Intrinsic Corporate Social Responsibility Research Articles

To Leave or Stay During the COVID-19 Crisis: Exploring the Impacts of CSR Motives on Employee Distrust and Turnover Intentions

ABSTRACT In response to the increasing prominence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates the interplay between employees’ perceived CSR motives, distrust in their employer, perceived crisis controllability, and turnover intention. Using a structural equation model and data from a survey of 740 U.S. employees, our findings indicate that intrinsic CSR heightens employees’ distrust in their organization, whereas extrinsic CSR reduces it. This distrust intensifies employees’ turnover intentions. Employees’ perceived crisis controllability, a personal risk assessment of the situation, mediates the relationship between employee distrust and turnover intention. The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

How and when responsible leadership facilitates work engagement: a moderated mediation model

PurposeLeaders are under increasing pressure to cultivate an engaged workforce in responsible ways, but how and when responsible leadership is related to employee work engagement remains unclear. Hence, this study aims to unfold the responsible leadership–work engagement relationship by exploring the mediating role of intrinsic corporate social responsibility (CSR) attributions and the moderating role of interactional justice.Design/methodology/approachA multiphase sample of 225 was collected from employees from the Chinese manufacturing industry. Hierarchical regression and PROCESS macro in SPSS were used to test the authors’ moderated mediation model.FindingsThe results demonstrate that responsible leadership is directly related to work engagement and indirectly related to it via employees' intrinsic CSR attributions. Interactional justice significantly strengthens the positive relationship between responsible leadership and intrinsic CSR attributions as well as the mediating effects of intrinsic CSR attributions.Practical implicationsTo cultivate an engaged workforce that improves organizational effectiveness, firms and managers should facilitate responsible leadership, signal sincere motives of CSR activities and enhance fair interpersonal treatment at work. These can also be helpful in various fields (e.g. promoting public trust).Originality/valueBased on social learning theory and attribution theory, this study empirically reveals the role of responsible leadership in enhancing work engagement. It sheds new light on the psychological mechanism and the boundary condition explaining how and when this linkage occurs, which advances research on responsible leadership and the individual-level analysis of CSR.

The Impact of the CSR-Embedded Crisis Response: The Role of Values Congruence between Leadership Styles and CSR Motives

Grounded in the values congruence proposition, this study examined the interplay between leadership styles and corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives in different crisis contexts. The results of a 2 (crisis type) × 2 (leadership style) × 2 (CSR motives) between-subjects experiment showed that the congruent combination of leadership styles and CSR motives maximized the insulating effect of CSR practice but only when the crisis type was victim. In a victim crisis, utilizing intrinsic CSR motives gained greater word-of-mouth intention and purchase intention when combined with transformational leadership than with transactional leadership. In a preventable crisis, the positive effect of values congruence disappeared and even backfired. More specifically, the congruence between transactional leadership and extrinsic CSR motives amplified the negative impact of a crisis. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Organization-related determinants of employees’ CSR motive attributions and affective commitment in hospitality companies

An extensive review of the hospitality literature revealed a limited number of empirical studies on employees' corporate social responsibility (CSR)-induced attributions and their organization-related predictors. This paper aims to examine the relationship between perceived behavioral integrity in organization, perceived organization's in-out CSR alignment, employees' CSR-induced attributions, and affective commitment. Data were collected from 499 employees of chain hotels operating in İstanbul, Turkey. The research model was analyzed using partial least squares of structural equation modeling. The results showed that perceived behavioral integrity in organization and perceived organization's in-out CSR alignment had a positive influence on intrinsic CSR attributions and a negative influence on extrinsic CSR attributions. Employees' affective commitment was positively influenced by intrinsic CSR attributions, whereas it was negatively influenced by extrinsic CSR attributions. The findings provide some important implications for hospitality companies about how to ensure employees' affective commitment through CSR practices. Theoretical implications and avenues for future research are presented.

The role of leadership in shared value creation from the public’s perspective: A multi-continental study

Porter and Kramer’s concept of creating shared value (CSV) has been welcomed as an approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) among corporations that also provides a practical opportunity for dialogue in public relations, but it has been little examined from the general population’s (i.e., the public’s) perspective. Such scrutiny is important because its findings enable public relations to contribute to the debate and development of CSV from both the public’s and the organization’s viewpoints. Additionally, if public relations professionals understand how the public perceives CSV, they can give a strategic perspective to top management for maximizing moral capabilities of the business and formulate effective communication to promote CSV initiatives. This study investigates whether the public prefers corporations to practice CSV as opposed to intrinsic CSR as a separate pursuit from business interests. It also explores the role of leadership as an influential and ethical construct in implementing effective CSV as perceived by the public. The public’s preference for CSV over intrinsic CSR was revealed in a survey of 1784 participants in the United States (US), Germany, and China. Factor analysis results further suggested that effective CSV competencies of CEOs were construed as a unidimensional concept in the US, but German and Chinese participants viewed it as two-dimensional. The public perceived that leaders’ moral character played a more important, core role in effective CSV than did altruistic and behavioral attributes, across nations. Network analysis of the perceived effective CSV-characteristics provides further implications for CSV communication.

Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Attributions on Employees’ Creative Performance: The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety

This study contributes to the growing literature on individual-level outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Employing a sample of 339 subordinate–supervisor dyads, we explored the differential impact of CSR attributions on employees’ creative performance in the telecom industry. We also introduced and tested the role of psychological safety as a mediator underlying this relationship. The results indicate that although intrinsic CSR attributions are not directly related to creative performance, extrinsic CSR attributions have a significant negative effect on creative performance. We also found that psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between intrinsic CSR and creative performance and the negative relationship between extrinsic CSR and creative performance. Directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

Linking corporate social responsibility attributions and creativity: Modeling work engagement as a mediator

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine whether employees attribute different motives to corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of the organization and if these motives predict employee creativity. In addition, the study aims to explore the underlying psychological mechanism by proposing work engagement as a mediator of the relationship between CSR attributions and creativity. Sample for the study consisted of 219 employees from various IT organizations in India known for their CSR engagement. Exploratory factor analysis, CFA and SEM bootstrapping procedures were used to test the study hypotheses with the help of SPSS AMOS 24. Results indicate that employees differentiate the motives behind organizational CSR engagement as intrinsic and extrinsic. These motives were found to differentially impact work engagement and creativity. Intrinsic CSR attributions related positively and significantly with creativity, and work engagement fully mediated the relationship. However, extrinsic CSR attributions failed to show any significant relationship with both work engagement and creativity. By highlighting the role of the attributions in the context of CSR, this research provides important information on why organizational CSR involvement may not always yield positive results for the organization. The study identifies managing employees’ skepticism as a critical success factor in the implementation of CSR to optimize the returns on CSR investments. The findings also carry significant implications for managers and policy makers of Indian IT industry in terms of how they devise, implement and communicate CSR plans and strategy.

The Effect of Global Logistics Firms’ Engagement in Social Responsibility on Customers’ Perception of Price Fairness -Experimental Evidence in Korea-

일반적으로 고객들은 기업의 사회적 책임 활동에 대해 긍정적인 반응을 나타내는 것으로 알려져 있다. 기존 문헌들 역시 기업의 사회적 책임활동이 기업 경영의 바람직한 성과에 대한 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것을 입증해 왔다. 그러나 글로벌 배송기업의 사회적 책임활동이 고객 애호도와 같은 바람직한 성과의 원동력인 될 수 있는 고객들의 지각된 가격 공정성에 미치는 영향에 대한 검증은 미비하다. 특히, 글로벌 배송기업의 서비스 가격에 이러한 기업의 사회적 책임활동 수행비용이 포함되는 경우 이를 고객들이 어떻게 받아들일지에 대한 검증이 필요하다. 본 연구에서는 글로벌 배송기업의 사회적 책임활동과 고객들의 지각된 가격 공정성의 관계와 이 관계가 고객들에게 내재된 기업의 사회적 책임활동에 대한 속성에 의해 조절되는지를 검증하였다. 이러한 검증을 위해 피실험자 간 실험 디자인을 통해 수집된 자료를 바탕으로 실증분석이 이루어졌다. 본 논문에서는 이론적으로 글로벌 배송기업의 사회적 책임활동과 고객들의 지각된 가격 공정성, 그리고 고객들의 사회적 책임활동에 대한 내재적 속성의 관계를 설명하는 개념적 모형이 제시되었다. 또한 실무적으로 글로벌 배송기업들에게 고객들의 지각된 가격 공정성에 대한 기업의 사회적 책임 활동의 효과를 최적화하기 위한 전략이 제시되었다.Although many logistics firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, prior research has little investigated the effects of those firms’ engagement in CSR on customers’ perception of price fairness. Drawing on the social exchange theory and the instrumental stakeholder theory, the author develops a conceptual framework that can explain the effect of global logistics firms’ CSR engagement on perceived price fairness and the moderating role of customers’ intrinsic attribution of CSR. A between-subjects scenario experiment was conducted to manipulate participants’ perceived level of a global logistics firm’s engagement in CSR. The effects of the experimental treatment were analyzed with an analysis of variance. The results of the analysis shows that customers’ perception of price fairness is significantly lower in the experiment group than in the control group and that customers’ perception of price fairness is significantly higher for high intrinsic CSR attribution than for low intrinsic CSR attribution. The findings of the present study propose an underlying psychological mechanism liking global logistics firms’ engagement in CSR to customers’ perception of price fairness, in which the perception depends crucially on customers’ CSR attribution. Finally, the author suggests strategies for global logistics firms to optimize the effect of CSR engagement on customers’ perception of price fairness.

