Perception of Corporate Social Responsibility, Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employee Volunteering: The Roles of Prosocial Motivation
and Task Significance
by
Le Cong Phu
A Thesis Submitted to the
Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Major: International Human Resource Development
Advisor: Lu, Cheng-Chieh, Ph.D.
National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan
June 2021
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis was born amid a special time, the Covid-19 pandemic, when interaction and communication are harder than ever. The thesis writing process had been more challenging, and required much effort than normal. With that being said, the work had been completed with support from my thesis advisor, Committee Members, and all of the IHRD faculty members and classmates.
First of all, I would like to send my gratitude to my thesis advisor, Dr. Lu, Cheng- Chieh who had accompanied me all the way here. Thanks to his detailed feedback and encouragement, I was motivated right in the most demotivated moments. Although the pandemic took away from us our in-person discussions, it could not stop our communication.
Online discussions were carried out between Dr. Lu and me and turned out to be as effective as the in-person meetings.
I also would like to send my appreciation to Committee Members, Dr. Lai, Chih-Chien, and Dr. Lee, Pai-Po who had provided me with valuable insights. Via practical experience based-feedback, they had helped my thesis more practice-oriented. We had had a smooth online thesis defense which I believe would be the most unique defense meeting ever.
Finally, I would love to send my warmest thanks to all of the IHRD faculty members and classmates. They had given me the best time ever in Taiwan. Together, we had built an environment where we could grow and love each other like a big family. Thanks to IHRD, my life in Taiwan had been easier and full of opportunities.
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ABSTRACT
This study aims to investigate the effects of employee perception about the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of their firms on their prosocial behaviors like organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee volunteering behavior. In addition, this research also wants to find a mechanism through which the possible relationship between the perceived CSR perception of employees and their prosocial behaviors can be strengthened. In this study, prosocial motivation was proposed to be a possible mediating in the aforementioned relationship. Finally, a situational factor which is task significance was tested as a potential moderator in the possible relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation. The data was collected from 205 Taiwanese people who have working experience in different industries in Taiwan. This research adopted snowball and convenient sampling to collect data. IBM SPSS 23.0 was used to do the descriptive analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis to provide sample profile information and test the hypotheses. The results demonstrate that employee CSR perception has a positive relationship with their prosocial behaviors, specifically, OCB and employee volunteering behavior.
Besides, prosocial motivation was found to be a partial mediator in this relation. The possible moderating effect of task significance in the relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation was rejected. This study implies that proper CSR execution and internal CSR communicating are vital in encouraging employees’ engagement in OCB and volunteering behavior. In addition, via the prosocial motivation pathway, companies can have more initiatives to increase employee prosocial behaviors.
Keywords: corporate social responsibility, organizational citizenship behavior, employee volunteering, task significance, prosocial motivation
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... I TABLE OF CONTENTS ... III LIST OF TABLES ... V LIST OF FIGURES ... VII
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
Background of the Study ... 1
Statement of the Problem ... 4
Purposes of the Study ... 5
Questions of the Study ... 5
Significance of the Study ... 6
Delimitations of the Study... 7
Definitions of Key Terms ... 8
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ... 9
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)... 9
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) ... 12
Employee Volunteering Behavior ... 15
Prosocial Motivation ... 18
Task Significance ... 20
The Relationship Between Employee CSR Perception, OCB and Employee Volunteering Behavior ... 21
Possible Mediating Role of Prosocial Motivation Between Employee CSR perception and OCB, Employee Volunteering Behavior ... 22
Possible Moderating Effect of Task Significance in the Relationship Between Employee CSR Perception and Prosocial Motivation ... 24
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODS ... 25
Research Framework ... 25
IV
Research Hypotheses ... 27
Research Procedure ... 27
Research Sample and Data Collection ... 30
Measurement ... 31
Control Variable ... 37
Reliability and Validity ... 38
Data Analysis ... 40
CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 43
Result of Descriptive Analysis ... 43
Result of Pearson Correlation Analysis ... 45
Result of Hierarchical Regression Analysis ... 47
Discussion ... 56
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 61
Conclusions ... 61
Practical Implications of the Study ... 62
Limitations ... 63
Recommendations for Future Research ... 64
REFERENCES ... 65
APPENDIX A ... 75
APPENDIX B ... 85
V
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Employee CSR Perception Measurement ... 32
