of the operations of HEI, which constantly overlap with social interest, higher education institutions are under pressure for socially responsible practices.

The CSR actions of universities ought to address economic, environmental as well as social concerns that cannot be detached from the institution’s strategic operations and planning, which is central to how the institution interacts with the society as well as other external and internal stakeholders (Chen et al. 2015). Universities are social institutions, and they are expected to contribute to the social cause, but more recently, CSR has been more important for universities as a growth strategy (Jimena et al. 2011; Nadeem and Kakakhel 2012). Jimena et al. (2011) maintain that universities are riding on the CSR wave to gain a competitive advantage in the higher education sector. One of the motivators for the CSR actions of universities is maintaining a good reputation in the highly competitive higher education sector (Nadeem and Kakakhel 2012). Some studies have also shown that if universities can effectively address the social and environmental concerns of their stakeholders, it will help them in sustaining a competitive edge (Burcea and Marinescu 2011; Dahan and Senol 2012). Students, as an important stakeholder of universities, are important players in the CSR dynamics of universities. Just as investors can provide capital; host communities of universities can provide location and infrastructure; employees can grant leadership and expertise; students can offer word-of-mouth and loyalty to socially responsible universities (Fatma and Rahman 2015). University students today are more conscious of social and environmental issues than ten years ago (Lee 2011). Thus, these students expect their universities to be socially responsible. Hence, universities have included CSR as a value proposition (Dahan and Senol 2012). Furthermore, due to the good reputation, CSR accords to universities (Burcea and Marinescu 2011; Dahan and Senol 2012); stakeholders will be more willing to identify with socially responsible universities. Student, for example, will be attracted to and be willing to identify with socially responsible universities due to its good reputation and also because there is generally an increased sense of environmental and social consciousness among students (Lee 2011). However, according to Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) the level of awareness differ among consumers yet being aware of CSR activities has been said to be a prerequisite to the benefits of CSR like purchase intention, loyalty and customer–company identification (Becker-Olsen et al. 2006; Marin et al. 2009; Tian et al. 2011).

3 Theory of Planned Behaviour

This study examined whether, and in what way students’ awareness of the universities’ CSR will influence their word of mouth intention. For this purpose, the TPB model (Ajzen 1991; Fishbein and Ajzen 2011) is adopted as a theoretical framework to predict word of mouth intentions of university students. Several different studies have endorsed the predictive ability of TPB in consumer behavior (Wang et al. 2016). The TPB (Ajzen 1991) essentially states that behaviors are determined by the intention of a person to perform a particular action. The intention is a reflection of cognitive planning and motivations for engaging in a behavior, and it is dependent on three significant cognitive factors: subjective norm, PBC and attitude (Ajzen 1991; Fishbein and Ajzen 2011).

Attitude is the extent to which an individual has an unfavorably or favorable appraisal of the behavior in question, which is an outcome of the person’s mental processes (Ajzen 1991; Lopes et al. 2019). Kotchen and Reiling (2000) stated that attitude is the most decisive factor that governs the behavioral intention of an individual. It has been empirically proven that an individual’s positive attitude towards social responsibility often leads to socially responsible behavior. For example, in the green hotel context, Han and Yoon (2015) found that attitude leads to environmentally friendly behavior. Subjective norm is the social pressure an individual perceives him/herself to be under, which is influencing him or her to act in a particular manner or execute certain behavior. From the TPB viewpoint, the subjective norm is an important element that influences an individual’s behavioral intention (Hameed et al. 2019). It is an individual’s feeling regarding certain behavior from society’s perspectives. If an individual feels positive regarding society’s behavior, such an individual will begin to behave positively. Subjective norm has been reported to significantly influence socially responsible behaviors (Dean et al. 2012; Moser 2015). PBC is an individual’s perceived ability to display a particular behavior. It is an individual’s perceived difficulty or ease of executing a specific task (Hameed et al. 2019). An individual’s ability is measured based on how confident such a person is as regards performing the behavior. An individual who has a belief that he/she is incapable of performing certain behavior because of the want of skills required to display the behavior is not likely to have a strong behavioral intention regardless of the effectiveness of the other TPB model variables (Zhou et al. 2013). PBC has also been empirically linked to socially responsible behavioral intention (Albayrak et al. 2013; Tarkiainen and Sundqvist 2005; Taylor and Todd 1995; Chang et al. 2014). Furthermore, these constructs have been extensively described in the literature as effective predictors of positive word of mouth intention (Fu et al. 2015).

