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Purpose: Extending from the line of extant research on CSR effectiveness, this study intends to examine the mediating role of franchisees’ commitment on the relationship between franchise company’s CSR initiatives and franchisees’ relationship orientation. In doing so, CSR initiatives are broken down into two sub-dimensions: economic and philanthropic responsibilities, and commitment is subdivided into calculative and affective commitment. Research design, data, and methodology: Measurement items were measured using a Likert-type 5-point scale based on previous studies. An online survey was conducted on franchisees currently operating a business and 150 samples were used for the final analysis. Reliability test and confirmatory factor analysis were performed for research validity and reliability. Results: The perceptions of economic and philanthropic responsibilities of franchisers had all significant effects on relationship orientation of franchisees. Additionally, it was found that calculative commitment mediates the relationship between economic responsibility and relationship orientation while affective commitment plays the same mediating role in the relationship between philanthropic responsibility and relationship orientation. Implications: The long-term relationship between a franchise company and franchisees can be indirectly enhanced by the perceptions of economic and philanthropic responsibilities and mediated by franchisees’ calculative and affective commitment. Theoretically, this study finds new evidence for unveiling the complex nature of CSR effectiveness, especially in the context of B2B marketing and relationship management of franchise business. Practically, this study implies that given the influential role of commitment in the relationship management with franchisees, CSR managers may wish to implement an aggressive marketing communication campaign to let audience clearly understand the nature of their CSR initiatives, especially its commitment to economic or philanthropic responsibilities.