Table 3.2 Employee OCB Measurement ... 33
Table 3.3 Employee Volunteering Behavior Measurement ... 34
Table 3.4 Prosocial Motivation Measurement ... 35
Table 3.5 Task Significance Measurement ... 36
Table 3.6 Reliabilities for Each Variable of This Study ... 39
Table 3.7 Summary of Model Fit Indices and Model Test Results ... 40
Table 4.1 Participants Demographic Statistics ... 44
Table 4.2 Mean, Standard Deviation, Correlation and Reliability of Variable ... 46
Table 4.3 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 1 ... 47
Table 4.4 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 2 ... 48
Table 4.5 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 3 ... 49
Table 4.6 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 4 ... 50
Table 4.7 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 5 ... 51
Table 4.8 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 6 ... 52
Table 4.9 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 7 ... 54
Table 4.10 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Hypothesis 8 ... 55
Table 4.11 Hypotheses Testing Results Summary ... 56
VII
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1 Research Framework ... 26 Figure 3.2 Research Procedure ... 30
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter introduces the background, statement of the problem, research purposes and questions, significance of the study, delimitations of the research as well as definitions of key terms. The background of the research describes the concept of corporate social responsibility in today’s business and its influences on prosocial behaviors of employees like organizational citizenship behavior and employee volunteering behavior. The mechanisms of these relationships are also discussed in this chapter, specifically, prosocial motivation is predicted to be one of the mechanisms. In addition, this chapter mentions the effect of task significance on prosocial motivation.
Background of the Study
Nowadays, CSR has become a vital part in the business paradigm (Supanti & Butcher, 2019). Fortune 500 companies together annually spend up to USD $15 billion on CSR (Financial Times, 2014), and CSR reports are generated by almost all of the 250 biggest companies worldwide (KPMG International, 2013). In Taiwan, the importance of CSR has also been raised: Companies with capital over NTD $5 billion and specifically chemical engineering, food, and finance companies are required to do the annual CSR reports since 2015 (The Asset, 2015). CSR has also become an interest in many academic studies (Freeman &
Moutchnik, 2013; Hu et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2020; Ko et al., 2018; Rodrigo & Arenas, 2008).
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). Through CSR, different needs of the firm’s stakeholders, including internal and external stakeholders, can be met (Carroll, 1991;
Freeman & Moutchnik, 2013). However, CSR researchers have not equally paid attention to every stakeholder of the companies. Specifically, though shareholders' and customer’s thoughts towards CSR have been the main focus in the literature, the perspectives of employees and the intended beneficiaries have not received equal attention (Rupp & Mallory, 2015). Rupp and Mallory (2015) also pointed out that “employees are an important stakeholder group, and their reactions to an organization's CSR efforts are relevant to understand the social good generated by CSR initiatives” (p. 225). Due to the important role of the employees in helping the organization gain and maintain their competitive advantages, retaining them through CSR initiatives are one of the top priorities of today’s firms (Hu et al., 2019). In addition, it is the
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CSR employee’s perception that matters because the way the employees perceive their firm’s CSR decides their attitudes and behaviors rather than the company’s actual CSR (Rupp et al., 2006). This research is thus dedicated to studying the employee CSR perception which can enrich the current literature of CSR under the lens of employees.
In relation to employees, CSR was found to have many positive influences on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Employees with a good perception about their firm’s CSR tend to have high employee engagement, good in-role performance, high creativity, good employee relation, high job satisfaction, high organization commitment, and engagement in OCB (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Newman et al., 2015; Rupp & Mallory, 2015). The concept of OCB was initially coined by Bateman and Organ (1983) and is defined as the discretionary behaviors which are not recognized by the formal reward system of the organization and contribute to the overall functioning of the company. OCB is a multi-dimensional construct whose categorizations are varied by different studies. According to Organ (1988), OCB is classified as altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, civic virtue, and sportsmanship, while Williams and Anderson (1991) classify OCB based on the targets that these types of behaviors aimed at, which are OCB towards individual and OCB towards the organization. Many outcomes of OCB have been discovered, say, employees with a high level of OCB contribute significantly to organizational productivity, efficiency, customer satisfaction, as well as employees’ performance evaluations and promotions (Podsakoff et al., 2009). The effects of employee CSR perception on OCB have been recently studied by many scholars and it was found that the better the employees perceive their organization’s CSR, the higher chance they would engage in OCB (Ko et al., 2018; Oo et al., 2018; Rupp & Mallory, 2015; Zhao et al., 2020).