However, taking a cue from prior studies, this study posits an extended TPB model to contain another component, in a bid to amplify the model’s prognostic ability. Several researchers think that TPB requires some merger, decomposition or extension for it to support fully, and offer a reasonable defense for their proposed theoretical frameworks in predicting behavioral intentions (Dahiya and Gayatri 2017; Han 2015; Kiatkawsin and Han 2017). These scholars have specified that the predictive power of the three TPB indicators (PBC, attitude, and subjective norms) is somewhat not sufficient in predicting the behavioral intentions of moral individuals. Therefore, self-identity is considered as an inclusion to the TPB framework of this study. The explanation for the ability of self-identity to predict behavior is based on Identity Theory (IT) (Callero 1985). IT describes how a person’s expectations of role-appropriate behavior can enforce his/her position in society (Charng et al. 1988). This means that when a subject matter becomes crucial to a person’s self-identity, behavioral intentions are consequently attuned. In this study, the measure of self-identity is specifically denoted to as “socially responsible,” which can be described as the duty to behave in a way that is beneficial to society at large (Seechi 2009; Seechi and Bui 2018). In this particular framework, socially responsible individuals have socially responsible behavioral intentions because social responsibility has turned out to be an essential part of their self-identity. Scholars have conveyed the legitimacy of adding the construct of self-identity into the TPB model in predicting intentions and behaviors (Smith et al. 2008).

4 Word-of-Mouth Intention

In the literature, a broad range of conditions has been reported to influence and be influenced by word of mouth activities, such as attitudes, perceptions, expectations, and awareness (Brown et al. 2005). According to Berry et al. (1994), much like repurchase, positive WOM is a behavioral intention that has to do to recommend. The viability of which is an offshoot of positive word of mouth since individuals like to talk about their pleasant experiences and satisfaction with services, brands and organizations with friends and family, persuading others who are prospective customers to purchase (Berry et al. 1994; Zeithaml 2000). In general, studies on WOM (e.g., Mazzarol et al. 2007) revealed that the reason for an individual to be involved in positive WOM varies. Some people are involved in positive WOM for reasons that are altruistic and philanthropic (Sundaram et al. 1998). Identification has also been reported to be a precursor of positive WOM (Brown et al. 2005; Hong and Yang 2009). That is, when an individual’s schema overlaps with that of an organization, such an individual tends to identify with that organization by engaging in WOM. According to Arnett et al. (2003), when individuals say positive things about an organization to friends and family, it offers them the means to express their self-identity and the extent to which there is an overlap between the ‘self’ and the organization, is the extent to which a person will spread WOM concerning the organization. According to Bhattacharya and Sen (2003), people turn out to be champions of the organizations with which they identify. Although there are lots of WOM studies dating back to Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), the limited number has sought to link WOM intentions to its precursors clearly, and they have concentrated more on the direct causality between product-related or service-related features and WOM (Hong and Yang 2009). Scholars have rarely investigated the association between organization-related attributes such as corporate social responsibility and WOM.

5 Hypothesis Development

5.1 Awareness of CSR and Attitude, Subjective Norm, Self-identity, Perceived Behavioral Control and WOM Intention

The awareness of an organization’s CSR actions is a good predictor of behavior (Wigley 2008; Maignan 2001). Earlier studies (e.g., Mohr et al. 2001) reported that low knowledge and awareness of an organization’s CSR initiatives is a primary issue limiting the people’s positive responses to the organization’s CSR activities. Increased awareness of CSR activities will influence the attitude of an individual towards the organization (Fatma and Rahman 2015). Increased awareness of the social responsibility of government is also assumed to be the reason for the positive attitudes and increased the perception of one’s capability to perform socially responsible behaviors among Chinese energy consumers (Zhou et al. 2013). Awareness of an organization’s CSR activities will influence an individual’s perception of societal norms (Raub and Blunschi 2014) if the perception is deemed positive, the individual can be influenced to adopt a corresponding self-identity.

