Corporate Support for Employee Volunteerism Within Canada: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Company support for employee volunteerism (CSEV) is one mechanism whereby businesses meet the escalating expectation for corporate social responsibility (CSR). Institutional theory is applied to examine patterns of convergence and divergence in CSR programs cross culturally, with a particular focus on intra-country cultural differences. Using a national (Canada) survey of businesses, we examine cross-cultural differences regarding CSEV in two regions of Canada—French Canada (Quebec) and English Canada. Our results suggest that cultural differences, rooted in historical conditions, may shape CSEV program implementation in Canada. Quebec companies are less likely to engage in CSEV. If they do encourage employee volunteerism, they may exclude certain cause types from support and appear to focus more on the external benefits of CSEV, such as community perception, than do firms in English Canada. Recognizing that no nation is culturally homogenous, our study illustrates that CSR and CSEV may vary significantly whenever or wherever cultural differences occur. Businesses and nonprofit organizations need to consider culture as an important variable when implementing corporate volunteer programs.     

Corporate social responsibility and employee volunteerism: What do the best companies do?

Employee volunteerism as a practice of corporate social responsibility aids corporations by strengthening employee satisfaction and retention internally and by strengthening corporate reputations and connections with stakeholders externally. Of particular interest are the specific practices and procedures used by companies to encourage and support volunteer activities of their employees. We reviewed publicly available documents of Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For ranking to gain insight into how these best companies practice employee volunteerism and whether they link employee volunteerism to their corporate social responsibility strategy. We propose a connection of the position and importance of employee volunteerism in the corporate practices of social responsibility. Our findings suggest that many highly regarded companies specifically link employee volunteerism to their corporate social responsibility strategy. These companies also utilize similar practices to encourage and support employee volunteerism. We highlight the practices that managers could consider to support their corporate social responsibility efforts and offer several suggestions for future consideration.     

When corporate social responsibility (CSR) increases performance: exploring the role of intrinsic and extrinsic CSR attribution

This study investigates whether employees attribute different motives to their organization's corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts and if these motives influence employee performance. Specifically, we investigate whether employees could distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motives by surveying 229 employee–supervisor dyads from various industries (companies that have reputable CSR programs in Portugal), and the impact of these perceptions on in‐role and extra‐role performance of subordinates. We found that employee task performance increases when employees attribute both intrinsic and extrinsic motives for CSR. Moreover, when employees perceive that their organization invests in a CSR practice that is both intrinsic and extrinsic, they also tend to exert extra effort in their work. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed alongside future research directions.     

Company support for employee volunteerism: Does size matter?

This article examines the relationship between company size and support for employee volunteering. Based on organizational ecology and organizational stages theory, the study hypothesizes that larger versus smaller companies demonstrate greater formalization and codification of their support for employee volunteering. Similarly, larger versus smaller companies use employee volunteering efforts more strategically; this finding is consistent with a need to justify decisions. These outcomes in turn impact the nature of volunteering and the organizations benefiting from such programs. Survey data from a size-stratified sample of 990 randomly selected Canadian businesses indicates that large companies support employee volunteerism in a more formalized and strategic manner than small companies. This behavior includes having formal policies and programs, as well as exercising greater influence over the causes which benefit from employee volunteering. Additionally, large companies are more likely to tie other forms of charitable support to employee volunteering. The article discusses how the more formalized approach of large companies may impact society.     

To Thine Own Self Be True? Employees’ Judgments of the Authenticity of Their Organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program

Despite recognizing the importance of developing authentic corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, noticeably absent from the literature is consideration for how employees distinguish between authentic and inauthentic CSR programs. This is somewhat surprising given that employees are essentially the face of their organization and are largely expected to act as ambassadors for the organization’s CSR program (Collier and Esteban in Bus Ethics 16:19–33, 2007). The current research, by conducting depth interviews with employees, builds a better understanding of how employees differentiate between authentic and inauthentic CSR programs, and how these judgments influence their perceptions of the organization. We find that employees rely on two different referent standards to form authenticity judgments—the extent to which the image put forth in the CSR program aligns with the organization’s true identity and the extent to which the CSR program itself is developmental. To assess the former, employees draw on cues about resource commitment, alignment between elements of the organization’s CSR program, emotional engagement, justice, and embeddedness. The latter assessments are based on the extent to which the organization adopts a leadership role with regards to its CSR initiatives. We also find that perceived authenticity can lead to positive outcomes such as organizational identification and employee connections. This study contributes to the broad literatures on both CSR and authenticity, as well as more specifically adding to the conversation on authenticity as a potentially valuable lens for enriching business ethics theorizing.     

