Micro-foundations Of Corporate Social Responsibility Research Articles

CEO self-transcendent values influence top managers’ socially responsible behaviors: from a social learning perspective

Purpose This study aims to explore the impact of chief executive officers’ (CEOs) values on the socially responsible behaviors (SRBs) of top management teams. Drawing from the social learning framework, it examines the mechanisms through which CEOs’ values shape SRBs within organizational leadership. Design/methodology/approach Using the hierarchical regression model, this study assesses direct effects, while the Monte Carlo method is used to evaluate indirect effects. The analysis is based on time-lagged data collected from 122 CEOs and 287 corresponding top managers from small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. Findings The results indicate a positive correlation between CEOs’ self-transcendent values and their own SRBs (i.e. doing-good and avoiding harm behavior). This, in turn, promotes top managers’ SRBs. Originality/value By highlighting the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility, this study enriches the understanding of SRBs enhancement in management teams. It reveals the significance of CEO self-transcendent values as a precursor to SRBs and elucidates the learning processes involved.

How spirituality affects individuals’ attitudes towards corporate social responsibility: a moderated mediation model

Research on individuals’ attitudes toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) from a micro level has increasingly emerged in recent years, yet the role of spiritual values and principles has been ignored as its antecedents in extant literature. To fill the research gap, we examine the relationship between spirituality and individual CSR attitudes and further analyze this relationship by revealing the mediating role of idealism and the moderating role of relativism. Data were gathered from a two-wave survey conducted in Pakistan and 147 questionnaires were collected. The results indicate that spirituality is positively related to CSR attitudes, and this relationship is mediated by idealism. Relativism strengthens not only the positive relationship between spirituality and idealism but also the indirect relationship between spirituality and CSR attitudes via idealism. The findings contribute to the research on the micro-foundations of CSR by taking spirituality into account. Theoretical and practical implications for future research are also discussed.

I feel morally elevated by my organization’s CSR, so I contribute to it

While research addressing the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has often built on the deontic theory of justice to explain why employees care about their organization’s CSR, the mechanisms underlying this deontic path have seldom been examined. Therefore, we study moral elevation, an other-directed moral emotion that, according to deontic theory of justice, could help us understand why employees may react positively to their organization’s CSR even when it does not offer employees significant self-centered benefits. We advance that moral elevation substantiates the deontic mechanism put forward to explain why CSR translates into employees’ behavior supporting this CSR. We carry out an experiment and a survey that provide support for this hypothesis. By identifying moral elevation as a mechanism underlying the deontic path, our research provides empirical support for the deontic argument in micro-CSR research that employees care about CSR because CSR is the moral thing to do.

Employee reactions to CSR in the pursuit of meaningful work: A case study of the healthcare industry.

With the growing interest in the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility ('micro-CSR'), many questions linger regarding how the workforce reacts to CSR, which has consequences for their meaningful work experiences. To address this lack of understanding, we conducted an inductive, comparative case study of two healthcare organisations to examine how employees experience meaningful work through reacting to their organisation's CSR initiatives. We demonstrate how CSR triggers employees' meaning-making of work, which takes the form of a misalignment perceived between CSR at the strategic-level and CSR as it is implemented at the employee-level, limiting the experiences of meaningful work. We identify four proactive behaviours in which employees engage to infuse their work with meaning as a way of dealing with this experienced misalignment. We consolidate these behaviours into a typology of meaning-infusing behaviours in the context of CSR. Specifically, we found that when guided by the need for making a positive impact on their beneficiaries, employees engage in what we call 'reshaping work for impact' next to 'collectively enabling impact'. In contrast, when guided by the need for having a sense of meaningful membership, employees are guided by either 'creating a sense of belonging' or 'envisioning prosocial potential'. Through these behaviours, they either navigate within given organisational structures or enact new ones. Overall, we expand research on the CSR-meaningful work relationship, emphasising the role of employees' proactive behaviours in understanding their experiences and reactions to CSR initiatives in their pursuit of meaningful work. Moreover, we highlight implications for micro-CSR research and practice.

On the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility: a perspective based on dynamic managerial capabilities

PurposeThis study proposes that the three core underpinnings of dynamic managerial capabilities (DMCs) – managerial cognition, managerial human capital and managerial social capital – represent individual-level micro-foundations that influence corporate social responsibility (CSR). It further explores the interaction mechanism between the three underpinnings in influencing CSR, and their influence depends on the technological turbulence caused by big-data-related technologies.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a quantitative research method and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the relationship between latent factors based on a sample of 270 Chinese top managers.FindingsThe three core underpinnings of DMCs are positively related to CSR. Managerial human capital and managerial social capital mediate the relationship between managerial cognition and CSR. Technological turbulence's moderating effects are also tested. Specifically, technological turbulence amplifies the positive relationship between managerial cognition, managerial human capital and CSR but negatively moderates the relationship between managerial social capital and CSR.Originality/valueWhy are some firms more willing to participate in CSR than others mainly depend on the fact that the actual participants of CSR are the top managers who formulate strategies and implement CSR plans. This study, grounded in the DMCs framework and the upper echelons perspective, is arguably the first to link DMCs' three core underpinnings and CSR, and further explore the multiple drivers' mechanisms and boundary conditions. This study contributes to individual micro-foundation of CSR literature, and advances the understanding of whether and how top managers influence CSR engagement.

