LITERATURE REVIEW - Perception of Corporate Social Responsibility, Organizational Citizenship

The objective of this chapter is to review the previous studies concerning employee CSR perception, employee OCB, employee volunteering behavior, prosocial motivation, and task significance. The concepts of each construct are explained at the beginning followed by the review of related studies. The relations among variables are discussed and the hypotheses of this study are presented at the end of this section.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Definition of CSR

Recent decades have witnessed numerous studies about CSR with various definitions (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). One of the most commonly used definitions of CSR can be found in the study of Ong et al. (2018). This study views CSR from the lens of stakeholder theory, meaning that CSR is considered as a tool to fulfill corporate obligations towards their internal and external stakeholders. CSR is defined as “the context-specific organizational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance” (Ong et al., 2018, p. 44). In other words, organizations have the responsibility to the society in which their business is operating (Kim et al., 2020).

Employee CSR perception is the significant determinant of their attitudinal and behavioral responses because the way employees perceive CSR can actually affect their subsequent behaviors and attitudes rather than the actual CSR which employees may not know (Rupp et al., 2006).

Dimensions of CSR

Carroll (1991) is among the first pioneering scholars to propose the CSR categorization.

He divides CSR into four types: economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary (or philanthropic).

The economic responsibilities of a corporate are to meet the needs and wants of their customers through the goods and services provision and making proper profits. In terms of legal responsibility, firms are expected to operate within the frame of regulations and laws set by federal, state, and local governments. The ethical dimension reflects the fairness in the firms’

decisions for the sake of their stakeholders. Discretionary responsibilities (or philanthropic responsibilities) indicate business activities that are for the sake of the community, for example,

engaging in activities to ensure the well-being of humans.

Zhao et al. (2020) proposed a dichotomization of the CSR measure from employees’

point of view. According to this research, CSR is classified into two types: Instrumental CSR which refers to CSR initiatives benefiting the employees, and voluntary CSR which indicates CSR activities not directly impacting the employees. In the same vein, another way of CSR classification was proposed by Rupp and Mallory (2015). This meta-analysis divides CSR into internal CSR and external CSR. Internal CSR indicates the firm’s policies towards the employees, like providing benefits to the employees. On the other hand, external CSR refers to the firm’s initiatives targeting external stakeholders (customers, suppliers, communities, governments, the environment), like donation, environment protection policies, etc.

The Important Role of CSR Practices

On the organizational level, CSR practices were found to increase the firm’s reputation.

This is the result of the increase in customer loyalty and favorable view towards socially responsible organizations (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). Regarding the effect of CSR on a firm’s financial performance, Peloza (2009) reviewed 128 studies that investigated this relation and reported that 59% of the studies show a positive relationship, a mixed or neutral relationship was found in 27% of the studies, and 14% of the studies illustrate a negative relationship.

Nevertheless, the difference in this result might be due to sampling error, implying that CSR can improve business financial performance (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012).

The effects of CSR on individuals are varied. CSR is viewed as a way to increase corporate attractiveness and job application attention to prospective employees (Rupp &

Mallory, 2015). For the official employees, good practices of CSR can influence them attitudinally and behaviorally, say, increase in employee engagement, in-role performance, creativity, employee relation, job satisfaction, organization commitment, and OCB (Aguinis &

Glavas, 2012; Newman et al., 2015; Rupp & Mallory, 2015). The meta-analytic investigation of Zhao et al. (2020) offers a review of the mechanisms behind the relation between CSR and its effects on employees. The popular explanatory mechanisms are organizational justice, organizational trust, organizational identification, and social exchange theory.

Organizational Justice

According to the literature of justice, employees are impacted due to their perception of the way the organizations treat them and others. CSR practices, which indicate how well the

firms treat their stakeholders, can offer the employees information based on which they can judge whether their companies treat them fairly (Rupp et al., 2006). Thereby, good practices of CSR reveal to employees the fair treatment and as the result, positive attitudes and behaviors of employees are likely to be seen.

Organizational Trust

Trust can be defined as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (Lee et al., 2013, p. 407). In this case, as CSR is action benefiting different stakeholders, including employees, employees are likely to believe their firm is trustful. Moreover, CSR is also seen as a way to recognize and appreciate the contributions of different stakeholders towards the firm, thus, employees, in turn, tend to perform good attitudes and behaviors. This cycle of reciprocity between employees and the organization continues while the organizational trust is strengthened along the cycle.