OCB is listed as one of the prosocial behaviors defined as “acts that promote or protect the welfare of individuals, groups, or organizations” (Bolino & Grant, 2016, p. 4). Sharing the similar nature with OCB, employee volunteering behavior deserves further study in relation to CSR (Bolino & Grant, 2016). Employee participation in corporate volunteer programs is important to the success of CSR practices of the organizations. However, to the author’s best knowledge, there have not been many studies into the relationship between employee CSR perception and their behaviors towards corporate volunteer programs. Examining whether a passive perception about the firm’s CSR can invoke active participation in CSR is a novel contribution to the CSR literature. Though there is a lack of study into this relationship, it was found that when employees perceive their firms’ positive attitude towards CSR, they are more likely to have behaviors of practicing the enterprises’ missions, and corporate volunteer
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programs participation is a way to do so (Huang, 2016). This study thus aims at studying the linkage between employee CSR perception and their behaviors towards corporate volunteer programs.
The mechanisms behind the relationship of CSR and OCB from previous research can be explained mainly by social identity theory: People are more likely to identify with organizations with positive values, such as those communicated by CSR, organization identification then promotes employees’ extra roles like OCB (Rupp & Mallory, 2015).
However, this perspective of identity might not be enough to fully understand the relationship as there might be other factors that meditate the mentioned relation (Ong et al., 2018).
Following the suggestion from the research of Ong et al. (2018) using the motivation-based lens, which is considered as a novel approach to examine the relation between CSR and OCB, the extant research uses prosocial motivation as a mechanism to predict the influence of CSR on OCB. Prosocial motivation - one of the antecedents of OCB - describes an employee’s desire to help and connect with others (Grant, 2008). The extant study, therefore, proposes that CSR increases the prosocial motivation of the employees, from which they are encouraged to involve in OCB. Scholars have proved the influences of prosocial motivation on employee OCB, one of the mechanisms is that highly social motivated employees tend to have other- oriented values, for this reason, they always seek opportunities of benefiting others, and one of the ways to do so is engaging in OCB (Meglino & Korsgaard, 2005). The same rationales apply to the explanation of the linkage between employee CSR perception and employee volunteering based on the shared characteristic of the employee volunteering and OCB which is prosocial behaviors.
Furthermore, the degree of prosocial behaviors involvement was found to be varied across different individuals. This degree is decided by demographic factors, values, or previous experiences which are hard for the managers to control so as to encourage a stronger employee’s OCB engagement (Ong et al., 2018). This study attempts to explore another more controllable factor: task significance. Task significance is a job level characteristic, defined as the extent to which one’s work has a positive impact on others (Hackman & Oldham, 1976;
Morgeson et al., 2005). Following the findings of Ong et al. (2018), this research suggests that once employees perceive their work has a positive impact on others (high task significance), they will likely be more sensitive to the opportunities of helping others not only via their job but also via committing organization missions. If a good perception of the firm’s CSR is shaped, employees are likely to experience an increase in prosocial motivation, and prosocial motivation leads to their involvement in OCB as the result. On the contrary, those who perceive
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their job as low task significance are less receptive to the opportunities of benefiting others, and their prosocial motivation is not boosted and a low chance of engaging in OCB may be witnessed. Again, this mechanism is predicted to explain the relationship between employee CSR perception, prosocial motivation, and employee volunteering behavior due to the similarity in the nature of OCB and employee volunteering behavior.
Statement of the Problem
While CSR has been studied for a long time, the studies mostly focus on how CSR influences the firm’s financial performance, reputation, and public views on CSR practices of the companies (Kim et al., 2020; Rupp & Mallory, 2015). Only recently has there been a growing interest in employee-centric CSR. Employees are one of the main stakeholders of any organization and have a significant role in helping the firm create and maintain its competitive advantages (Hu et al., 2019; Rupp & Mallory, 2015). It was found that what the employees perceive about their company’s CSR can influence their attitudes and behaviors, from which the consequences on a larger scale, for example, organization performance, can be seen (Oo et al., 2018; Rupp & Mallory, 2015; Supanti & Butcher, 2019). This study thus aims to provide more insights into the CSR literature, especially in the context of Taiwan where CSR has been appreciated, by approaching CSR from the perspective of employees.
