The Hidden Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

Environmental activities, for instance actions against climate change, are an important part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This paper studies how a employer's environmental CSR activities affect the pro-environmental behavior of its employees. To do so, we conducted a large-scale field experiment on a crowd-working platform in which the employer's environmental CSR level varied exogenously. We find that employer CSR positively influenced workers' pro-environmental behavior outside the job. Workers who received information that their employer engaged in environmental CSR were more likely to contribute, and contributed higher amounts, to an environmental charity in a private donation decision. Our findings indicate that the impact of CSR may be farther reaching than directly observable by firm activities alone. By using CSR, employers have the potential to influence the behavior of their employees in non-work domains. Our findings have important implications for managers of organizations engaging (or planning to engage) in environmental CSR.