Abstract:
With the increasing prominence of corporate sustainability, corporate social responsibility and
social activism in the corporate environment, the perceived notion of being a responsible and
authentic corporate citizen is critical to business survival. Stakeholder theory posits that
business stakeholders are an essential component to their success and longevity, and with an
added consumer focus on social activities in all its forms, firms are to be purposeful around
their value add to their socially conscious consumers. Loyalty programs (LPs) have become
an essential tool to manage consumer expectations and collaboration. Historically, LPs have
been highly commercially focused by encouraging commercial behaviours for customer fiscal
gain.
The South African retail banking firm landscape is well known, and market share is dominated
by the five large banking groups. A recent development is the incorporation of firm social or
sustainability targets into LPs. This study leveraged the concepts of stakeholder theory to
determine the consumer attitudes, motivators and deterrents of having social causes
embedded into bank LPs for customer reward donation. Further, to uncover the associated
effects on brand perception.
This study adopted a qualitative, exploratory research methodology underpinned by
stakeholder theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with SA retail banking
customers to understand the abovementioned phenomena. The primary research outcomes
were that SA retail banks are required to play a more purposeful role in engaging their
consumers to enhance participation and contribution to social causes embedded into their
LPs. Even though SA retail banks have the platforms for consumers to participate and
contribute, consumer preferences, involvement, and more importantly, awareness was
lacking. Customer engagement was considered one dimensional and therefore, was in
conflict with stakeholder theory as consumers were not aware of social benefits.
