“I’m sorry.”—“No, you’re not!” Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Hypocritical CSR Communication

Abstract

The amount of micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) research focusing on employee behavior has been continually growing over the past two decades. While most of the research has been focusing on positive behavioral and attitudinal outcomes of CSR, adverse effects have been largely neglected. Applying social and moral identification theory, this research project explores how hypocritical communication, i.e., the misalignment between CSR and a company’s crisis response strategies in the aftermath of a corporate scandal, affects worker misbehavior. Based on field experimental data from an online labor market (n = 478), I find evidence that perceived hypocrisy increases undesirable worker behavior, such as shirking and withholding job effort. Given the immense financial cost caused by employee misbehavior managers and company leaders should make managing CSR perceptions a key priority. My contribution to our understanding of microlevel CSR theory, in this case the link between hypocritical CSR and employee misbehavior, thus, can provide a basis for cost savings and risk mitigation.