Sensemaking of environmental commitment: a socio-historical contextualization of post-Soviet managers’ views

The different social contexts and historical backgrounds of countries in which companies operate may influence how their managers understand and apply the concept of environmental commitment. Thus, the understanding of environmental commitment in the post-communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe can be expected to be different from the Western markets. This study sheds light on these issues by analyzing managerial stories about environmental commitment in Russia. It explains how managers’ sensemaking is shaped by the Soviet socio-historical context. This study contributes to the limited literature on environmental commitment in post-communist societies and provides a link between environmental commitment and sensemaking research, thus responding to recent calls for a clarification of the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility.

CEO Divorce and Corporate Social Responsibility: Are Divorced CEOs More Generous?

We build on the evolutionary psychology of generosity to understand how a CEO’s divorce influences their firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Evolutionary psychology explains that the absence of a partner imposes adaptive constraints, and leaders that demonstrate concern for others as well as for the environment are likely to improve their fitness by attracting a new partner. This suggests that compared to married CEOs, divorced CEOs will be more positively inclined towards CSR. This effect, we argue, increases the longer it has been since the CEO went through a divorce, is stronger for female CEOs, and when CEOs have more children. Using a matched sample of female and male CEOs from leading US firms, we found strong support for our theoretical model. It offers new insights on the link between CEOs’ personal values and firm-level actions that elaborate the role of evolutionary adaptations in the microfoundations of CSR.

Perceived corporate social responsibility and pro-environmental behaviour: Insights from business schools of Peshawar, Pakistan.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and environmental sustainability have become urgent concerns for contemporary businesses. This study focuses on the interplay between corporate social responsibility perceptions and pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) in response to experts’ call for research on the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility. In addition, it reveals the mechanism underpinning how perceived CSR shapes pro-environmental behaviour in an understudied developing context. Empirically, a qualitative multiple-case research design is utilised by selecting three business schools from Peshawar, Pakistan. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior management and faculty to collect data. Besides primary data, a qualitative documentary review is used to enhance the research. Data analysis is done through the thematic network technique. Plantation, cleanliness, waste reduction, and energy conservation are the environmental aspects of CSR as regarded by employees. In addition, perceived CSR shapes pro-environmental behaviour via environmental knowledge and awareness, eco-civic sense, environmental values, personality traits, religious perspective, and perceived organisational support for the environment. This study provides original additions to the CSR literature by suggesting eco-civic sensibility and religious perspective as new CSR drivers for pro-environmental conduct. Incorporating stakeholder salience into the context of the present study also advances CSR research. The findings are also valuable for management to make the CSR agenda of business schools more strategic, comprehensive, and centred on the priorities of salient stakeholders.

What's Charisma Got to Do with It? Two Faces of Charismatic Leadership and CSR Engagement

In this article, we examine the importance of leadership styles in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Drawing from charismatic leadership theory, we argue that the two distinct styles of charismatic leadership, personalized charismatic leadership (PCL) and socialized charismatic leadership (SCL) influence firm’s CSR engagement through different underlying mechanisms. Integrating with existing CSR typologies (internal-external CSR, institutional-technical CSR, reputation-enhancement and stakeholder-reciprocation strategic CSR and substantive-symbolic CSR), we propose that socialized charismatic leaders favor CSR initiatives that benefit a wide array of stakeholders while personalized charismatic leaders have the propensity to selectively engage in CSRs that address the needs of a particular group of stakeholders (external CSR, technical CSR, reputation enhancement strategic CSR and symbolic CSR). In doing so, our study advances knowledge about the micro-foundations of CSR and the unique pathways between leadership styles and CSR types.

