Community-Perceived External Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Image in Peru’s Chimbote Fishing Industry: A Higher-Order PLS-SEM Analysis

Externally oriented corporate social responsibility (ESR), defined here as the community- and environment-facing domain of CSR, may shape how residents evaluate firms in environmentally sensitive industries. This study examines the predictive association between community-perceived ESR and corporate image using a stratified random sample of 384 adults from the Chimbote metropolitan area, Peru. A 21-item ESR instrument and a 20-item corporate-image instrument were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), with corporate image specified as a Type I reflective-reflective higher-order construct comprising reputation, trust, perceived responsibility, social commitment, and familiarity/recognition. ESR was positively associated with corporate image (β = 0.519, t = 13.934, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.449, 0.595]), explaining 26.9% of its variance (R2 = 0.269; f2 = 0.368; Q2 = 0.265). The five first-order image dimensions displayed substantial empirical overlap, supporting a higher-order representation in this sample. Common-method-bias diagnostics, confirmatory factor analysis, covariance-based SEM, and robust OLS estimates supported the stability of the association. The findings suggest that consistent, visible, and community-oriented responsibility practices are associated with more favorable corporate evaluations in a high-salience fishing context. Because the design is cross-sectional, the results should be interpreted as predictive associations rather than causal effects and should not be generalized beyond comparable settings without replication.