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Leveraging the power of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is strategically important to corporations. Although various studies have explored the positive effects of CSR, few have been devoted to the investigation of CSR related to service employees from the internal marketing perspective. Therefore, this study fills this research gap by developing a conceptual model based on social influence theory to explain how internal CSR initiatives affect service employees' attitudes and behaviors.

This study develops and empirically tests a theoretical model examining the impact of internal CSR initiatives (i.e. internal dissemination of and management support for CSR) on service employees' attitudes toward an organization (i.e. employee–company identification and value congruence), which ultimately enhance their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) toward customers, other employees and the organization. Survey data from 271 frontline employees of service firms actively involved in CSR-related activities were examined with structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that perceived internal dissemination of and management support for CSR affect service employees' citizenship behaviors toward customers, other employees and the organization through the mediation of employee–company identification and value congruence.

Internal CSR initiatives are highly related to service employees' various OCBs that are beneficial to improving the service performance of firms. Therefore, it is imperative for companies to devote attention to internal marketing dissemination while promoting CSR. In addition, as managers' attitudes and behaviors trickle down to employees, service supervisors' support of CSR activities plays a significant role in forming employee perceptions of a firm's CSR dedication.

This study represents one of the first to view internal CSR initiatives as an effective internal marketing lever. Moreover, the relationship between internal CSR initiatives and service employees' OCBs – OCB toward customers, other employees and the organization – is proposed and tested with an empirical model, providing significant contributions.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature by examining the influence of a firm’s external CSR activities (efforts directed toward external stakeholders of the firm) and internal CSR activities (efforts directed toward employees) on employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors toward the environment (OCBE) via organizational pride. The authors also examine the moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS) between CSR and organizational pride.

A total of 324 questionnaires were collected from the hospitality industry of Pakistan.

The results of this research revealed that dimensions of CSR (external and internal) have a positive influence on organizational pride. Also, organizational pride is found as an underlying mediating mechanism between the relationship of CSR and OCBE. The results also indicated that a higher level of POS strengthens the relationship between CSR and organizational pride.

The findings are limited to only hospitality industry. Organizations can enhance employees’ sense of pride through CSR activities, which subsequently enhance employees OCBE. The findings also suggested that organizational pride contains intrinsic motivation that can help employees to enhance their OCBE.

This research suggests that organizational pride and POS are important factors which influence the relationship between CSR and OCBE. Further, it also empirically tests this model in a developing country context.

Drawing on signaling theory and adopting a multilevel approach, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how meso-organizational attributes interact with the macro cultural context to affect employees’ behavioral responses to internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. This study unpacks the behavioral process through which internal CSR affects employees’ organizational citizenship behavior in an organization that has obtained SA8000 and that operates in an understudied Italian context characterized by high individualism and masculinity.

Bootstrapped multi-mediation analysis was used on a sample of 300 employees operating in one of the most important and largest Italian retail stores active in the food industry and involved in socio-environmental responsibility.

Results show that when a company obtains an internal CSR quality credential, particularly SA8000, an auditable certification standard that signals that a company goes beyond compliance standards to tailor to the well-being of its employees, it will likely attract like-minded employees that will positively react to internal CSR initiatives even when operating in a highly individualistic and masculine culture such as Italy.

While prior research has shown that internal CSR initiatives have a lower and, in some cases, an insignificant impact on employees’ behavioral outcomes in cultures characterized by individualism and masculinity, this study shows that the interaction between the cultural setting and company specific attributes can turn this effect to be significant, strong, and positive.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influence internal customers’ preference and turnover intention. The mediating effect of brand preference on the relationship between CSR initiatives and turnover intention has also been studied.

A survey was conducted and questionnaires were distributed to a sample in Macau in 2012. Out of these, 138 valid samples were collected among casinos’ mid- and senior-level employees having managerial positions (hereafter “managers”). Regression tests were performed in order to validate the hypotheses.

Managers’ preference for the casino brand of their employer can be enhanced by perceptions associated with CSR initiatives. Two CSR initiatives (CSR to stakeholders and to society) significantly decrease managers’ turnover intentions, with the impact of CSR directed at stakeholders exerting a stronger influence. Brand preference is a significant mediator of perceptions associated with CSR initiatives and turnover intention.

The current study tries to not only investigate how perceptions associated with CSR initiatives influence an internal customer's turnover intention but is also aimed at understanding how brand preference as a mediator influences turnover intention. Extending the realm of study is important because multiple theories predict different benefits, and assessing the value of CSR therefore requires multiple approaches.

Prior marketing and hospitality studies have largely ignored the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in shaping frontline employees’ customer orientation. This study aims to investigate the impacts of employee perceived CSRs on customer orientation in hotel industry.

Through an onsite data collection from 642 frontline employees of 14 hotels in China, the moderated mediation model that links frontline employees’ perceptions of internal and external CSR to person-organization fit, work engagement and customer orientation were validated with the bootstrapping procedures.

The results reveal that a higher degree of perceived internal and external CSR leads to greater customer orientation through work engagement, and these indirect effects will be stronger with comparatively higher person-organization fit levels.

By clarifying the connection between perceived CSR initiatives and customer-oriented behaviors, this study offers inspiration for hospitality managers to devise, allocate and leverage CSR investments, strategies and practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to verify a moderated mediation model that investigates the impacts of perceived CSRs (i.e. internal vs external) on customer orientation, which not only uncovers some neglected antecedents of customer orientation but also provides a more nuanced insight into perceived CSR-customer orientation linkages.