I Feel Morally Elevated by My Organization’s CSR, So I Contribute to It

While the recent research addressing the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has often built on the theory of deontic justice to explain why employees care about their organization’s CSR, the mechanisms underlying this deontic justice path have not yet been examined. To address this gap, we study moral elevation – an other-directed moral emotion that, according to deontic justice theory, could help us understand better why employees may react positively to their organization’s CSR even when this CSR does not offer employees any instrumental or relational benefits. We hypothesize that moral elevation will help explain why CSR targeted at a secondary (as opposed to primary) stakeholder translates into organizational citizenship behavior supporting this CSR. We also examine a boundary condition to this mediation effect as we expect that the deontic justice path will be stronger when employees perceive their organizational identity orientation to match its CSR towards secondary stakeholders. We tested our moderated mediation model with data collected from 298 full-time employees, using a three-wave longitudinal design. Overall, by identifying moral elevation as a mechanism underlying the deontic justice path, our research provides empirical support for the deontic argument that employees care about CSR because CSR is the moral thing to do. Our work also supports the existence of a virtuous circle whereby an organization’s initial investments in CSR targeted at a secondary stakeholder generate larger benefits for this secondary stakeholder because they bring employees to contribute to this CSR, thereby benefiting this stakeholder beyond the initial investments.

Mortality Salience and CSR: The Moderating Roles of CEO Values and Ideology

Existing research has made contradictory arguments regarding how death saliency affects individual behavior. Some research suggests that individuals exposed to death salience reduce prosocial behaviors, while other research suggests that death salience actually leads individuals to engage in more prosocial behavior through death reflection process. Integrating terror management theory with strategic leadership research, this study investigates the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and theorizes that CEOs’ values and ideologies, particularly personal values for benevolence and political ideology, interact with mortality salience to affect the extent to which their firms engage in CSR strategies. In a longitudinal study of U.S. publicly listed firms, we use death of directors in firms during 2002-2013 as exogenous shocks to CEOs and examine the effects of death salience on CSR. We predict and find that when exposed to death salience, CEOs with greater benevolence values are more likely to engage in CSR practices and CEOs who are political conservative are less likely to engage in CSR. In a supplementary study using an experimental design and primary data from working professionals, we find further evidence that provides support for our predictions.

Translating Corporate Social Responsibility into Action: A Social Learning Perspective

Interest in the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown over the past decade. In this study, we draw on social learning theory to examine the effects of prosocial leaders on followers’ motivation to engage in CSR practices, and consequently on their CSR performance. Further drawing from social learning theory, we propose that followers’ trait compliance and leader-member exchange moderate the above relationships by affecting the conceptual mechanisms of social rewards and role-modeling motives. We tested our hypotheses with data from a sample of 138 employees (i.e., followers) who were responsible for implementing an organization-initiated CSR practice. Our results showed that among followers who were high in trait compliance, leaders’ prosocial motivation was positively associated with followers' CSR motivation. In addition, followers’ CSR motivation was positively related to their objective CSR performance when they had a high-quality relationship with their leaders. Our findings advance our understanding of the conditions under which leaders will be more versus less influential on followers’ motivation and engagement in CSR activities. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Critical Essay: The reconciliation of fraternal twins: Integrating the psychological and sociological approaches to ‘micro’ corporate social responsibility

Aguinis and Glavas’ call for a deeper understanding of the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility has spurred a growing number of empirical micro-CSR (corporate social responsibility) studies. Micro-CSR scholars share the common goal of developing a clear picture of the microfoundations of CSR—a holistic theoretical and empirical understanding of how individual actions and interactions drive CSR-related activity—but pursue this objective from a variety of angles. Our research suggests that although many scholars work under the same ‘micro-CSR’ banner, they approach their goal from a wide range of disciplines, use different methodologies, and study different phenomena. In this critical essay, we show that most micro-CSR research can be classified in one of two distinct sub-fields: ‘psychological micro-CSR’ and ‘sociological micro-CSR.’ We compare the differences between these orientations (including their distinct empirical approaches, and contributions of both fields of micro-CSR) and explore possible opportunities for cross-fertilization between the psychological and sociological approaches. Finally, we suggest ways in which micro-CSR scholars could exploit the complementarities and eliminate the blind spots common to the two dominant micro-CSR approaches.

Microfoundations of Corporate Social Responsibility and Irresponsibility

This study examines the importance of social perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI). Drawing from social psychology literature on stereotypes, we argue that ...

Decoupling from Moral Responsibility for CSR: Employees' Visionary Procrastination at a SME

Most studies of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have focused on the organisational level, while the individual level of analysis has been treated as a ‘black box’ when researching antecedents of CSR engagement or disengagement. This article offers insights into a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) that is recognised as a pioneer in CSR. Although the extant literature suggests that the owner-manager is crucial in the implementation of CSR, this study reveals that employees drive CSR. The employees in the focal firm voluntarily joined forces based on their shared perception of moral responsibility for CSR and they developed strict targets to be achieved by 2030. Despite their strong ethical and moral perspective when enacting CSR, they disengaged from their moral responsibility for CSR in various contexts. This paper contributes to the theory of moral decoupling by uncovering a novel context of disengagement—‘visionary procrastination’. Visionary procrastination is suggested to be a particularly relevant context of disengagement when individuals perceive moral responsibility for CSR. Moreover, by delivering insights into the antecedents of employee-initiated CSR on the organisational level, this study adds to the growing body of literature on the micro-foundations of CSR.

