The Morality Matter in CSR Support
A quantitative study of employees’ support for Corporate Social
Responsibility
E.M. ENGELHART University of Amsterdam
Master’s Thesis
Master’s programme: Communication Science - Graduate School of Communication
Name: Eline Maureen Engelhart
Student ID: 11109653
Abstract
With today’s increasing awareness in moral issues such as climate change and human rights, more organizations tend to develop CSR business strategies that revolve around these issues. Employees fulfill a key position within these efforts in conveying the moral norms and values to external stakeholders. However, there has been little to no research regarding employees’ perception of CSR or, more specifically, their support for their organization’s CSR practices. Therefore, the goal of this study is to identify what motivates employees to support their organization’s CSR program. A cross-sectional survey was used to examine whether employees’ morality – their moral identity – and skepticism is related to their CSR support. The results show a positive relationship between someone’s morality and CSR support: the higher employees’ moral identity, the higher their support for a CSR program. In contrast to expectations, a person’s skepticism towards CSR did not relate to whether they support a CSR program or not. These results provide evidence that employees’ perception of CSR efforts, irrespective of how skeptic they are towards CSR, can be influenced by their moral identity. This provides important information about employees using their own morality to make sense of moral matters, such as their organization’s CSR program. Accordingly, organizations can use this information to help develop a CSR program in line with all their stakeholders, including employees. Directions for future work are discussed.
Introduction
“Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people's behavior, it would all make sense.” This quote by neurologist Sigmund Freud addresses the question why certain people act in a specific way. Applied to today’s society, the increase in awareness about moral issues, such as climate change and human rights, make people behave in a different way than a decade ago. For example, people buy more electric cars and customers tend to change their
However, not everyone responds to moral concerns in the same way, demonstrated by the many people that still drive petrol cars or buy their clothes at stores regardless of whether the company is involved in child labor. What drives people to respond differently to moral issues? Does this also apply to how employees view their organization’s moral behavior, such as recycling or donating to charity?
Moral behavior of organizations is a response to social and environmental issues and is translated into an organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy
(Elkington, 1997). Since the focus of these programs is to benefit human welfare and the environment, they are often appreciated by external stakeholders. In turn, this can benefit the organization by, for example, improved relationships with investors and enhanced purchase intentions of consumers (Juholin, 2004). However, when stakeholders question whether the CSR program is used merely as a marketing tool to obtain these positive outcomes, it could result in negative perceptions such as skepticism (Forehand & Grier, 2003). In turn, this can result in negative attitudes towards an organization (Ellen, Mohr & Webb, 2002).
While the aforementioned positive and negative perceptions of external stakeholders in relation to CSR activities are extensively discussed (Bhattacharya, Korschun & Sen, 2009; Forehand & Grier, 2003; Vanhamme & Grobben, 2009), only a few studies have focused on CSR and a different group of stakeholders: employees. This is remarkable given the key position employees fulfill in conveying corporate norms and values to external stakeholders and thereby being able to add credibility to CSR efforts (Morsing, Schultz & Nielsen, 2008). More specifically, scholars have identified a gap in the literature regarding employees’ perception of CSR and their commitment to or support for CSR efforts (Aguilera, Rupp, Williams & Ganapathi, 2007). As a notable exception, Ter Hoeven and Verhoeven (2013) found that communication with employees is crucial in increasing employees’ support of CSR strategies. However, individual characteristics that motivate employees to support their
organization’s CSR efforts remain unexplored. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by focusing on the micro-level of employees and what motivates them to support a CSR program.
People’s morality is often seen as a motivator for or predictor of outcomes regarding moral issues (Reed II & Aquino, 2003; Younis & Yates, 1999). Therefore, this study
examines whether an employees’ morality is linked to their support for corporate moral activities, or in other words, a CSR program. In addition, based on previous research about external stakeholders’ skepticism towards CSR, this study explores whether employees might be affected by skepticism in their support for CSR. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to identify how employees’ support of a CSR program is influenced by CSR skepticism and by their moral identity.
Theoretical framework Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an extension of business operations by including actions that go beyond what is expected of an organization (Mullen, 1997). According to Carroll (1991), this is referred to as an organization’s ‘philanthropic responsibilities’ and is the last step in the hierarchal order towards becoming a good corporate citizen. With this last step, an organization contributes its resources to improve the general quality of life.
Elkington (1997) captured this in the triple bottom line approach that focuses on an organization’s economic, environmental and societal impact. Accordingly, a sustainable organization must be financially stable, reduce or eliminate its impact on the environment and behave according to expectations of society.
However, CSR is approached in different ways leading to a variety of definitions, demonstrated by Dahlsrud (2006) who identified 37 different definitions of CSR. Through a
content analysis, the meaning of these definitions were divided into five dimensions and featured in the following definition: “CSR is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis” (Commission of European Communities in Dalhsrud, 2006, p. 7). The multiple definitions of CSR show its intangibility as a concept and the different views on what is responsible or not. Moreover, different societies and cultures vary in how they define CSR and this may also change over time (Daughtery, 2001).
Not surprisingly, people’s perceptions of CSR strategies are also found to differ, for example among external stakeholders (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004). External stakeholders base these perceptions on two aspects. First, they evaluate the degree to which a
communicated goal is actually established. For example, whether an organization indeed donates to charity when it says it does. Second, they base their evaluations on certain attributions, such as an organization’s underlying motives for going beyond their business operations (Ellen, Webb & Mohr, 2006; Forehand & Grier, 2003). When both aspects are positively evaluated, it may result in organizational benefits, such as higher financial performances (Juholin, 2004). However, when the aspects are negatively evaluated, it can result in negative attitudes towards an organization caused by, for example, skepticism (Forehand & Grier, 2003).
Although most CSR research focuses on external stakeholders, the perceptions of internal stakeholders regarding their organization’s CSR program are equally important. Employees are the representatives of an organization that, due to this position, can influence external stakeholders’ perceptions about the organization (Morsing, Schultz & Nielsen, 2008). As a corporate representative, employees convey norms and values to external stakeholders that, in turn, can enhance the credibility of these norms and values. However,
since CSR programs go beyond the core of an organization’s business operation, they address a new perspective for employees to be a representative of.
This new moral perspective may influence someone’s fit with an organization, which is often judged on the similarity of characteristics and values between an individual and an organization (Schneider, 2001). Consequently, individuals also judge the similarity between their organization’s moral values and their own moral values. When there is a discrepancy within these moral values, employees tend to feel less committed to their organization (Ambrose, Arnoud & Schminke, 2007). Accordingly, incongruity between an organization’s moral values and their employees’ moral values may result in less support for a CSR
program. This emphasizes the importance to identify the relationship between an employees’ moral identity and the moral values of an organization.
In short, people have different perceptions of CSR activities. As seen by external stakeholders, skepticism towards CSR efforts can negatively affect an organization. Applied to employees, CSR skepticism may negatively affect an organization due to less support for the CSR program. In addition, CSR programs address different norms and values than regular business operations. Therefore, when employees assess their organization’s CSR efforts, they may be influenced by their own moral norms and values – their moral identity. The next sections go deeper into how the personal factors ‘moral identity’ and ‘skepticism’ may influence employees’ support of a CSR program.
The moral identity and CSR support
Several disciplines have studied the reasons why some people act in a way that does not necessarily benefit themselves, but rather human welfare in general. Aquino and Reed (2002) explained this by introducing the moral identity. The moral identity is based on how we view ourselves, our self-concepts, and to what extent this self-concept is focused on being a moral
person. Given that we express our self-concept in traits such as ‘funny’ or ‘intelligent’, a moral self-concept is defined by traits that have an explicit connection to moral principles and values. Aquino and Reed (2002) identified nine of these moral traits including ‘caring’, ‘compassionate’ and ‘fair’ (for the full overview see Appendix A). Although there may be more traits with a connection to moral principles and values, the moral traits identified by Aquino and Reed (2002) are viewed by many people as characteristics of a moral person (Lapsley & Lasky, 2001). In addition, these moral traits are found to reliably trigger
someone’s moral identity (Aquino and Reed, 2002). Consequently, the more someone thinks that these moral traits are central to their self-concept, the higher their moral identity.
Mapping the moral identity can be done by examining how strongly someone
identifies themselves with a social referent that, according to them, possesses the nine moral traits (e.g., a neighbor that works for Greenpeace or Mother Teresa). The stronger they identify themselves with this moral person and their moral traits, the higher their moral identity is. In other words, individuals reveal their own moral identity by showing how important they find it to think, feel and behave according to their mental representation of a moral person (Kihlstrom & Klein, 1994).
Moral identity as social self-schema. Given that the moral identity is determined around how we view ourselves, it can be seen as part of our social self-schema (Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim & Helps, 2009; Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004). The self-schema consists of knowledge structures that resemble aspects of our lives, such as experiences and relationships (Fiske, 2000). These structures help us process information in order to cope with and
organize situations in life. Accordingly, our moral identity may help us make sense of moral issues (Lapsley & Lasky, 2001). For example, the moral identity may guide how we feel about an organization’s response to global warming. It is argued that when a moral
knowledge structure is more important, this schema is likely to be more prevalent and therefore cognitively accessible in processing information (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004). Therefore, the variance in how people cope with moral issues might be because people differ in what moral schemas are important to them (Aquino et al., 2009). Consequently, employees might differ in their support of their organization’s CSR program due to differences in what moral schemas of their moral identity are important.
Moral outcomes. The moral traits of Aquino and Reed (2002) are divided into an internalization dimension and a symbolization dimension that are related to a private-self and to a public-self, respectively. The private-self focuses on the extent to which moral traits are rooted in someone’s self-concept. For example, the degree to which an individual strongly desires to have these moral traits. The public-self entails a more general awareness, namely how someone’s moral traits are conveyed in everyday life actions. For example, the type of magazines or books a person reads may convey someone’s moral traits. The division between the internalization dimension and symbolization dimension is drawn from Erikson’s (1964) definition of a person’s identity, which states that (a) an identity is deeply rooted into the core of an individual’s being and that (b) this identity involves individuals to be true to their self in actions.
Both dimensions of the moral identity are often viewed as an important motivator or predictor for moral outcomes (Damon & Hart, 1992). Several studies demonstrate this by linking the moral identity to a variety of moral outcomes, such as moral actions (e.g., donating to charity; Reed II & Aquino, 2003), moral feelings (e.g., feeling guilty for
behaving inconsistent with moral beliefs; Stets & Carter, 2006) and moral sympathy for out-group members (e.g., sheltering Jews during World War 2; Younis & Yates, 1999).
outcome. For example, people with a higher moral identity may be more likely to perceive moral behavior of their organization, such as CSR efforts, more positively.
The importance of the moral identity in moral outcomes might be explained by how self-schemas guide us. As discussed before, when certain schemas are more prevalent, it is likely that they will be used across various situations and that they will help in processing information (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004). This includes information about moral issues such as CSR efforts. Therefore, the prevalence of certain moral self-schemas may guide how employees process information about their organization’s CSR program. Accordingly, employees with a higher moral identity may process their organization’s CSR program differently than employees with a lower moral identity. In turn, employees with a higher moral identity may show greater support for their organization’s CSR program, as this might be a moral outcome of their moral identity.
Therefore, this study proposes that the moral identity of employees is positively associated with the support of their organization’s CSR program. Moreover, this study focuses on the internalization dimension of the moral identity, since this is considered to be more deeply rooted in a person’s self-concept than the more superficial symbolization
dimension. In addition, the internalization dimension is found to be a stronger predictor of the association between someone’s moral traits and their moral self-concept (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Accordingly, the current study hypothesizes that the internalization dimension of employees’ moral identity is positively associated with their support of their organization’s CSR program.
H1: The internalization dimension of employees’ moral identity has a positive relationship with their support of a CSR program.
Skepticism and CSR support
While many organizations communicate how their practices are meant to positively contribute to society or the environment, multiple cases have been listed as corporate
malpractice (Wagner, Lutz, & Weitz, 2009). A recent example is the Volkswagen scandal in 2015, in which people believed that Volkswagen mitigated their impact on the environment by reducing their emission of diesel cars. However, it appeared that Volkswagen installed software that only reduced emission when it was tested (Hotten, 2015).
