Corporate Citizenship: Cultural Antecedents and Business Benefits

Abstract

The article explores the nature of corporate citizenship and its relevance for marketing practitioners and academic researchers. Specifically, a conceptualization and operationalization of corporate citizenship are first proposed. Then, an empirical investigation conducted in two independent samples examines whether components of an organization's culture affect the level of commitment to corporate citizenship and whether corporate citizenship is conducive to business benefits. Survey results suggest that market-oriented cultures as welt as humanistic cultures lead to proactive corporate citizenship, which in turn is associated with improved levels of employee commitment, customer loyalty, and business performance. The results point to corporate citizenship as a potentially fruitful business practice both in terms of internal and external marketing. Recent survey findings reveal that 88 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from a company that is socially responsible (Smith 1996), while 76 percent of them would switch to brands or stores that show concern about the community (Jones 1997). This consumer trend encourages companies to provide benefits to their various publics beyond those resulting directly from their core

Catering to the Needs of an Aging Workforce: The Role of Employee Age in the Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Satisfaction

“…So far, research that has taken a micro-level perspective on CSR has shown that working for socially responsible companies is positively related to employees' organizational identification (Carmeli et al 2007), work engagement (Glavas and Piderit 2009), retention (Jones 2010), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; Jones 2010; Lin et al 2010;Sully de Luque et al 2008), organizational commitment (Maignan et al 1999;Mueller et al 2012;Peterson 2004;Turker 2009b), in-role performance (Jones 2010;Vlachos et al 2014), improved employee relations (Agle et al 1999), and firm attractiveness to prospective employees (Turban and Greening 1997). Another important outcome variable, and one that is of specific interest to the present argument, is employee satisfaction.…”

Trickle Effects of Cross-Sector Social Partnerships

“…Reed et al, 2007). Taking a more generic approach and focusing on relationships within one organization, Maignan et al (1999), for example, found a significant influence of proactive corporate citizenship behaviour on employee commitment, customer loyalty and performance, with customer loyalty favourably affecting performance. How these trickle processes (might) work, however, was not shown.…”

Corporate Citizenship: Let Not Relationship Marketing Escape the Management Toolbox

“…Building upon the work of Carroll (1979), Maignan (1997) suggested an operational definition and developed a measurement tool that has later been validated in the US (Maignan, Ferrell, and Hult 1999) and France (Maignan and Ferrell 2001). The conceptualization is comprised of four dimensions:…”

“…Some researchers have seen links between the corporate culture, the orientation to different stakeholders, and the degree of involvement in corporate citizenship activities. For example, the more humanistic the organization's culture is, the more likely the firm is to practice corporate citizenship (Maignan, Ferrell, and Hult 1999): The importance attributed to collaboration and harmony among workers, as well as among the company and its different stakeholders is high. These authors showed that a humanistic orientation permits to improve the relationships between the company and its stakeholders by meeting their expectations in economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary areas.…”