Therefore this study hypothesizes that:

H1–H4: Students’ awareness of University’s CSR will positively influence the students’ attitude, subjective norm, self-identity and perceived behavioral control

5.2 Impact of Attitude, Subjective Norm, Self-identity and Perceived Behavioral Control on Intention

Findings from prior research confirm the ability of self-identity, subjective norms and attitude and PBC to predict individuals’ behavioral intention (see Chan and Bishop 2013; Chen and Peng 2012, Han et al. 2010, Kim et al. 2013). In this study, the outcomes of an individual’s PBC, subjective norm, and attitude are WOM intentions. Since a person’s attitude is understood as the person’s overall effect toward a particular behavior, it reveals the person’s overall appraisal of the badness or goodness in carrying out the behavior after evaluating the consequences of behavioral beliefs. That is, if an individual has favorable attitudes regarding certain behavior, the person has greater chances of engaging in such behavior. On the other hand, if an individual has a negative attitude regarding certain behavior, such a person is unlikely to engage in such behavior. Hence, this study posits that

H5: Student’s attitude towards recommending a socially responsible university, will strongly influence the intention to engage in positive WOM about his/her socially responsible university

Subjective norm is based on what an individual’s normative beliefs regarding what most of the people who are important to him/her think and the degree to which such a person is willing to conform to what they think (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980). In other words, if social responsibility is regarded as a virtuous deed by a person’s significant others, and the person also has a high impetus to conform to his/her significant others, such a person will have stronger intention to engage in socially responsible behaviors. Therefore, if the behavior is acceptable socially, the intent to carry out the behavior is high. For this reason, this study posits that

H6 : A student’s subjective norm will strongly predict the intention to engage in positive WOM about his/her socially responsible university

Conner and Abraham (2001) believe that an individual’s behavior is greatly influenced by his/her self-assurance in his/her capability to display the proposed behavior. When an individual believes that they possess very little control over the performance of a certain kind of behavior due to lack of necessary resources, such an individual’s intentions to engage in the behavior may be low even if they have a positive subjective norm and/or attitude about the said behavior. Consequently, the following hypothesis is developed:

H7 : A student’s perceived control to act recommend a socially responsible university will positively influence the intention to engage in positive WOM about his/her socially responsible university

Consumers identify with organizations when they observe that there is an overlap between their self-identity and the organization’s CSR activities (El-Kassar et al. 2019; Lichtenstein et al. 2004). Such identification is seen in more positive behavioral intention towards the organization such as continuance, positive word of mouth communication and loyalty (Bhattacharya and Sen 2004). When customers speak positively about an organization, it provides the means of expressing their self-identity (Arnett et al. 2003). Consequently, the following hypothesis is developed:

H8: A student’s self-identity as a socially responsible person will positively influence the intention to engage in positive WOM about his/her socially responsible university

Consumers’ awareness of an organization’s efforts to be socially responsible is likely to influence their intention to engage in positive WOM about the organization (Kang and Hustvedt 2014). Consumers are very likely to engage in positive WOM about companies they are aware of being sharing their ethical values (Maxham and Netemeyer 2003). Handelman and Arnold (1999) argued that organizations whose customers are aware not to be violating industry norms associated with social responsibility receive positive WOM. Thus we propose that

H9 : Awareness of CSR activities will directly influence WOM intentions

6 Methodology and Results

The primary data for this study were obtained through a structured questionnaire administered to students of Eastern Mediterranean University. The survey scales of this study were drawn from different constructs’ pre-existing measures and adapted to the HEI context. Subjective norm is drawn from Liang et al. (2013); Perceived behavioural control from Kim and Han (2010); positive WOM intention from Prayag et al. (2017); awareness of CSR from Raub and Blunschi (2014) and Maignan (2001); attitude from Ajzen (1991); continuance intention from Kim et al. (2013) and self-identity from Shephard et al. (1995). Demographics of the level of study, gender, and age were included in the second part of the survey questionnaire. The respondents participated voluntarily in the survey by filling the self-administered questionnaires. All responses were on a 5-point Likert scale, from “1: totally disagree” to “5: totally agree”. The statistical analyses of the study were performed using AMOS 23.0 and SPSS 23.0. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was first carried out to determine the quality of the measurement model (that is, the model fit), discriminant as well as convergent validity. After which, Hayes’ (2013) SPSS PROCESS macro was employed in conducting the study model’s path analysis. Based on George and Mallery’s (2010) recommendation, other analyses, particularly the kurtosis and skewness of the distribution of the variables were also scrutinized, and all were in the −2 to 2 range, which suggests normality of the distribution. The sample consisted of 214 respondents; 57.9% male, 42.1% female. 75.7% aged 18–29 years, 21.5% aged 25–34, and 2.8% aged 35–44. 76% were undergraduate students, 19.6% were Masters Students, and 4.2% were Ph.D. students.

