How hedonic and perceived community benefits from employee CSR involvement drive CSR advocacy behavior to co‐workers

Abstract

This study seeks to determine how organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can be influenced by employee perception of the benefits arising from their involvement with corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The work is significant because of growing investment in CSR activities involving employees and increased firm expectations of employee dissemination of CSR information. A unique model examined how two types of perceived benefits, accruing to US-based employees from their CSR engagement, impacted OCB. The variable of co-worker-directed CSR advocacy was used as a unique measure of OCB. An integrative theoretical framework combined social exchange theory with organizational citizenship behavior to provide a more comprehensive understanding of relationships. The first employee benefit tested was hedonic value, while the second was perceived community value. CSR reputation was modeled as a mediating variable. Data were collected via two scenario-based experiments based at each respondents' workplace. Analytical techniques included analysis of co-variance and structural equation modeling using partial least squares.While both types of benefit had a significant effect on co-worker-directed CSR advocacy, the pathways differed. Perceived community value had a stronger effect on the mediating variable of CSR reputation, and consequently a significant indirect effect on the dependent variable. In contrast, hedonic value directly affected co-workerdirected CSR advocacy with CSR reputation playing no mediating role. This study contributes to the CSR literature through better understanding of the processes leading to the organizational citizenship behavior variable of co-worker-directed CSR advocacy. This dependent variable extends previous conceptualizations of OCB.

The Corporate Social Responsibility and Its Impact on Financial Performance: A Case of Developing Countries

“…Due to industrial expansion, natural resource utilization has increased [25,33,[37][38][39]. Growing worldwide demand has worsened environmental damage caused by stressing these commodities' sources.…”

“…Employees, or internal stakeholders, are essential for fulfilling company goals and are a major determinant of a firm's viability [30,52,[80][81][82]. When corporations utilize terms such as "market-oriented," employee engagement diminishes [8,22,37,60]. According to a past study on the reactions of internal participants to CSR, employees have the ability to influence the productivity of a company; their participation is crucial for transforming corporate investment and competitiveness [36,83,84].…”

Integrating OCBE Literature and Norm Activation Theory: A Moderated Mediation on Proenvironmental Behavior of Employees

“…As employees encounter these three complementary types of social exchange relations with their colleagues, their superiors, and the company as a whole on a daily basis, all three points of reference should be examined more thoroughly [22]. Considering that corporate hierarchies are increasingly flattening, and thus, social exchange between colleagues is becoming more important than ever before [230][231][232], it is surprising that research on coworkers' advocacy for the environment [233] and the general relationships between colleagues who operate at the same organizational level has only recently gained momentum [21,22,124]. Through the transfer of knowledge and experience, employees can be motivated and empowered by their colleagues to behave pro-environmentally [234,235].…”