Organizational Identification

Organizational identification is the degree of belongingness employees have towards their company (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Employees are believed to have a sense of belongingness to the companies with CSR initiatives matching with the employees’ values and offering them opportunities to achieve higher purposes in work (Aguinis & Glavas, 2013). In another study, it was found that companies which have active engagement in CSR are more attractive to employees due to the fact that these companies are considered socially responsible employers (Opoku‐Dakwa et al., 2018). The perception of CSR increases employees’

identification with their firms, thereby, impacts the employees attitudinally and behaviorally.

Social Exchange Theory

According to the social exchange theory, when individuals know that the mutual benefits from interacting with others to be high, positive emotions in them are generated, thereby resulting in their trust, obligation in other parties in the interaction (Rupp & Mallory, 2015). On the contrary, if no mutual benefits are perceived during the interaction, people tend to avoid or less invest in the interaction. CSR practices are the company’s actions that recognize and appreciate the support and benefits that they get from the stakeholders, including

employees (Rupp et al., 2006). In turn, employees’ behavioral and attitudinal reactions to CSR can be considered as a way to pay back to their organizations.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)

Definition of OCB

Organ (1988) is among the pioneers who came up with the term OCB and gave it a concrete definition as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization” (p. 4). OCB, later on, was redefined by the same authors, as

“contributions to the maintenance and enhancement of the social and psychological context that supports task performance” (Organ, 1997, p. 91). Although there are many succeeding redefinitions for OCB by many other scholars, the work of Organ and his colleagues’ remains the cornerstone and is impactful in the study about OCB (Ocampo et al., 2018).

Dimensions of OCB

Regarding the dimensions of OCB, various ways of conceptualizing OCB over the years have been developed with the two most commonly used approaches from the studies of Organ (1988) and Williams and Anderson (1991). Organ (1988) identified five dimensions of OCB which have become a cornerstone for other dimensions to be built on: altruism, conscientiousness (or compliance), courtesy, civic virtue, and sportsmanship. Altruism is defined as an act of volunteer assistance to coworkers or the willingness to help their colleagues.

An altruistic employee tends to have more selfless concerns towards others in the company.

Conscientiousness (often called compliance) is defined as the degree of one’s dedication to the job that exceeds formal requirements or the minimum required levels of the job. In the Big Five model, conscientiousness is proved to be the most significant predictor of prosocial behavior (Ocampo et al., 2018). Yen and Niehoff (2004) found that conscientious employees are more aware of the changes in the organization, say, the updates of services or products. Less required supervision on those who score high in the conscientiousness dimension as they tend to adhere to the regulations of the organization and ensure their job responsibilities are done properly (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). Courtesy manifests itself in different behaviors, one of which is trying to prevent the problem from happening and taking necessary steps to reduce the consequences from the problem which might happen in the future (Organ, 1988). Podsakoff et

al. (2000) found that courteous employees might help reduce conflicts in the company. civic virtue is behavior indicating that employees “take an active interest in the life of their organization” (For example: attending meetings and keeping up with organizational changes) (Podsakoff et al., 2009, p. 123). Performance quality is believed to increase under the influence of civic virtue and thus a drop in customer complaints is resulted (Walz & Niehoff, 1996), and employees with civic virtue are significantly appreciated by the companies (Graham, 2000).

Sportsmanship is defined as a willingness of the employees to put up with the undesired situations without complaints or causing trouble to increase the severity of the problem (Podsakoff et al., 2009). Another two dimensions later added into the 5 original dimensions by Organ are cheerleading and peacekeeping. As the name suggests, peacekeeping is defined as the behavior of trying to meditate the conflicts within parties, and cheerleaders in the organization are those who praise and compliment their colleagues to increase the harmony and joyfulness in the working environment (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997).

The second most common approach to OCB is from the studies of Podsakoff et al.

(1990) and Williams and Anderson (1991). These authors categorize OCB into two groups based on the targets of the OCB, specifically, OCB is categorized as OCB towards other individuals (OCBI) and OCB directed at the organization (OCBO). While OCBI includes altruism, courtesy behaviors because these behaviors benefit others, ICBO constitutes conscientiousness (or compliance), civic virtue and sportsmanship since these behaviors target the organizations (Podsakoff et al., 2009). This study adopted the OCBI measure from the study of Podsakoff et al. (1990) since this study has a well-established OCB measurement scale based on the logic about OCB of Organ (1998).