Since employee volunteering behavior and OCB share the similar characteristic that they are both prosocial behaviors, employee volunteering behavior might be another possible outcome of CSR perception. However, to the author’s best knowledge, in the Taiwan context, there is only one research by Huang (2016) studying the influence of employee CSR perception on their volunteering behaviors, hence, this is a research gap demanding more research attention.
On the other hand, when it comes to explaining the mechanism of the relationship between CSR and OCB, most of the studies adopt the social identity lens, which is considered insufficient to capture the whole influence of CSR on OCB. Ong et al. (2018) are among one of the firsts to address this shortcoming by coming up with a new mechanism which is prosocial motivation – a motivation-based lens, to explain the relationship between the two mentioned constructs. Yet such a new approach needs more empirical evidence in different cultural settings to prove its generalizability. This study thus intends to study this subject in the context of Taiwan – which is an Eastern culture setting.
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Furthermore, why employees react differently to their firm’s CSR initiatives and as a result, the degree of their engagement in OCB is also varied has been a popularly discussed question in the literature. Scholars found that this difference can be explained by demographic factors, values, or previous experiences (Ong et al., 2018). However, these factors are personal characteristics that seem hard to be controlled and managed by the managers. Therefore, other possible situational factors which might cause employees to react differently to their firm’s CSR should be explored. This study thus proposes a situational factor called task significance as a possible moderator which indirectly affects the relationships between employee CSR perception and their behaviors, like OCB and volunteering behavior.
Purposes of the Study
The objective of this empirical study is to investigate the relationships among employee CSR perception, employee OCB, employee volunteering behavior, prosocial motivation, and task significance in the context of Taiwan’s organizations that have CSR practices towards the community and environment. Specifically, there are three main research purposes. First, to investigate whether employee CSR perception has a significant impact on employee OCB and employee volunteering behavior. Second, to examine whether prosocial motivation can mediate the relationship between employee CSR perception and employee OCB and volunteering behavior. Third, to explore the moderating role of task significance in the relationship of employee CSR perception and their prosocial motivation.
Questions of the Study
This study is mainly to understand the relationships among employee CSR perception, employee OCB, employee volunteering behavior, prosocial motivation, and task significance.
Three research questions are formulated as follows:
1. Will employee CSR perception have a significant impact on employee OCB and employee volunteering behavior?
2. Will prosocial motivation can mediate the relationships between employee CSR perception and employee OCB, employee volunteering behavior?
3. Will task significance moderate the relationship between employee CSR perception and employee prosocial motivation?
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Significance of the Study
The contributions of this research to the current literature are fourfold: Firstly, this research tends to add more insights into employee-centric CSR studies which recently started to get the attention of the researchers. Secondly, while the study of Ong et al. (2018) was conducted in the Western country, this study can further validate the generalizability of the motivation-based approach to explain CSR and OCB association of Ong et al. (2018) by conducting the study in Eastern culture setting (Taiwan). This can also enrich the understanding of the current literature by providing scholars in the CSR area with a different perspective to study CSR and its possible outcomes. Thirdly, this study adds a novel contribution to the current CSR literature by examining the effect of CSR perception of employees on active involvement in corporate volunteering programs. By exploring the effect of employee CSR perception on employee volunteering behavior, this study enhances the current understating of the literature that attitudinal factors, like CSR perception, not only predict OCB targeted at colleagues but also might affect employee volunteering behavior which is another type of prosocial behavior but on a larger scale. This could also provide important implications for employers to have good CSR practices and good CSR communication with their employees so that they have a clear perception of their firm’s current CSR initiatives, which, in turn, will influence the employees’ behaviors. Fourthly, by bringing up the task significance and testing its influence on employee prosocial motivation, this study wants to emphasize the importance of job designing. Specifically, the present research proposes that not only does job design contribute to the micro-level like improving the working quality of the employees themselves, it can also have effects on the macro level like OCB and employee volunteering behavior through the boost in prosocial motivation.