Intra-organizational Volunteerism: Good Soldiers, Good Deeds and Good Politics

Despite the millions of hours donated to charity each year by employees on behalf of their employers there has been relatively little research into the motives for such pro-social behavior. The current paper extends Peterson’s (2004, Journal of Business Ethics 49, 371) study by exploring a unique form of employee volunteerism identified as intra-organizational, or employer-sanctioned volunteerism, and uniting the heretofore distinct charity support and organizational citizenship behavior literatures. Results of a preliminary study revealed that employee participation in such intra-organizational volunteer programs is motivated by charity, firm, and personal benefits. Managerial and research implications are presented.     

An Exploratory Cross-Cultural Analysis of Marketing Ethics: The Case of Turkish,Thai, and American Businesspeople

Although a number of studies have shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities often lead to greater organisational performance in western developed economies, researchers are yet to examine the strategic value of CSR in emerging economies. Using survey data from 280 firms operating in Dubai, this study examines the link between CSR activities and organisational performance. The results show that CSR has a positive relationship with all three measures of organisational performance: financial performance, employee commitment, and corporate reputation. These results reinforce the accumulating body of empirical support for the positive impact of CSR on performance and challenge the dominant assumption that, given the weak institutional framework in emerging economies, CSR activities drain resources and compromise firms’ competitiveness.     

Connecting the Two Faces of CSR: Does Employee Volunteerism Improve Compliance?

In 2004, the United States Sentencing Commission amended the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to allow firms that create “effective compliance and ethics programs” to receive better treatment if prosecuted for fraud. Effective compliance and ethics, however, appear to be limited to activities focused on complying with the firms’ internal legal and ethical standards. We explored a potential connection between the firms’ external corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviors and internal compliance: Is there an organizationally valid relationship between these two firm activities? That is, when organizations demonstrate CSR with behaviors external to the firm, such as employee volunteerism, are their employees more likely to demonstrate uncompromised legal and ethical compliance behavior internally? We collected data from 164 working professionals enrolled in a top-tier MBA program in the southeastern United States regarding their employer-sponsored volunteer activities and their intentions to comply in various organizational compliance vignettes. We found that employer-sponsored volunteerism is associated with uncompromised compliance choices in one of the three vignettes. This finding indicates preliminary support for further inquiry into the relationship within the firm between external CSR behaviors and policies regarding organizational compliance. Post hoc analyses suggest that employer-sponsored volunteerism is strongly associated with a positive organizational identity, but organizational identity is not associated with the significant compliance vignette. This evidence suggests that the underlying mechanism that connects external CSR behaviors and internal compliance intentions is complex and requires future study.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee–Company Identification

This study proposes two identification cuing factors (i.e., CSR associations and CSR participation) to understand how corporate social responsibility (CSR) relates to employees’ identification with their firm. The results reveal that a firm’s CSR initiatives increase employee–company identification (E–C identification). E–C identification, in turn, influences employees’ commitment to their company. However, CSR associations do not directly influence employees’ identification with a firm, but rather influence their identification through perceived external prestige (PEP). Compared to CSR associations, CSR participation has a direct influence on E–C identification. On the basis of these findings, it is argued that CSR performance can be an effective way for companies to maintain a positive relationship with their employees.     

Employer branding and CSR communication in online recruitment advertising

While multiple studies have discussed the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in recruiting, two important but unaddressed questions constrain the understanding and practice of presenting firms’ socially conscious efforts to their prospective employees. First, are companies engaged in CSR communicating their CSR practices effectively in online recruitment advertising? And second, what CSR information should companies include in online job advertisements to improve their employer attractiveness to prospective candidates? The findings of this study show that CSR communication in recruitment advertising is often limited, an ad-hoc practice, and mostly focused on company practices concerning employee participation and development. Even companies with a great CSR reputation take surprisingly little advantage of their CSR image when it comes to attracting job candidates. To improve employer attractiveness, we recommend that human resources managers consider (1) optimizing the structure of online job advertisements by including a company overview section in which CSR information can be presented easily, (2) expanding the scope of CSR dimensions in job advertisements to include environmental performance and community relations, (3) offering information about opportunities for employee engagement with CSR, and (4) adopting a strategic approach to the inclusion of CSR content in online job advertisements.     

