What Makes Employees Zealous Supporters of Their Firm’s CSR Initiative? The Role of Employees’ Perceptions of Their Firm’s CSR Authenticity
ISBN: 978-1-78635-042-8, eISBN: 978-1-78635-041-1
Publication date: 13 July 2016
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the effects of a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative on its employees’ organizational attachment and intent to leave. We propose that employees’ perceived authenticity of their firm’s CSR activity mediates the effects of a firm’s CSR initiative on employees’ attachment to the firm and intent to leave. We also hypothesize that employees understand the authenticity of their firm’s CSR initiative based on internal and external attribution mechanisms. We propose that internal attribution enhances authenticity, while external attribution reduces it.
Methodology/approach
We surveyed a sample of 450 employees from 38 Korean companies that were included in the 2009 Dow Jones Sustainability Index Korea (DJSI Korea). To test the theoretical model, we employed a linear structural equation modeling which allows the causal estimation of theoretical constructs after taking into account their measurement errors.
Findings
As predicted, internal attribution significantly increases employees’ perceptions of their firm’s CSR authenticity, whereas external attribution significantly reduces such perceptions. Employees’ perceptions of authenticity, in turn, increase their affective attachment and decrease their intent to leave. In addition, the effects of the two attribution mechanisms on organizational attachment and intent to leave were mediated by employees’ perceptions on authenticity.
Research limitations/implications
Research on authenticity has been case studies or narrative ones. This is one of the first studies investigating the role of authentic management empirically.
Practical implications
We demonstrate that a firm’s CSR initiative is a double-edged sword. When employees perceive inauthenticity of their firm’s CSR initiative, the CSR initiative could be detrimental to employees’ attachment to the firm. This study calls attention to the importance of authentic management of CSR.
Social implications
Informational transparency through social network services become the foundational reality to the contemporary management. To maintain competitive edge in this changing world, every stakeholder of a firm including managers, employees, customers, shareholders, government, and communities should collaborate and help each other live the principle of authenticity.
Keywords
Citation
Yoon, J. and Lee, S. (2016), "What Makes Employees Zealous Supporters of Their Firm’s CSR Initiative? The Role of Employees’ Perceptions of Their Firm’s CSR Authenticity", Advances in Group Processes (Advances in Group Processes, Vol. 33), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 93-126. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0882-614520160000033004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited