Employee psychological reactions to micro-corporate social responsibility and societal behavior: A structural equation modeling analysis

Appel Mahmud; Donghong Ding; Morshadul Hasan; Zulqurnain Ali; Mohammad Bin Amin

doi:10.1007/s12144-022-02898-2

Employee psychological reactions to micro-corporate social responsibility and societal behavior: A structural equation modeling analysis

Curr Psychol. 2022 Mar 7:1-15. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-02898-2. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Appel Mahmud¹, Donghong Ding¹, Morshadul Hasan², Zulqurnain Ali³, Mohammad Bin Amin⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China.
² Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, Perth, WA 6150 Australia.
³ The UE Business School, University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan.
⁴ Department of Business Administration, Bangladesh Army University of Science & Technology, Saidpur, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Employee psychological reactions to micro-corporate social responsibility (CSR) have recently been expanded in interdisciplinary management science research. The shreds of evidence in this regard are inconclusive, fragmented, and underdeveloped about how employee cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions of attitudes toward micro-CSR relate to each other and shape employee societal behavior (SB). In application of dual-process theories of attitude-behavior relations, we investigate the intra-relationships of perceived CSR-community (PCSRC; cognitive dimension of attitude), CSR engagement (CSRE; behavioral dimension of attitude), CSR positivity (CSRP; affective dimension of attitude). Also, we explore how these variables influence employee SB with a moderated-mediated model. Based on the opinions of 440 Bangladeshi employees as respondents, a structural equation modeling analysis confirmed the positive links from PCSRC to SB, PCSRC to CSRE, CSRE to SB, PCSRC to CSRP, CSRP to SB, and CSRP to CSRE. It also reported that CSRE mediated the relation between PCSRC and SB. It further examined that CSRP did not moderate the direct relation between PCSRC and SB, and the indirect relation between PCSRC and SB via CSRE at low, medium, or high employee CSRP. There are very crystal study implications that address policymakers to adopt CSR policy and its implementation strategies, accordingly, to employees' psychological reactions to micro-CSR.

Keywords: Attitude-behavior relations; Bangladesh; Dual-process theories; Micro (employee)-corporate social responsibility; Societal behavior.