How Employees’ Perceptions of CSR Increase Employee Creativity: Mediating Mechanisms of Compassion at Work and Intrinsic Motivation

This study aims to examine how service employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) affect their creativity at work and its mediated link through compassion at work and their intrinsic motivation. Working with a sample of 250 hotel employees in South Korea, structural equation modeling is employed to test research hypotheses. The results of this research suggest that employees’ perceptions of CSR are positively related to employee creativity. Second, compassion at work mediated the positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of CSR and creativity. Third, employees’ intrinsic motivation also mediated the positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of CSR and employee creativity. Finally, the relationship between employees’ perceptions of CSR and employee creativity is sequentially and fully mediated by compassion at work and their intrinsic motivation. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results and limitations of the study are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.     

Consumers’ Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility: Scale Development and Validation

Researchers and companies are paying increasing attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and the reaction to them by consumers. Despite such corporate efforts and an expanding literature exploring consumers’ response to CSR, it remains unclear how consumers perceive CSR and which “Gestalt” consumers have in mind when considering CSR. Academics and managers lack a tool for measuring consumers’ perceptions of CSR (CPCSR). This research explores CPCSR and develops a measurement model. Based on qualitative data from interviews with managers and consumers, the authors develop a conceptualization of CPCSR. Subsequently, model testing and validating occurs on three large quantitative data sets. The conceptualization and the measurement scale can assist companies to assess CPCSR relative to their performance. They also enable managers in identifying shortcomings in CSR engagement and/or communication. Finally, the paper discusses implications for marketing practice and future research.     

Corporate Social Responsibility as an Organizational Attractiveness for Prospective Public Relations Practitioners

This study viewed students majoring in public relations as prospective public relations practitioners and explored their perceptions about corporate social responsibility (CSR) as their job attraction condition. The results showed that the students perceived CSR to be an important ethical fit condition of a company. One of the significant findings is that CSR can be an effective reputation management strategy for prospective employees, particularly when a company’s business is suffering. In examining the effect of CSR efforts on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, person–organization (P–O) fit appeared to serve as a mediator between CSR performances and organizational attractiveness.     

Does an (in)congruent corporate social responsibility strategy affect employees' turnover intention? A configurational analysis in an emerging country

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives toward internal and external stakeholders can independently contribute to employee attitudes and behaviors. However, little is known about the joint effects of (in)congruent internal-external CSR strategies on employee outcomes. Drawing from social exchange theory, we argue that when employees perceive that their organizations excessively favor CSR efforts to external rather than internal stakeholders, it can trigger a psychological contract breach, resulting in increased employees' turnover intention. We utilized a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method and the data of 511 employee from various industries in the Philippines to investigate the interaction effects. The results revealed that a congruent CSR strategy with high internal and external CSR perceptions is critical in fulfilling employees' psychological contracts and retaining employees. However, for employees with low perceived internal CSR, a high incongruent CSR perception led to a psychological contract breach and ultimately to high turnover intention. Psychological contract breach weakened the negative joint effect of high perceived internal and external CSR on turnover intention and strengthened the positive effect of high perceived incongruent CSR on turnover intention. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Reconciling Corporate Citizenship and Competitive Strategy: Insights from Economic Theory

Neoclassical and Austrian/evolutionary economic paradigms have different implications for integrating corporate social responsibility (corporate citizenship) and competitive strategy. Porter’s “Five Forces” model implicitly rests on neoclassical theory of the firm and is not easily reconciled with corporate social responsibility. Resource-based models of competitive strategy do not explicitly embrace a particular economic paradigm, but to the extent their conceptualization rests on neoclassical assumptions such as imperfect factor markets and profits as rents, these models also imply a trade-off between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Differences in Austrian/evolutionary economic model’s assumptions about equilibrium, profits, and other economic concepts allow this paradigm to embrace alternative views of strategy such as the activities or dynamic capabilities views. These alternative views of strategy focus on learning and adaptation; they align more easily with corporate social responsibility. In practice this alignment comes about because social engagement facilitates the learning and adaptation that are a source of competitive advantage. Among the many business arguments for CSR such as improved employee morale/productivity or brand differentiation, this view prioritizes innovation.     

