Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Psychology: An Integrative Review

Abstract

The author reviews the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature that includes the individual level of analysis (referred to as micro CSR in the article) based on 166 articles, book chapters, and books. A framework is provided that integrates organizational psychology and CSR, with the purpose of highlighting synergies in order to advance scholarship and practice in both fields. The review is structured so that first, a brief overview is provided. Second, the literatures on organizational psychology and CSR are integrated. Third, gaps are outlined illuminating opportunities for future research. Finally, a research agenda is put forward that goes beyond addressing gaps and focuses on how organizational psychology and CSR can be partners in helping move both fields forward—specifically, through a humanistic research agenda rooted in positive psychology.

“It’s Like Hating Puppies!” Employee Disengagement and Corporate Social Responsibility

“…At the institutional level, where much of the extant research has been conducted (Aguinis and Glavas 2012;Glavas 2016b), corporate social responsibility is considered to be a "set of expectations placed on business solely based on their role as economic institutions" (Prokopowicz and Zmuda 2015, p. 216) and is therefore centered on the legitimacy of organizations within society. Research at this level has frequently turns to stakeholder theory (Freeman 1984) with a range of individuals responsible for granting or retracting the legitimacy of organizations.…”

“…Consequently, many organizations have a corporate social responsibility agenda. However, many have yet to overcome challenges associated with embedding CSR across the organization (Glavas 2016b). Existing CSR research has focused on the correlation between leadership and responsible behavior (Waldman et al 2006;Swanson 2008) or attempted to define socially responsible leadership (Waldman and Siegel 2008), with little attention devoted to the differences amongst employees in relation to CSR, presupposing that this stakeholder group's expectations, views, and attitudes are the same (Rodrigo and Arenas 2008).…”

The Impact of Perceived Internal Corporate Social Responsibility on Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Micro-Perspective Analysis

“…The literature on corporate social responsibility suggests embedding corporate social responsibility in the organizational core strategy (Prutina & Sehic, 2016) because the organizations with corporate social responsibility in their strategy are more attractive to talented and committed employees (Brammer, Millington, & Rayton, 2007). However, despite the compliance on the strategic importance of corporate social responsibility for organizational performance (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013), work place (Abd-Elmotaleb, Saha, & Hamoudahb, 2015), and involvement in the strategy of every major organization, the research on corporate social responsibility related to employees remains deficient (Glavas, 2016;Kolk, Vock, & Dolen, 2015). According to the literature reviewed by Glavas and Kelly (2014) on corporate social responsibility more than half of the peer-reviewed articles have been published during the last decade, but the employees as stakeholders are ignored.…”

“…Observing the importance of internal corporate social responsibility, a number of studies (Glavas, 2016;Sheel & Vohra, 2016;Newman, Nielsen, & Miao, 2015;Glavas & Kelly 2014;De Roeck, Marique, Stinglhamber, & Swaen, 2014) have attempted to explore the micro CSR in relation to internal corporate social responsibility and investigated how the corporate social responsibility affects employee attitudes and behaviors (Rupp & Mallory, 2015). Similarly, the study of Abd-Elmotaleb et al (2015) suggests that employee relations with internal CSR are the strongest among other relations of employee and CSR segments.…”

Understanding Internal, External and Relational Attributions in Reaction to Corporate Social Responsibility

“…Despite this importance, little focus has been given to the micro level studies (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012;Glavas, 2016) on this notion. Likewise, researchers are looking for such models which help them integrate CSR into human resource and employee relations' strategies (Morgeson, Aguinis, Waldman, & Siegel, 2013).…”