The Important Role of OCB

OCB was found to have various effects on employees and the whole organization. The meta-analysis of Podsakoff et al. (2009) analyzed the influences of OCB on individual and unit/

organization levels.

In terms of OCB’s effects on the individual level, the study shows that employees who express OCB tend to score higher in their performance rating and receive more rewards from their supervisors or managers (Podsakoff et al., 2009). According to this meta-analysis, since managers believe OCB can ease their work, the inclusion of OCB rating in the performance system is recommended and the act of allocating rewards to those who perform OCB as a form of recognition and appreciation is recommended. On the other hand, the inclusion of OCB on

the performance rating system is a way to encourage the employees to perform OCB due to its good outcomes (Shore et al., 1995). Absenteeism, turnover rate, and turnover intention are also proved to have a negative relationship with OCB (Podsakoff et al., 2009).

Regarding OCB’s influences on group/ unit/ organization levels, OCB was found to be able to predict the effectiveness of group/ unit/ organization (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993;

Organ, 1988; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997; Posdakoff & MacKenzie, 1994). For example, OCB engagers tend to help those with less OCB engagers by showing them helping behaviors, thereby bettering off the work outcome of those who have lower OCB engagement. Voicing behaviors and civic virtue behaviors of OCB were proved to be beneficial to the group/ unit/

organizational effectiveness due to the constructive feedback and innovative ideas generated from civic virtue engagers and the voicers (Podsakoff et al., 2009). The meta-analysis of Podsakoff et al. (2009) also pointed out that customer satisfaction tends to be increased due to OCB. The rationale behind this finding is that employees exhibiting OCB promote teamwork spirit and cooperativeness among colleagues, which are good criteria for a good service/

product production and delivery, thereby customers are more satisfied.

Employee Volunteering Behavior

Definition of Employee Volunteering Behavior

The degree of employees’ effort and time invested in volunteering has been increased on an annual basis, especially the new generations have more concerns about the volunteering initiatives of the companies when it comes to selecting their employers (Deloitte Development, 2014). A corporate volunteering program is one of the policies of the organization to implement its CSR initiatives. Top companies around the world have been using various policies to encourage the engagement of employees in corporate volunteering programs (Cycyota et al., 2016).

Employee volunteering behavior is defined as the act of “giving time or skills during a planned activity for a volunteer group or organization (e.g., charitable groups, nonprofit groups, etc.)” (Rodell, 2013, p. 1274). Employee volunteering behavior differentiates itself from the passive financial donation in many ways. Firstly, it is the active support by giving time, energy, and skills (Musick & Wilson, 2008). The act of an employee who spends the whole afternoon taking care of senior citizens is considered as volunteering, while those who sign the check to financially support those senior citizens are not volunteering. Secondly, it is a planned activity and not a sudden activity of helping (Penner, 2002; Wilson, 2000). That employees joining the weekly beach cleaning activity of their company is the act of volunteering while spontaneously accompanying the old people to cross the street is not. Thirdly, it is carried out in the context of some volunteer groups or charitable organization which are the recipients of the volunteering activities (Musick & Wilson, 2008). For the volunteering activities to be active and planned, it is important to have the activities occur in a more formal setting.

Dimensions of Employee Volunteering Behavior

There are various ways to measure employee volunteering. A framework proposed by Rodell et al. (2016) indicates that employee volunteering can be accessed by volunteering direction, volunteering intensity, and volunteering persistence. Volunteering direction is adopted if the researchers want to know the employee’s decisions to engage in corporate volunteering initiatives rather than other activities. Volunteering intensity refers to the frequency the employees engage in volunteering activities of their organization. Those who use this approach to employee volunteering want to discover “the causes and consequences of

the magnitude of employee involvement in volunteer activities” (Rodell et al., 2016, p. 60).

Self-report of the time employees spend on corporate volunteering is one way of using volunteering intensity to access the employee volunteering. Volunteering persistence aims to measure how long the employees engage in certain volunteering activities. Studies using this approach want to discover the impacts of volunteering on the volunteers in the long term.

Antecedents of Employee Volunteering Behavior

It was found that the reactions of different individuals to the volunteering activities are different. Scholars have found many factors which impact the decisions (why) of joining the volunteering activities, as well as their intensity (how often) and persistence (how long). These factors can be grouped into individual factors, workplace characteristics, and company-level factors (Rodell et al., 2016).