Ethics of the firm, for the firm or in the firm? Purpose of extrinsic and intrinsic CSR in Switzerland

Purpose Despite the increased recognition and emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a topic and highly formalised CSR control systems, numerous well-publicised problems and scandals often involving multinational enterprises (MNEs) continue to emerge. These companies are mostly extrinsically motivated in CSR. They operate with highly formalised CSR systems that, in many cases, miss the prevention of anti-social and illegal behaviour. This might reflect the failure of extrinsic CSR to integrate the ethical dimension and/or the failure of intrinsic CSR to formalise and thus benefit from economies of scale. Currently, the conviction is growing that if CSR is to have a meaningful impact, it should be a matter of intrinsic motives, morale and ethical values rather than a formalised management tool. This research aims to focus on a sample of small and large companies in Switzerland, aiming at a comparison of key motives for CSR related to actual CSR implementation, performance and company size. Design/methodology/approach The study examined two groups: seven owner-managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and seven managers of MNEs. Each group met for two focus group discussions that were qualitatively and visually analysed using MAXQDA. Findings The results show that CSR implementation in the examined Swiss SMEs is more related to moral commitment than to profit maximisation. These companies are often driven by soft assets, such as networks, by the nexus of mission and value set; by a system of initiatives and integrated behaviour; by proximity and informal, flat organisational structures; by the aspiration and ambition of craftsmanship or excellent service (instead of profit); by community involvement; by recruiting from the local community; by the willingness to grow slowly and steadily; by the avoidance of atomic markets; and finally, by the mental set up and sociological tradition of the stewardship concept. This contrasts with the extrinsically motivated approach of the MNEs under research. While MNEs follow their approach of “ethics for the firm that must pay”, the findings here identified potential transition cases of “ethics in the firm” and “ethics of the firm” within Swiss SMEs. This is consistent with others, resembling the need of this dichotomy to be revised. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectorial approach limits the degree to which motives can clearly be attributed to actual CSR performance or company size. Practical implications The results imply that policymakers, public institutions, scientific community, etc. should be careful when establishing systems that favour financial returns from CSR engagement, because, first, other research showed that a behaviour attributed to extrinsic motives is mostly perceived as dishonest and misleading, for instance, consumers. Second, extrinsic motivation might crowd out morale and paying lead actors for behaving altruistically or philanthropically might decline their intrinsic motivation. Notably, the crowding out of intrinsic motivation by extrinsic incentives is a phenomenon well-researched not only in regard to CSR but in various other areas linked to human behaviour. This has important implications for nearly every business operation, especially for mergers and acquisitions, as well as for the growth of businesses. Social implications It seems unsuitable to support social goods in intrinsic CSR by the implementation of a system of financial incentives (or consequences). Thus, an economic cost-benefit is inappropriate where CSR needs an ethical stand. The difference between extrinsic and intrinsic CSR is very difficult to bridge – both have powerful incentives and drivers preventing a potential cross-over. Originality/value In sum, this study showed that CSR is meaningful and justifiable even if it is not profitable in the first place or implemented in and managed through formalised systems. This leads to two conclusions: first, care should be taken when emphasising the extrinsic approach in relation to social goods and second, the cost of a possible mismatch in a climate of ethical principles might be substantial for societies’ moral inclination.

Communication strategies for enhancing perceived fit in the CSR sponsorship context

Engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming an increasingly common business practice globally and across industries. By contributing to societal welfare, firms can also enhance their corporate image among its stakeholders – in particular, its customers. For CSR to generate goodwill, consumers generally need to perceive a fit between the sponsoring firm and its CSR. Otherwise, consumers may second-guess the firm’s intrinsic CSR motives, which may even evoke a negative reaction. In practice, however, many firms today engage in CSR activities that cover a wide spectrum of perceived fit. To this end, this research explores communication strategies (elaborational vs relational) that help elevate the perceived fit between the sponsoring firm and its CSR activity at high vs low levels. Specifically, we find elaborational communication strategy (which focuses on the merits of CSR activity per se and not on the association with the firm) to be more effective for the low-fit case, whereas relational communication strategy (which highlights the association between the company and CSR) was more effective for the high-fit case.