Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Outcomes: A Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Identification and Moral Identity

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) research is not new, but its importance to today’s socially conscious market environment is even more evident in recent years. This study moves beyond CSR as simply the socially responsible actions and policies of organizations and focuses on the complex psychology of CSR as it relates to individuals within the organization. Given CSR can positively affect both the individuals within the organization and the organization itself, better understanding and leveraging the mechanisms and conditions of CSR that facilitate desired employee outcomes is crucial for organizational performance. However, scholars lack consensus in determining a theoretical framework for understanding how and under what conditions CSR will make an impact on employees and ultimately organizational performance. This study adds clarity by exploring the effect of perceived CSR on a more comprehensive set of employees’ attitudinal and behavioral reactions (i.e., turnover intention, in-role job performance, and helping behavior) via the mediating mechanism of organizational identification and the moderating condition of moral identity. Hypotheses were derived using social identity theory. Results were based on data obtained from 340 Chinese manufacturing employee-supervisor dyads. This study found that employees’ perceived CSR had an indirect relationship via organizational identification with each of the variables: (1) turnover intention, (2) in-role job performance, and (3) helping behavior. Specifically, the negative relationship between perceived CSR and turnover intention was stronger when employees had higher moral identity and the positive relationship between perceived CSR and in-role job performance and helping behavior was amplified by moral identity. Our findings show how the mediating mechanism of organizational identity and the moderating condition of moral identity work together to improve organizational effectiveness. The findings reveal several ways in which organizations can strategically focus their CSR and human resource efforts, such as applying this model and focusing on moral identity as a key indicator when evaluating employees.

It takes time to tango: The relative importance of values versus traits in consumer brand relationships

“…Brand values differ in comparison with brand personality traits, in so far as they reflect more stable and durable brand motivations and intentions-such as a concern for safety, the environment, or equality-whereas brand personality traits, as with human personality traits, are merely descriptions of a brand's personality traits and typical behaviour styles (Aaker, 1997;Geuens et al, 2008). In line with research testifying to the importance of consumer-brand congruence, previous studies showed that when the perceived value of a brand matches with those of consumers (i.e., when brands become part of consumers' extended selves; Belk, 1988), this might not only lead to better financial accomplishments (Jonsen, Galunic, Weeks, & Braga, 2015) but also to attracting the right employees (Amos & Weathington, 2008), stronger staff loyalty and helpfulness (Wang, Fu, Qiu, Moore, & Wang, 2017), and better brand results (Alsem, Wieringa, & Hendriks, 2007;Zhang & Bloemer, 2008). This appears to be especially valid for services and products with which people have long-term relationships such as cars, laptops, banks, or insurance companies (Voorn, van der Veen, van Rompay, Hegner, & Pruyn, 2016).…”

The Relationship between Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in the Public and Private Sectors

“…Global empirical research has confirmed the significant positive impact of CSR on employee attitudes and behavior [46,47]. This relationship is also inverse.…”

Corporate Social Responsibility and Collective OCB: A Social Identification Perspective

“…Second, collective OI is expected to mediate the positive effect of organizational prestige on employees' collective OCB (Jones, 2010;Wang et al, 2017). Collective OI may have a positive impact on collective OCB for the following reasons: (a) Employees with high OI perceive their organizational successes as their personal successes, and therefore tend to exhibit self-sacrificial and organization-oriented behaviors (Wang and Howell, 2012); (b) employees, who identify with an organization that practices CSR, are more likely to activate and reinforce their self-images as altruistic and helpful, and thus are motivated to display higher levels of collective OCB (Jones, 2010).…”

“…Most macro-level research has focused only on the relationship between firm-level CSR practices and corporate financial performance (Wang and Qian, 2011;Kim et al, 2018), but we still know very little regarding the effects of firm-level CSR on employees' collective attitudes and behaviors (Jones et al, 2017). Although micro-level research has revealed how employees' perceptions of CSR initiatives may influence their attitudes and behavior (Farooq et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2017;Rupp et al, 2018), this line of research more commonly focuses on the individual level of analysis only. Recently, Jones et al (2017) urged researchers to explore how firm-level CSR may influence employees' reactions as a whole, because employees' collective reactions and behaviors may help explain why CSR practices are beneficial for other firm-level outcomes (Bauman and Skitka, 2012).…”