Individual factors include demographics, personality traits, motives, and identity. In terms of demographic, including age, gender, education level, and children rearing responsibility, some studies found that the older the people are, the more likely they will engage in volunteering behaviors (Cornwell & Warburton, 2013; DeVoe & Pfeffer, 2007; Peterson, 2004), females are more likely to involve in volunteering behaviors than males (Cornwell &

Warburton, 2013; DeVoe & Pfeffer, 2007; Lee & Brudney, 2012), the higher the education level is, the more people tend to be part of volunteering activities (Marshall & Taniguchi, 2012;

Rotolo & Wilson, 2006; Wilson & Musick, 1997), and people who are taking care of children are more prone to performing volunteering behaviors (Cornwell & Warburton, 2013; Marshall

& Taniguchi, 2012; Peterson, 2004). Regarding the personality traits, volunteers are likely to be more extroverted and agreeable than non-volunteers (Carlo et al., 2005; Elshaug & Metzer, 2001). Researchers also pointed out that employees are motivated to engage in volunteering behavior and these motivations are altruism, meaningfulness, organizational citizenship, role variety, relational and social task characteristics, networking, and personal reasons (Cycyota et al., 2016). As far as the identity factors are concerned, Rodell (2013) found that employees who have higher prosocial identity have more often volunteering engagement.

Workplace characteristics are categorized into job design and work context. There are contradicting views on how job design influences one’s engagement in volunteering behaviors.

It was found that employees tend to take part in volunteering activities as a way to show their gratitude for the company if their jobs are sufficiently interesting and challenging (Greenhaus

& Powell, 2006; Slattery et al., 2010). In contrast, once employees perceive their job as being less meaningful, they are likely to engage in volunteering behaviors as they believe they can get the meaningfulness in these activities to make up for the shortages of joy and challenge in their jobs (Grant, 2012). Regarding the work context, it was found that work schedules, payment schedules, and job uncertainty are impactful to employee’s engagement in volunteering behaviors (Rodell et al., 2016).

As regards organizational level factors, organizational support was found to predict employee’s engagement in corporate volunteering, specifically, time incentives offered for volunteering behaviors, employee recognition for taking part in volunteering activities, employee costs cover for volunteering are supports that increase employee’s engagement in corporate volunteering (Basil et al., 2009; Booth et al., 2009; Gati; Peloza et al., 2009; Peterson, 2004).

The Important Role of Employee Volunteering Behavior

Employee volunteering behavior was found to result in many positive outcomes. These outcomes can be grouped into personal outcomes, work outcomes, company performance, and external perceptions.

In terms of personal outcomes, through volunteering participation, employees can fulfill their needs, like, the sense of achievement from the volunteering participation, need of belongingness, and a sense of meaningfulness. Volunteering engagement also facilitates employees’ well-being (Rodell et al., 2016). Regarding work outcomes, volunteers are likely to have better job performance, engage in OCB, and less likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors (Glińska-Neweś et al., 2019). As regards external perception outcomes, potential employees are attracted to join the company with good corporate volunteering practices, and company reputation is increased when corporate volunteering acts are carried out properly (Rodell et al., 2016). Employee volunteering behaviors, hence, can have multiple positive effects on the organization as a whole as on each individual in particular. These various effects of employee volunteering behaviors emphasize its important role in bettering the organization and improving employee’s well-being.

Prosocial Motivation

Definition of Prosocial Motivation

Abraham Lincoln wrapped up his first inauguration by bringing up the belief better angels of our nature with the implication that United States citizens need to act in the interest of their fellows. People are oftentimes motivated to involve themselves in actions that benefit others. This belief has been the focus of many studies for centuries: Scholars for centuries have studied the implications of prosociality in organizations (Bolino & Grant, 2016). There are three aspects of prosociality that have captured the attention in most studies: prosocial motivation, prosocial behavior, and prosocial impact. Prosocial motivation is defined as the desire to benefit others (Grant, 2008). Prosocial motivation was found to result in prosocial behaviors which are actions that have positive differences on others (Takeuchi et al., 2015).

Regarding the relation between prosocial motivation and prosocial impact which is defined as the experience of making positive impacts on others through one’s work, prosocial motivation relates to prosocial impact in the way that those who have prosocial motivation tend to have more interest in benefiting others through their action (Bolino & Grant, 2016). As far as the

在文檔中 Perception of Corporate Social Responsibility, Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employee Volunteering: The Roles of Prosocial Motivation (頁 21-37)