The perceived CSR-innovative behavior conundrum: Towards unlocking the socio-emotional black box

Abstract

Though perceived Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been linked to various employee outcomes in prior studies, its impact on the innovative behavior of employees, and more specifically the socio-emotional underpinnings of this impact have remained inadequately explored. In view of this, drawing on the Affective Events Theory (AET), the current study investigates into the role of organizational pride and affective commitment as potential mediators and empathy as a potential moderator influencing the relationship between perceived CSR and employee innovative behavior. Results of structural equation modeling, bootstrapping and PROCESS applied on three-wave, time-lagged multi-source (self and peer-reported) data (N = 270) from employees belonging to renewable energy organizations in India, reveal that: perceived CSR is positively related to employee innovative behavior; organizational pride and affective commitment, each partially mediate the relationship between perceived CSR and innovative behavior; interestingly, taken together, organizational pride and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between perceived CSR and employee innovative behavior, and that’s a full mediation; beyond these mediations is the pronounced impact of empathy, which is found to moderate the indirect effect of perceived CSR on employee innovative behavior, such that the impact of perceived CSR on innovative behavior through organizational pride and affective commitment is stronger when employees hold high levels of empathy. Accordingly, the study puts forth crucial implications for theory and specifically practitioners facing the current tough times. It lastly suggests directions for future research.