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Delimitations of the Study
1. This study is delimited to Taiwanese employees working in Taiwan’s organizations that have CSR practices towards community and environment.
2. This study is delimited to collecting data by adopting the survey as the primary research tool.
3. This study is delimited to the investigation of only five variables, namely, employee CSR perception, employee OCB, employee volunteering behavior, prosocial motivation, and task significance.
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Definitions of Key Terms
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
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).
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
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 (Organ, 1988; Podsakoff et al., 1990).
Employee Volunteering Behavior
The acts of giving time or skills during a planned activity for a volunteer group or organization (e.g., charitable groups, nonprofit groups, etc.) (Rodell, 2013).
Prosocial Motivation
The desire to help and connect with others (Grant, 2008).
Task Significance
The extent to which one’s work has a positive impact on others (Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006).
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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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& 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.
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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 nature of prosocial motivation is concerned, there is a debate on whether prosocial motivation is a trait or a state. Prosocial motivation as a trait is reflected in the personality trait of agreeableness, dispositions toward empathy and helpfulness, and values of others-oriented concerns (Grant, 2008). Prosocial motivation as a state is reflected by the temporary desire to benefit other people, or according to Batson (1987) and Grant (2007), when seen as a psychological state, prosocial motivation refers to the goal of maintaining the welfare and the well-being of others, and this goal is initiated from the interaction with those in need.
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Prosocial Motivation in Relation to Other Constructs
Prosocial Motivation and Altruistic Motivation
Another confusion emerged when it comes to the nature of prosocial motivation and altruistic motivation: Are they the same constructs? Meglino and Korsgaard (2005) consider prosocial motivation as an others-orientation trait and share the same nature with altruistic motivation defined as the concerns for others with the sacrifice of the self-interest. A further conclusion of these scholars is about the conflict between self-interest and others-interest, meaning that people act in the interest of others at the expense of their interest. This conceptualization was objected to by De Dreu and Nauta (2009). These researchers claim that self-interest and others-orientation are two independent concepts, specifically, one can be self- interested and other-oriented at the same time. Thus, prosocial motivation is related to altruistic motivation in the way that they are both other-oriented motives, but they are different as altruistic motivations involve the costs of one’s self-interest, while prosocial motivation only refers to the concerns for others.
Prosocial Motivation and Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is the desire to spend more effort due to the individual’s interest in and the enjoyment of the work (Amabile et al., 1994; Gagné, 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Some scholars think that prosocial motivation is just a form of intrinsic motivation as the opportunities to make a positive impact on others are sometimes seen as an intrinsic reward for the employees, which boosts their intrinsic motivation (Herzberg et al., 1967). Nevertheless, there is a contrasting view saying that they are two different constructs. While intrinsic motivation comes from the interest in the job itself, prosocial motivation comes from the concerns for others (Ryan & Connell, 1989).
The Important Role of Prosocial Motivation
One of the typical outcomes of prosocial motivation is engagement in prosocial behaviors.
It was found that prosocial motivation leads to OCBI, not OCBO (Takeuchi et al., 2015). Those who act for the sake of others tend to receive more positive evaluations from the managers (Grant & Mayer, 2009). In addition to prosocial behaviors, there are other good behaviors of employees resulting from prosocial motives like providing more accurate feedback and fact-
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based self-assessment, avoiding overconfidence, reacting strongly to unfair treatment, etc.
(Bolino & Grant, 2016).
Task Significance
Definition of Task Significance
Employees who tighten nuts on aircraft brake assemblies to ensure the safety of the passengers tend to have a sense of job meaningfulness than those who fill paper clips in small boxes, despite the skills needed for these two tasks are equally comparable. Nowadays, employees are more concerned about how their jobs contribute to others or society, so job design (or job enrichment) plays an important role in helping employees experience job meaningfulness. A job is seen as being meaningful when it is worthwhile, important, or valuable to oneself and/or others (Pratt & Ashforth, 2003). Meaningfulness of work encompasses various components, such as work that helps people make sense of their world, support personal growth, and make a good contribution to others (Steger et al., 2012). What are the sources of job meaningfulness? Hackman and Oldham (1976) proposed the job characteristics model (JCM) which they proved to be one of the main determinants of job meaningfulness. According to the JCM, a job includes 5 characteristics, skill variety (the degree to which a job needs various and different sets of activities in operating the work), task identity (the degree to which the job needs the completion of a whole, and identifiable piece of work), task significance (the degree to which the job has a significant influence on the others’
lives in and outside the organization), autonomy (the degree to which the job offers the employees significant freedom, independence, and in job scheduling and in deciding ways of getting the job done) and feedback (the degree to which the individuals obtain “the direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her performance”) (Hackman & Oldham, 1976, p. 257-258).
