The Determinants of Employee Commitment to CSR: A Qualitative Study in a Temporary Work Company

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the determinant of employees’ commitment in responsible practices requested by companies. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the means for European Union and, more particularly, France to foster social inclusion at the work place. For decades, reaching this goal has led to operational difficulties. However, human resource management has gradually become CSR-proof. Employees are simultaneously the recipients of CSR-policies and their actors. CSR induces changes in the psychological contract, i.e. the employees’ mental schema (Rousseau, 1995, 2001) of the employment relationship. Our research is rooted into ethnography in a major French temporary work company. We led 23 interviews to delimit socially responsible behaviors and took part to a 12-month (mainly) non-participant observation. Meanwhile, we also interviewed 11 managers and their 23 recruiters to analyze their mental schemas. Our findings, based on a structural analysis of content (Mucchielli, 1998), show that recruiters and agency managers justify their commitment based on legal rules, company standards and occupational norms. Moreover, operational employees’ commitment depends on the management of their role and self-identification.