"We are watching you": investigation of consumer-employee perception gaps and the employee expectations-employer performance gaps

Abstract

Based on the social contract theory and social exchange theories, this study examined the Corporations’ social responsibility (CSR) gaps perceived by fashion firms’ internal (i.e., employees) and external (i.e., consumers) stakeholders. In addition, to more deeply understand employees’ perspectives, this study empirically measured the CSR performance gap between employees’ expectations for the CSR standards the industry should achieve and employees’ perceptions of their employers’ CSR performance. This study then explored how the extent of negative incongruence (i.e., when the employer’s CSR performance does not meet the employee’s CSR standards) influenced employees’ attitudes and behaviors with the moderating role of the employees’ work experience. For this, we selected two global fashion firms: H&M and Nike. Through an online survey, 865 usable responses were collected (H&M retail employee n = 158, consumer n = 275; Nike retail employee n = 157, consumers n = 275). One-way Analysis of Variance and a post hoc test showed that the consumer groups for H&M and Nike indicated significantly lower levels of CSR perceptions than those of the employees of each brand. Moreover, the results of structural equation modeling revealed that negative incongruence between the expected industry standard and perceptions of the firm's performance in the area of CSR discouraged organizational commitment, which in turn decreased organizational citizenship behavior and increased turnover intentions. The moderating effect of work experiencewas not found. The originality of this study is that it quantitatively examined both internal and external stakeholders’ CSR perceptions and employees’ CSR perception gaps. The findings provide valuable academic and managerial implications.