Many studies have also pointed out that task significance is the most significant predictor of job meaningfulness among the job characteristics mentioned above (Allan, 2017). A majority of participants in a study answered that helping others directly or making a contribution to a greater society makes their work meaningful (Allan et al., 2014). In comparison with other job meaningfulness’s antecedents like self-efficacy, work-role fit, socio- moral climate, and self-transcendent orientation, task significance is still the strongest predictor
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(Schnell et al., 2013). Another meta-analysis also found that task significance is a longitudinal predictor of meaningful work (Fried & Ferris, 1987). Task significance also helps create a psychological bond between their actions and potential positive impacts on others and motivates employees to invest more time and energy in performing their job to make these positive impacts happen (Fernández-Mesa et al., 2020). Morgeson and Humphrey (2005) in their study built a comprehensive scale to measure these job characteristics based on the ideas of Hackman and Oldham (1976). This research adopted the task significance measurement scale of the study of Morgeson and Humphrey (2006).
The Relationship Between Employee CSR Perception, OCB and Employee Volunteering Behavior
More scholars have focused on the relationship between employee CSR perception and OCB in recent decades (Gilder et al., 2005; Hansen et al., 2011; Lin et al., 2010). The results from the study of Newman et al. (2015) conducted in China show that a more favorable perception of CSR toward stakeholders is positively and significantly related to employee OCB. This relationship can be explained by social identity theory. Social identity theory suggests that “individuals tend to identify themselves from others by categorizing them into a range of salient demographic and social groups” (Ko et al., 2018, p. 818). Employees are more likely to identify with the companies with positive values, such as those communicated by CSR (Rupp & Mallory, 2015). When employees consider themselves as part of their desired groups, their self-esteem is boosted, as the result, some positive behaviors in order to promote their organization’s identity are witnessed (Ellemers et al., 2004). Other studies also support this research’s result by suggesting that organizational identification forms the self-identity of employees, employees’ self-identity then impacts job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and desirable behaviors at work, like teamwork, turnover intention, and OCB (Brown et al., 2006). Plus, drawing from social identity theory, other studies also pointed out that employees tend to experience organizational pride when they perceive their firms actively practicing CSR because they sense their firms being more prestigious and appreciated by people outside the organization (Choi et al., 2020).
Regarding the relationship between employee CSR perception and employee volunteering behavior, although there have not many studies dedicating to exploring the relationship between these two concepts, it is found that when employees perceive their firms’
positive attitude towards CSR, they are more likely to have behaviors of practicing the
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enterprises’ missions and realize its objectives (Huang, 2016). Moreover, employee volunteering and OCB are listed as prosocial behaviors in the way that they are prosocial behaviors, therefore this study proposes that employee CSR perception is likely to have the same impacts on employee volunteering behavior as it does on OCB. Therefore, the following two hypotheses are formulated:
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and OCB.
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and employee volunteering behavior.
Possible Mediating Role of Prosocial Motivation Between Employee CSR perception and OCB, Employee Volunteering Behavior
Why do individuals feel prosocially motivated when they have a good perception of their firm’s CSR? Shin and Hur (2020) in their research pointed out two reasons: ethical working climate and external reputation. CSR is the act of creating an ethical working climate within the organization in the way that these initiatives benefit different internal and external stakeholders, and employees tend to feel that they are working in an ethical working setting once CSR is well implemented (El Akremi et al., 2018). This ethical climate triggers a “sense of community and cohesive group norms that legitimate concerns for the well-being of others”
and thereby prosocially motivates the employees (Shin & Hur, 2020, p. 2869). Prosocial motivation can also be increased due to the firm’s reputation. Employees, through various sources and information, can learn about how the outsiders, like their customers and the community, evaluate the prestige of their company (Smidts et al., 2001). Once employees know that their firm’s prestige is increased through CSR initiatives, they tend to act in a way that contributes to their organization’s prestige, in other words, they are motivated to act socially through the impact of external prestige (Shin & Hur, 2020). Based on these rationales, this study predicts a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and employee’s prosocial motivation.
