How Do Employees Bolster Corporate Social Responsibility?

Abstract

Although previous studies have explored the role of legal framework, industry norms, innovation, and the use of clean technologies in achieving corporate social responsibility, they have paid little attention to (1) the role of employees in increasing a firm’s corporate social responsibility initiatives and (2) human resource practices that may help the firm increase its involvement in corporate social responsibility activities. This article develops a model based on social identity theory and proposes that employees whose organizational identification is rooted in the corporate social responsibility of the firm may influence the corporate social responsibility actions of the firm through participation in the decision-making process. Data were obtained from 421 employees of 16 large, fast-moving consumer goods manufacturers in Pakistan. The findings demonstrate that employee participation in decision making has a positive effect on all three components of corporate social responsibility (community, environmental, and employees). Moreover, the findings show that the impact of employee participation in decision making on corporate social responsibility is moderated by organizational identification in such a way that when employees have a higher sense of identification with their organization, their participation in decision making has a greater impact on the corporate social responsibility actions of their organization. However, this moderation effect was not significant for the relationship between participation in decision making and environment-related corporate social responsibility activities.