The impacts of social responsibility activities performed by GSM operators in Turkey on the customers' perceptions of brand image and their operator preferences

This study aims to investigate the impacts of social responsibility activities performed by GSM operators in Turkey on the customers' perceptions of brand image and their operator preferences. In accordance with this purpose, a sample of 1207 students studying at the degrees of associate, undergraduate and postgraduate in three universities located in Bilecik and Eskişehir provinces were surveyed by employing a self-administrated paper and pencil survey. In the creation of sample, convenience sampling which is one of the non-random sampling methods was used. The analysis of research participant's profiles and explanatory factor analysis were executed by using SPSS 11 statistical package program. SmarPLS program was used in order to perform confirmatory factor analysis, to construct measurement model and to test structural model. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that the perceptions at the economic level directly and positively affected the perceptions of the customers about brand image. While it has been found that social responsibility implementations related to environment are making a positive to both brand awareness and perceived brand image in a suprising way, contrary to what is stated in hypotheses, social dimension has no significant effect on brand awareness and brand image. Moreover, contrary to expectations, the awareness of GSM brand does not directly and positively affect customers' evaluations of brand equity. In addition to this, it has been found that brand image mediates the relationship between brand awareness and brand equity. The most powerful effects that emerged in the model test are the direct and positive effect of the brand equity on the customer's attitude and this attitude on the behavioral intention of the customer. The contributions of study results to both theory and practice were discussed at the end of the paper. Finally, it was provided some directions for the prospective research.