Assuming that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is “a process of accumulating knowledge and experience” (Tang et al., 2012, p. 1298), this paper aims to investigate whether and how CSR knowledge (Asif et al., 2013; Kim, 2017) affects financial performance in the European banking industry.

The empirical research analyses a panel of 72 banks from 20 European countries over seven years (2009-2015). The hypotheses were tested using fixed effects regression analysis and the two-stage Heckman model (1976) to address endogeneity bias.

The findings of this work are twofold. First, consistent with the concept of knowledge absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), the internal CSR of banks (Kim et al., 2010) positively affects citizenship performance (Peterson, 2004a). Second, in line with the reputational effect of CSR (Margolis et al., 2009; Bushman and Wittenberg-Moerman, 2012), citizenship performance is a positive predictor of a bank’s financial performance.

From a knowledge-based perspective, the analysis shows that accrued internal CSR knowledge plays a key role in implementing effective CSR programs for external stakeholders. Moreover, this study shows how CSR engagement in external initiatives can improve a bank’s competitiveness because of the relationship between citizenship performance and the positive reputation of a bank.

The management of CSR initiatives may favor the sharing of knowledge and creation of trust relationships among banks and internal and external stakeholders. CSR knowledge contributes to expanded value creation for both society and banks.

The knowledge management perspective of CSR provides new insights into the sustainability of banks’ business models and contributes to advancing the debate on the governance modes and effects of CSR. Moreover, the CSR perspective offers additional opportunities for addressing the challenges associated with sharing tacit knowledge within and outside of organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on internal employee motivation.

A survey was conducted among 274 employees from medium and large enterprises engaged in CSR activities in Lithuania. The research hypotheses were tested using correlation and regression analysis using factor scores from a principal component factor analysis.

The findings suggest that internal and external CSR activities positively correlate with internal employee motivation. Internal CSR was found to be stronger related to internal employee motivation than all the external CSR dimensions. Regarding the external CSR, customer‐related activities indicated stronger correlation with internal employee motivation than local communities and business partners related CSR activities. The weakest relation was found between internal employee motivation and business partners related CSR activities.

This study is limited to one country under investigation, therefore further research needs to be extended to other countries. The survey is conducted in the period of economical recession. In order to assess the generality of the findings, it is suggested to repeat the research in a stable economy situation.

Executives could use the results of the research to resolve practical dilemmas by giving priority to the areas of CSR which facilitate employee internal motivation enhancement.

By revealing the importance of CSR activities to employee internal motivation enhancement, this study contributes to the CSR investigation arena.

Drawing on social identity theory, this study aims to disentangle the values and prestige-related mechanisms through which an organization's external corporate social responsibility (CSR) leads to increased employee participation in, and communication of, CSR. The moderating effect of internally-directed CSR initiatives on employees' external CSR (ECSR) behaviors is also examined.

A longitudinal survey of 196 employees was conducted and structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the relationship between ECSR and employee CSR engagement.

The relationship between employee perceptions of ECSR and the employee perceptions' engagement in CSR was fully mediated by value congruence, but not by the organization's perceived external prestige. The effects of ECSR on both value congruence and prestige were stronger when employees also experienced high levels of internal CSR (ICSR).

When employees perceive consistency in the respective organizations' external and ICSR efforts, this strengthens the employees' initial beliefs about the firm's values and reputation and enhances employees' willingness to promote the employees' company's CSR initiatives to organizational outsiders.

This study advances the authors' theoretical understanding of why, and when, organizational CSR initiatives generate greater CSR engagement among employees.

Although the positive impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on personal and organizational outcomes has been studied in the fields of human resource management and the hospitality industry, scholars in these fields still consider CSR as a promising area with potential. Drawing upon the dual concern and the attribution theories, this study aims to identify three stages of formations from teamwork with colleagues and personal benefits to organizational benefits from social responsibilities of hospitality companies via an integrated research model.

With the data collected from 324 frontline employees in hospitality enterprises in South Korea, this study empirically investigated the interrelationship to predict frontline employees’ job performance.

The empirical results from structural equation modeling indicated that perceived management support for CSR and perceived colleague support for CSR had significant influence on empathetic concern for colleague and anticipated positive affect, separately. Also, empathetic concern significantly affected psychological well-being and job satisfaction, while an anticipated positive affect significantly influenced job satisfaction. Finally, psychological well-being and job satisfaction had a significant impact on job performance.

This study provides several managerial implications for maximizing the effectiveness of hospitality companies’ CSR practices, enhancing frontline employees’ psychological well-being, job satisfaction and job performance.

Based on the empirical findings, this study provided meaningful theoretical and managerial implications to maximize the effectiveness of CSR initiatives and maximize frontline employees’ job performance in the hospitality industry.

Drawing on social information processing theory and organisational identity theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the social and psychological process through which perceived ethical leadership influences employee deviant behaviours towards the organisation. Specifically, a sequential mediation model is developed in which ethical leadership is related to employee perceptions of internal corporate social responsibility (CSR), which, in turn, are related to organisational deviance through organisational engagement.

Structural equation modeling was performed to fit the proposed model using multi-source data collected from employees and their supervisors in the Egyptian banking sector.

The results support the hypotheses, as perceived internal CSR and organisational engagement sequentially mediate the relationship between perceived ethical leadership and organisational deviance.

Organisations should emphasise fostering ethical leadership through adopting strategies such as hiring ethical leaders and offering ethics training to current leaders. Organisations should also invest in internal CSR activities and should pay attention to regularly communicating their involvement in CSR initiatives to employees.

By examining the mediating roles of employee internal CSR perceptions and organisational engagement, this study helps advance our understanding of the social and psychological processes of ethical leadership.