Why do prosocially motivated employees engage in OCB and volunteering behaviors?
Prosocial motivation was found to be a significant determinant of employee’s OCB (Grant &
Mayer, 2009). One study shows that employees with high social motivation are likely to be more interested in benefiting their colleagues through their work (Bolino & Grant, 2016). In another research, the relationship between employee OCB and prosocial motivation is
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strengthened by higher organizational concern motives (Takeuchi et al., 2015). According to the literature, three mechanisms were found behind the relationship between these two concepts. Firstly, prosocial employees are likely to have other-oriented rather than self-oriented thoughts, so they are more likely to be aware of the opportunities to do good for others and their companies (Meglino & Korsgaard, 2005). Secondly, since employees with high prosocial motivation tend to value and feel more obligated to bettering others’ welfare, they will be likely to have a sense of commitment when involving in OCB (Grant, 2007, 2008; Ilies et al., 2006).
Thirdly, because those who are highly socially motivated tend to have more concerns for others, they will likely contribute for a better good at the expense of their interest (Bolino &
Turnley, 2005; Meglino & Korsgaard, 2005; Moon et al., 2008). This research only focuses on OCB that targets the individuals for its relevance to prosocial motivation. Specifically, the desire to positively impact others is more likely to motivate employees to help their colleagues with their problems at work (Ong et al., 2018). On the other hand, OCB targeting organizations are motivated by organizational concerns (Finkelstein, 2006; Finkelstein & Penner, 2004;
Rioux & Penner, 2001). In relation to the employee volunteering behavior, as this concept shares some similarities in nature with OCB (prosocial behavior), this research posits prosocial motivation is also positively correlated with employee volunteering behavior. The following hypotheses are constructed:
Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation.
Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between prosocial motivation and OCB.
Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between prosocial motivation and employee volunteering behavior.
Hypothesis 6: Prosocial motivation meditates the relationship between employee CSR perception and OCB.
Hypothesis 7: Prosocial motivation meditates the relationship between employee CSR perception and employee volunteering behavior.
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Possible Moderating Effect of Task Significance in the Relationship Between Employee CSR Perception and Prosocial Motivation
Ong et al. (2018)developed a framework to test the CSR sensitivity of the employees.
CSR sensitivity is defined as “the extent to which employees are behaviorally influenced by their organizations’ CSR activities” (p. 45). It was found that employees who have more sensitivity towards their firm’s CSR tend to be socially motivated, thereby engaging in OCB.
On the contrary, those who are less sensitive to the organization’s CSR are less likely socially stimulated, thereby the likelihood of OCB engagement is decreased (Ong et al., 2018). CSR sensitivity is decided by various factors, including demographic factors, values, or previous experiences (Gully et al., 2013; Randy Evans & Davis, 2011; Rupp et al., 2013; Tsai et al., 2014), which organization finds hard to control so as to ensure employee’s OCB engagement through CSR practices. This study, therefore, proposes task significance as another factor that can affect employee’s CSR sensitivity, noting that task significance can be adjusted by the organization through job design. The study of Ong et al. (2018) pointed out the moderating effect of task significance in the relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation: employees who have the chance to positively impact others through their work (degree of task significance) is sensitive to the opportunities of making difference to people in other areas, not only through their job (micro) itself but also through their contribution to the organization’s mission, for example, practicing CSR (macro). This finding of Ong et al. (2018) is in agreement with the virtuous cycle of making a positive difference which suggests that once the employees, through the tasks of their job, perceive the positive influences on the beneficiaries tend to have a desire to make even more prosocial impacts (Grant, 2007).
