TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly considered a central tenant of marketing strategy and a source of competitive advantage within the retail sector. As such, it may affect a supermarket’s customer, employee, and other stakeholder attitudes and behaviours. This research explores how a supermarket’s involvement in CSR activities may influence employee engagement and how this may manifest itself in positive employee behaviours. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and consequently, employee propensity to exhibit intervention behaviours to prevent in-store retail crime.Design/methodology/approach This research uses a phenomenological approach through semi-structured in-depth interviews with shop-floor employees of a national supermarket chain.Findings Findings suggest that external and internal CSR practices of supermarkets are important in shaping organisational engagement behaviours among employees. Additionally, heightened employee engagement may have a significant impact on employee propensity to engage in shoplifting prevention behaviours. A conceptual model is developed based on these findings.Practical implications Retail managers should fully communicate CSR practices to employees to increase employee engagement and consequential shoplifting intervention prevention behaviours.Originality/value The contribution of this paper is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and specifically, shoplifting prevention behaviours. Second and from a pragmatic perspective, the conceptual model derived from this research may aid retailers in developing and communicating CSR strategies that engage employees and consequently lead to shoplifting prevention behaviours.
VL  - 46
IS  - 9
SN  - 0959-0552
DO  - 10.1108/IJRDM-02-2018-0029
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-02-2018-0029
AU  - Potdar Balkrushna
AU  - Guthrie John
AU  - Gnoth Juergen
AU  - Garry Tony
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - Yours ethically: The role of corporate social responsibility and employee engagement in shoplifting prevention
T2  - International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 835
EP  - 849
Y2  - 2024/04/23
ER  -