Due to the different streams of information about CSR, it is often difficult for people to distinguish between genuine socially responsible organizations and irresponsible
organizations (Parguel, Benoit-Moraeu & Larceneux, 2011). Consequently, people may question why organizations are involved in CSR and whether they actually positively contribute to human welfare. Most scholars refer to this as skepticism towards CSR
(Forehand & Grier, 2003; Skarmeas & Leonidou, 2013). Skepticism generally refers to the tendency to doubt and question the truth of facts (Oxford Dictionary, 1982). It differs from the related concept cynicism in the way that cynicism is an enduring belief that remains stable over time and across situations (Mohr, Eroglu, & Ellen, 1998), whereas skepticism is more situational and can therefore change over time and across situations (Forehand & Grier, 2003; Mohr et al., 1998; Vanhamme & Grobben, 2009).
An organization’s CSR program may be one of these situations in which people try to understand the underlying motives for involvement in CSR. This can be explained by the attribution theory that states that people attribute either internal or external causes to certain situations, for example CSR programs (Kelley & Michela, 1980). An internal cause links the reason for certain behavior to the individual performing that behavior, whereas an external cause links the reason for performing behavior to the surroundings (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002). People that attribute external causes to CSR see the motives for engaging in CSR as
public-serving motives: good deeds are genuinely focused on doing good for human welfare (Forehand & Grier, 2003). People that attribute internal causes to CSR see the motives for engaging in CSR as firm-serving: an organization that uses their good deeds for their own profitability. Accordingly, communication about your own good deeds can lead to suspicion among external stakeholders (Yoon, Gürhan-Canli & Schwarz, 2006). This can negatively affect stakeholders’ attitudes towards an organization by a decrease of credibility and an increase of skepticism (Morsing, Schultz & Nielsen, 2008; Ellen et al., 2002). Therefore, organizations should be careful both in what they communicate about their CSR strategy as well as how they communicate this to prevent evoking skepticism.
Yet, it remains unclear whether CSR programs can have the same effect on employees. However, based on the negative outcomes of skepticism among external stakeholders, this study hypothesizes that employees’ skepticism towards CSR negatively influences their support of their organization’s CSR program.
H2: Employees’ skepticism towards CSR programs has a negative relationship with their support of their organization’s CSR program
Moral identity and skepticism towards CSR program
The literature about the moral identity and skepticism suggests a contrastive effect on the support of a CSR program. The internalization dimension of the moral identity is likely to have a positive relationship with support for CSR, whereas skepticism is likely to have a negative relationship with support for CSR. These relationships might be independent, but might also be associated in their relationship with CSR support. The question rises whether the effect of one of the constructs depends on the level of the other construct, or in other words, whether there is an interaction effect. In the existing literature, no direction for the
possible relationship between the moral identity and skepticism is found. Therefore, the following research question addresses if there is an interaction effect between the
internalization dimension of employees’ moral identity and their skepticism towards CSR in relation to their CSR support:
RQ1: Is there an interaction between employees’ internalized moral identity and skepticism towards CSR in relation to support for their organization’s CSR program?
Method
A survey was created that aimed to record the views of employees. Therefore, respondents were asked to have their own organization – or their former organization if they were
currently unemployed – in mind while answering the questions. The survey included a fictive CSR program of which respondents were asked to visualize as if this CSR program was communicated by their own organization. To measure the dependent variable ‘CSR support’, respondents were asked to rate their support for this program. The survey then presented items that measured the other variables ‘CSR skepticism’ and ‘moral identity’ and concluded with items that measured extra control variables.
Procedure
A cross-sectional online-survey was used to collect the data. Respondents were contacted digitally through social media and e-mail. The URL to the survey was included in direct messages on Facebook and direct e-mails to friends and family. In addition, a message with the URL was posted on Facebook that asked people to participate in the study if they qualified as employee or as having similar work experience in the past. The survey took
approximately 8 minutes to complete. Respondents were recruited over two weeks in December, 2016.