Following the logic of these findings, the present study suggests that those whose job is high in the degree of task significance tend to be more sensitive to their organization’s CSR practices, once they perceive their organization has good CSR practices, their prosocial motivation is predicted to be further boosted. It is further suggested that the prosocial motives lead to the likelihood of engagement in prosocial behaviors, like OCB and volunteering behaviors. In contrast, those with jobs lower in task significance score are less responsive to their firm’s OCB, they thus are less likely socially motivated, as a result, their engagement in prosocial behaviors is less likely seen. Therefore, the following hypothesis is developed:
Hypothesis 8: Task significance moderates the relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter demonstrates the research methods which were used in this study to ensure the research purposes were achieved. This chapter describes the research framework, hypothesis, research procedure, research sample, data collection, construct measurement scale, pilot test, main study test, and data analysis.
Research Framework
According to the discussion in the literature review, the following framework illustrates the relationship among five variables in this research. Specifically, employee CSR perception – the independent variable is predicted to positively relate to the two dependent variables: OCB and employee volunteering behavior. These relationships are mediated by prosocial motivation. The moderating effect of task significance in the relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation is also explored. The research framework is shown in Figure 3.1.
26 Figure 3.1
Research Framework
Employee CSR Perception
Prosocial Motivation
Employee Volunteering
Behavior Task
Significance
OCB
Control Variables:
- Gender - Job Tenure - Age
- Marital Status - Education Level H3
H1
H2
H4
H5 H6
H8 H7
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Research Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and employee OCB.
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and employee volunteering behavior.
Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation.
Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between prosocial motivation and OCB.
Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between prosocial motivation and employee volunteering behavior.
Hypothesis 6: Prosocial motivation meditates the relationship between employee CSR perception and OCB.
Hypothesis 7: Prosocial motivation meditates the relationship between employee CSR perception and employee volunteering behavior.
Hypothesis 8: Task significance strengthens the positive relationship between employee CSR perception and prosocial motivation.
Research Procedure
This part describes the process that this study would go through. The research procedure for this study is divided into several steps as shown in Figure 3.2 at the end of this part.
Statement of The Problem
The idea of this research initially stemmed from the personal interest of the author who participated in several CSR activities. From these CSR engagement experiences, a motivation to study further the effects of CSR was generated. Many CSR-related studies had been reviewed for the author to shape the ideas for the study. Meanwhile, many discussions were carried out with the thesis advisor to have the research ideas finalized. As a result, the ultimate research ideas were presented in this research regarding the interactions among employee CSR perception, employee OCB, employee volunteering behaviors, prosocial motivation, and task significance within the organizations in Taiwan.
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Literature Review
The literature review about the concerned concepts in this study was done to firstly study further the research issues, then identified the research gap, and finally ensured that the present research topic has not been studied in previous research. As a result of the literature review, the research framework was built and analyzed with supportive rationales.
Development of The Questionnaires
The quantitative approach with survey-based methodology was adopted for the present study. A well-designed validated questionnaire was developed based on previous reliable studies and then was distributed as a tool for data collection. The questionnaire includes measurement scales for five constructs: employee CSR perception, OCB, employee volunteering behavior, prosocial motivation, and task significance. The data was collected in Taiwan. For the Taiwanese respondents to have a better comprehension of the questionnaire, the original English questionnaire items were translated into Traditional Chinese by the author and then gone through the review of the three Taiwanese experts so that the translation accuracy is ensured.
Data Collection
Pilot Study
Researchers who adopt a quantitative approach are recommended to use a pilot test to test out the questions and the potential practical issues in the following steps of the research procedure (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010). To achieve these aims, the validity and reliability of the instrument were tested in the pilot tests.
During the pilot test, the questionnaires were distributed to Taiwanese employees who are working in Taiwan. Cronbach Alpha Coefficient analysis was conducted to test the reliability of the construct.
29 Main Study
Convenient and snowball sampling were adopted for questionnaire distribution. The questionnaires were designed by using SurveyCake, then the links were sent out to Taiwanese people. These receivers helped spread out the questionnaires to others by forwarding the links.
Data Analysis
After collecting the data, the statistical software IBM SPSS 23.0 was used for data analysis in this research. Descriptive data analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were used in this study.
Result Interpretations
By using the result from the data analysis, the implications of this study were reviewed and interpreted. Regarding the findings section, the literature review was used for explaining and supporting discussions in the findings.
Conclusions and Suggestions
A summary of the main purposes and findings of this research are first presented, followed by suggestions and recommendations for studies in the future.