The effect of social CRM capability components on service innovation in Vietnamese commercial banks: The mediating role of customer knowledge

Abstract

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractCommercial banks invest heavily in social media to manage customer relationships; however, it remains unclear which components of social CRM capability drive service innovation and through what mechanism. This study aims to determine how each component of social CRM capability – information generation, information dissemination, and market responsiveness – affects service innovation in Vietnamese commercial banks, and to what extent customer knowledge mediates these effects. In May 2026, an online questionnaire was distributed among 800 managers and specialists who operate social media channels and develop services at Vietnamese commercial banks; 372 valid responses were analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling. Market responsiveness has the largest direct effect on service innovation (β = 0.225, p < 0.001); information dissemination has a weaker direct effect (β = 0.146, p = 0.010), whereas information generation has no direct effect (β = 0.043, p = 0.418) and operates entirely through customer knowledge (indirect effect = 0.084). Information dissemination carries the largest coefficient on customer knowledge (β = 0.310, p < 0.001), and customer knowledge in turn positively affects service innovation (β = 0.362, p < 0.001). The model explains 35.4% of the variance in customer knowledge and 40.1% of the variance in service innovation. Bootstrap tests show only the advantage of market responsiveness over information generation to be significant. Banks should therefore treat responsiveness and cross-functional dissemination as complements rather than alternatives.AcknowledgmentThis research is partly funded by the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City and the University of Finance – Marketing.