Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Engagement in Jordan

Abstract

Purpose: to investigate the impact of internal Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices on Employees' Engagement. Specifically, it examines the impacts of five internal CSR practices namely, training and education, human rights, health and safety, work life balance and workplace diversity on the two dimensions of employees' engagement Job Engagement (JE) and Organisational Engagement (OE). Design/methodology/approach: it utilizes a nonprobability sampling method in the forms of quota and convenience sampling. The proposed model was tested on a sample of 336 frontline employees working in the banking sector in Jordan. Findings: the testing of several hypothetical relationships between internal CSR and employee engagement revealed that all the relationships were significant. Moreover, it shows that CSR practices are not highly adopted within the banking sector in Jordan. Only one dimension of internal CSR, namely work life balance as being less adopted compared with the other four dimensions of internal CSR. The impact of internal CSR practices on OE was greater as compared with that of JE. This implies that internal CSR practices could predict employees’ OE stronger than their JE. Practical implications/originality/value: The study has made significant contributions to the body of knowledge at academic and practical levels by extending knowledge regarding the impact of CSR particularly internal CSR on employee attitude and behavior. Also through examining the impact of various dimensions of internal CSR on two dimensions of EE in a developing countries business environment, the banking sector in Jordan. Specifically, this study answers the call by many researchers for more studies to address the relationship between CSR activities and organizational performance in emerging economies.