Enhancing B2B CSR: AI Driven CRM and technology readiness

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationship among technology readiness, the implementation of artificial intelligence-based customer relationship management, and the promotion of the corporate social responsibility of B2B companies active in Iran's auto parts supply industry. This study has an applicative nature and is based on the descriptive survey research method. The statistical population sample for this study included 247 people, all of them managers and senior experts at the analysed companies with at least 7 years of work experience. A questionnaire was applied for collecting research data, and its validity and reliability were confirmed through the combined reliability and Cronbach's alpha indices. After collecting the necessary data in order to test four research hypotheses, the structural equation modelling method was employed by using the SmartPLS software. The results for testing the first research hypothesis showed that technology readiness has a positive effect on corporate social responsibility and that it directly predicts 0.810 (81%) of the changes related to corporate social responsibility in the context of the analysed companies. Also, the analysis of the results obtained for testing the fourth research hypothesis showed that technology readiness through artificial intelligence-based customer relationship management has a positive effect on corporate social responsibility and that technology readiness indirectly predicts 0.493 (49.3%) of the changes related to corporate social responsibility. Based on this, it can be acknowledged that the analysed companies can take steps towards improving corporate social responsibility by increasing technology readiness, strengthening their communication technology infrastructure and also by improving customer relationship management capabilities through artificial intelligence.