The psychological microfoundations of corporate social responsibility: A person‐centric systematic review

SummaryThis article aims to consolidate the psychological microfoundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by taking stock and evaluating the recent surge of person‐focused CSR research. With a systematic review, the authors identify, synthesize, and organize three streams of micro‐CSR studies—focused on (i) individual drivers of CSR engagement, (ii) individual processes of CSR evaluations, and (iii) individual reactions to CSR initiatives—into a coherent behavioral framework. This review highlights significant gaps, methodological issues, and imbalances in the treatment of the three components in prior micro‐CSR research. It uncovers the need to conceptualize how multiple drivers of CSR interact and how the plurality of mechanisms and boundary conditions that can explain individual reactions to CSR might be integrated theoretically. By organizing micro‐CSR studies into a coherent framework, this review also reveals the lack of connections within and between substreams of micro‐CSR research; to tackle them, this article proposes an agenda for further research, focused on six key challenges. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Achieving Shared Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Value Creation: Toward a Social Resource-Based View (SRBV) of the Firm

While the economic and environmental dimensions of the triple bottom line (TBL) have been covered extensively by management theory and practice, the social dimension remains largely underrepresented. The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and the natural resource-based view (NRBV) of the firm are revisited to lay the theoretical foundation for exploring how the social dimension might be addressed. Social capabilities are then explored by looking at the social entrepreneurship literature and illustrative cases with the purpose of elaborating RBV toward a social resource-based view (SRBV) of the firm. Three illustrative cases, which represent social businesses located in catastrophe-ridden Haiti, show how capabilities are used to overcome challenging constraints. The goal for the social entrepreneur is to employ the appropriate capabilities to ensure economic success, a positive environmental impact, and social benefits that leave the local community in a better position than without the business. Just as NRBV is a previous elaboration of RBV, so can SRBV be an elaborated theoretical foundation for future research. The components of a theory are systematically addressed by extending the range of variables (adding social capabilities), extending the domain (including stakeholders with economic, environmental, and/or social stakes), and offering propositions on variable relationships and outcome predictions (linking social capabilities and shared TBL value creation). By highlighting the social capabilities of social entrepreneurs, this research illuminates the micro-foundations of corporate social responsibility, emphasizing the value of individual level analyses.

Ideology and the Micro-foundations of CSR: Why Executives Believe in the Business Case for CSR and how this Affects their CSR Engagements

Existing research on executives’ belief in the business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) is built on two premises. The first is that, in order to believe in the business case, executi...

How Do Employees Perceive Corporate Responsibility? Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Corporate Stakeholder Responsibility Scale

Recent research on the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has highlighted the need for improved measures to evaluate how stakeholders perceive and subsequently react to CSR initiatives. Drawing on stakeholder theory and data from five samples of employees (N = 3,772), the authors develop and validate a new measure of corporate stakeholder responsibility (CStR), which refers to an organization’s context-specific actions and policies designed to enhance the welfare of various stakeholder groups by accounting for the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance; it is conceptualized as a superordinate, multidimensional construct. Results from exploratory factor analyses, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling provide strong evidence of the convergent, discriminant, incremental, and criterion-related validities of the proposed CStR scale. Two-wave longitudinal studies further extend prior theory by demonstrating that the higher-order CStR construct relates positively and directly to organizational pride and perceived organizational support, as well as positively and indirectly to organizational identification, job satisfaction, and affective commitment, beyond the contribution of overall organizational justice, ethical climate, and prior measures of perceived CSR.

"Identity, justice, and social responsibility: Micro-foundations of CSR"

The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature over the past fifty years has focused on economic, ethical, and institutional drivers and outcomes of CSR engagement, while the psychology of CSR has largely been ignored (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Rupp, Williams, & Aguilera, 2010). The model proposed in this paper, based on an examination of the current literature in the fields of organizational justice, organizational psychology, and CSR, explores how situational and personality variables coalesce into a CSR propensity. CSR propensity is contextualized within situations which activate certain identities leading to the engagement of specific justice motives. Personality variables, including social value orientation and responsibility disposition, moderate the CSR propensity of the individual within the situation. The proposed CSR propensity typology includes Strategic, Ethical, and Virtuous. The model presented provides two distinct contributions in moving individual level analysis of CSR forward: establishing a CSR propensity typology based on motivation and developing the concept of Virtuous CSR.