CSR Practices and Corporate Strategy: Evidence from a Longitudinal Case Study

This paper aims to contribute to the present debate about business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that the Journal of Business Ethics is hosting. Numerous contributions argued theoretical frameworks and taxonomies of CSR practices. The authors want to ground in this knowledge and provide further evidence about how companies adopt CSR practices to address stakeholders’ claims and consolidate their trust. Evidence was provided by a longitudinal case study about an Italian food company that is one of the largest producers of baby food. This company reshaped its corporate strategy along three decades through the adoption of CSR practices in order to win stakeholders’ trust about food safety and supply chain behaviour. The empirical exercise was informed by a literature review of the relevant contributions in terms of CSR business practices and levels of efforts to adopt them. In light of this review, the authors adopted for the research framework the taxonomy of business practices proposed by Spiller (2000, “Ethical Business and Investment: A Model for Business and Society”, Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149-160) and the levels of commitment towards CSR proposed by Stahl and Grigsby (1997, Strategic Management; Total Quality & Global Competition (Blackwell, Oxford)). The main findings are discussed in order to argue theoretical implications and identify further areas of research and debate.     

Feeling Good by Doing Good: Employee CSR-Induced Attributions, Job Satisfaction, and the Role of Charismatic Leadership

Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining momentum in academic and managerial circles. However, prior work in the area has paid little attention to how CSR initiatives should be implemented inside the organization. Against this backdrop, this study examines the impact of CSR initiatives on an important stakeholder group—employees. We build and test a comprehensive multilevel framework that focuses on whether employees derive job satisfaction from CSR programs. The proposed model predicts that a manager’s charismatic leadership influences employees’ interpretations about the motives underlying their companies’ engagement in CSR initiatives (intrinsic and extrinsic CSR-induced attributions) which, in turn, influence employee job satisfaction. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 47 organizational units comprising 438 employees from three world-leading manufacturing organizations shows that when employees think that their manager possesses charismatic leadership qualities, they tend to attribute the organization’s motives for engaging in CSR activities to intrinsic values, which, in turn, are positively associated with job satisfaction. Also, the extent to which managers are perceived as charismatic leaders relates positively to job satisfaction. Interestingly, CSR-induced extrinsic attributions are neither explained by charismatic leadership nor do they predict job satisfaction. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.     

The Marketing of Employee Volunteerism

Employee volunteerism can be an effective strategy for increasing the effectiveness of corporate philanthropy. However, in order to be effective, volunteer initiatives should be directed by the firm to ensure a strategic fit and focus on the core competencies of the firm. Therefore, internal marketing strategies are needed to ensure managers receive employee support. Our research quantitatively extends research by Peloza and Hassay (Journal of Business Ethics 64(4), 357–379, 2006) who argued that employee volunteerism is motivated by egoistic, altruistic and organizational citizenship motives. Our findings suggest that volunteer opportunities that fulfill egoistic and organizational citizenship motives will be effective, but that the altruistic motive is not significant. We also find that formal policies concerning manager recognition or time off are not effective, providing more discretion for individual managers. Implications for managers seeking to increase the effectiveness (and therefore support the business case) of their corporate philanthropy are discussed.     

Consumer Perceptions of the Antecedents and Consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility

Perceptions of a firm’s stance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) are influenced by its corporate marketing efforts including branding, reputation building, and communications. The current research examines CSR from the consumer’s perspective, focusing on antecedents and consequences of perceived CSR. The findings strongly support the fact that particular cues, namely perceived financial performance and perceived quality of ethics statements, influence perceived CSR which in turn impacts perceptions of corporate reputation, consumer trust, and loyalty. Both consumer trust and loyalty were also found to reduce the perceived risk that consumers experience in buying and using products. From these significant findings, we draw several conclusions and implications, including the importance of enhancing firm focus toward its ethical commitment and long-term reputation.     

Corporate Social Responsibility for Developing Country Multinational Corporations: Lost War in Pertaining Global Competitiveness?

This article explores the conceptual and practical gap existing between the developed and developing countries in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR), or the North-South ‘CSR Divide’, through the analysis of possible impact on the competitiveness of developing countries’ and economies’ SMEs and MNEs in globalization. To do so, this article first reviewed the traditional wisdom on the concept of strategic CSR developed in the North and the role that CSR engagement can play in corporate competitiveness, and compare with the impact on the competitive advantage of the South through the supply chains. It points out that among the many factors that could explain the ‘CSR Divide’, the negative impact of CSR on comparative advantage is the final resort where developing countries are reluctant and defensive toward western-style CSR. It did point out that developing countries are changing their approaches to make CSR work in favor of their competitive position in global trade, such as China who has started to adopt proactive approach by becoming CSR standards-setter. This article concludes with two policy proposals that aim to bridge the CSR gap, the first is to improve CSR standard-setting participation from both sides, and the second to search for solutions in the international investment legal framework which will define corporate obligations in relating to CSR in a more explicit way.