Outcome from the CFA revealed that the data, and the model fits: χ2 (231) = 362.142, p = .000; χ2/df = 1.568; CFI = .94; SRMR = .0544; RMSEA = .052. Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) conditions were used to evaluate the discriminant and convergent validity of our data. Table 1 shows the standardized factor loadings, average variance extracted (AVE), internal consistency (α), and composite reliability (CR) of all constructs. Excluding two items from the subjective norm and perceived behavioral control (which were subsequently removed), the other items loaded onto their corresponding latent construct. CR values, as well as Cronbach’s alphas, surpassed the 0.70 thresholds. The AVEs exceeded .50 except for that of Awareness, which is 0.481. Although 0.50 is the acceptable threshold of reliability, Malhotra and Dash (2011) argue that reliability can be established via CR alone because AVE is too strict. Hidayah et al. (2019) likewise insisted that latent variables’ AVE can still be below 0.50 if its composite reliability is satisfactory.

Each variable AVE’s square root was more than the inter-correlations with other variables, as shown in Table 2. Overall, these results sustained discriminant and convergent validity.

Table 1. Constructs reliability, Factors loadings, and Cronbach’s Alpha
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Table 2. Discriminant validity criterion and intercorrelations
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7 Hypotheses Testing

To test the hypotheses of the awareness-behavioral intention link through PBC, self-identity, attitudes, and subjective norms, a parallel multiple mediation analysis was carried out using PROCESS model 4 (Hayes 2013). Before this, an average value of all the items in each of the construct was calculated. All the hypothesized direct effects were supported (H1–H9) except for the relationship between WOM intention and social identity (H8) (see details in Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Research model with analysis results. Note: † = p<.100; * = p< .05; ** = p<.01; *** =  p<.001 (2-tailed).

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The statistical significance of the tested indirect effects was provided by a 95% bias-corrected and accelerated confidence interval (BCa CI) bootstrap with 10,000 resamples. As shown in Table 3, the association between awareness of CSR and WOM intention is jointly and partially mediated by the variables of the extended TPB model (self-identity, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and attitudes).

Table 3. Total, Direct, and Indirect Effect
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8 Discussion and Conclusion

The findings of this study revealed that awareness of universities’ CSR activities significantly influences the WOM intention of students through a TPB model, extended to include self-identity. This is by the findings of Lee and Shin (2010) and Pomering and Dolnicar (2009), which recognize that awareness of CSR activities influences consumer behaviors. The insignificant relationship between social self-identity and WOM intention is contrary to our proposed hypothesis (H8); failing to confirm the findings of Brown et al. (2005). This could be explained by Biddle et al. (1987) argument that self-identity, norms, and attitudes do not have the same motivational roots. People imitate norms for fear of external sanction by significant others and follow attitudes based on instrumental reasons. However, people act in harmony with their self-identity based on self-verification reasons. Another argument to support this could be that self-identity might merely be reflecting past performances of behavior and not necessarily predicting a future behavioral-intention (Rise et al. 2010). Unlike self-identity, this study confirms that PBC is a strong predictor of behavioral intentions. This finding confirms the inferences of Carfora et al. (2017).

Theoretically, the current study contributes to the existing body of knowledge in CSR research by proposing and empirically supporting an extended TPB model to predict students’ WOM intentions as a result of being aware of their universities CSR activities. This further confirms the predictive ability of the TPB model in general and particularly its ability to predict WOM intentions. Also, the model tested in the present study incorporated WOM intention. This integration is important since several studies on the attitude-behavioral intention model in social responsibility, and consumer’s behavior towards CSR have largely only explored purchase intentions. According to Chu and Kim (2011), WOM is critically important in our world where “friends” attitude towards corporate behavior is only a “click” away. Also, the present study contributes to the studies in higher education since only limited studies have applied the TPB in that field. This is a significant contribution largely because studies that have investigated the influence of CSR on stakeholders’ behavioral-intentions have hardly considered the higher education sector.

Managerially, this study reveals that attention has to be given to the significant role played by students’ understanding and awareness of their university’s CSR activities as this has been empirically proven to influence their WOM intention which is an effective form of promotion and reputation building for the university. Hence, these findings provide further reassurance to universities considering or probably undetermined to invest resources in ensuring sustainable and socially responsible practices.

This study has certain limitations. One of which is the sample drawn from the student population of one university only. This makes it difficult to generalize the findings of this study. Another is that this study focused on the effect of CSR awareness on WOM intentions but has not established any association between intentions and actual behavior. Thus, future studies can examine the link between behavioral-intentions influenced by awareness of CSR and the actual behavior.