Respondents
The online survey was filled in by a total of 176 respondents. Convenience sampling among friends and family was used to ensure a high response of the required respondents
‘employees’. In addition, snowball sampling was used to collect more data with the aim of reaching a higher external validity. Fifty respondents were removed from the study because they either did not complete the questionnaire or were filtered out because they listed themselves as employer or entrepreneur, instead of employee. This led to a final sample of 126 respondents. Within this sample, several respondents missed a single item in the survey but were included in analyses where possible.
The final sample consisted out of 49 men (38.9%) and 77 women (61.1%). The age of the respondents ranged from 19 to 73 with a mean age of 34.19 (SD = 13.55) years. The majority of the respondents had obtained as highest education a bachelor’s degree (34.1%). Other respondents had completed high school or a GED (10.3%), vocational training (12.7%), a University of Applied Sciences bachelor’s degree (15.1%), a University of
Applied Sciences Master’s degree (1.6%), a Master’s degree (24.6%) or a doctorate’s degree (1.6%). The sample consisted mostly out of non-religious respondents (64.3%), with 35.7% religious respondents. Participation was voluntarily with no incentives given.
Measures
The survey started with a welcome word and an anonymity and participation statement. This was followed by demographic items that recorded age, gender, education, religion and job position. The survey then presented the fictive CSR program and asked the respondent to
visualize that their own organization had introduced the program as part of their new business strategy. To ensure a realistic program, the text was based on CSR activities of companies in the top three of the global CSR Reputation Ranking (Reputation Institute, 2015). To measure the dependent variable, respondents were asked to rate their support for this CSR program. This was followed by items measuring the independent variables skepticism towards CSR activities and the moral identity. The survey concluded with items regarding CSR activities of the respondent’s organization and thanking the respondent for their time and answers.
The moral identity. Ten items measuring the moral identity were adopted from Aquino and Reed (2002). This scale divides the moral identity into two different dimensions. The first dimension, internalization, focuses on the extent to which moral traits are important to someone’s self-concept. The five items measuring the internalization dimension included “It would make me feel good to be a person who has these characteristics” and “Being someone who has these characteristics is an important part of who I am”. All items were measured on a 7 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The second dimension, symbolization, was included as a control variable.
A principal component analysis for the internalization dimension of the moral identity revealed that the five items formed a single uni-dimensional scale. There was only one
component with an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue 2.60) which explained the variance of the five items for 51.9 per cent. The scree plot showed a clear point of inflection after this
component. All items had a positive correlation with the first component and factor loadings ranged from 0.57 to 0.81. Reliability analysis showed that the five items form a reliable scale (α = 0.76). Higher scores on the internalization dimension indicated a higher moral identity (M = 5.82, SD = 0.81).
CSR skepticism. Four items that measured skepticism towards CSR were based on Mohr, Eroglu and Ellen (1998). Since the original items measured consumer skepticism towards environmental claims about organizations, the items were adjusted to more broad items that focused on someone’s skepticism towards CSR activities in general. In addition, one of the original items was replaced due to extensive overlap with another item of the scale. The final set of four items measuring skepticism towards CSR activities were “Most
statements made by companies about their CSR activities are not true”, “Most statements made by companies about their CSR activities are intended to mislead rather than inform”, “Companies exaggerate their statements about achieved CSR activities” and “Companies’ CSR activities are serving the interests of the company, rather than the interests of the
public”. All items were measured on a 7 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
A principal component analysis for skepticism towards CSR activities revealed that the five items formed a single uni-dimensional scale. There was only one component with an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue 1.96) which explained the variance of the five items for 49.08 per cent. The scree plot showed a clear point of inflection after this component. All items had a positive correlation with the first component and factor loadings ranged from 0.66 to 0.77. Reliability analysis showed that the five items form a somewhat reliable scale (α = 0.65). Higher scores indicated more skepticism towards CSR activities (M = 4.36, SD = 0.86).
Support for CSR program. To measure the dependent variable ‘CSR support’, one item was created that recorded employees’ support for a fictive CSR program (for the full fictive CSR program see appendix B). To ensure that the views of employees was measured, respondents were asked to visualize as if the program was communicated by their own
organization. The fictive CSR program was created based on existing CSR programs of the top three organizations in the Global CSR Reputation Ranking (Reputation Institute, 2015): Google, BMW Group and The Walt Disney Company. Consequently, various CSR efforts of the three organizations were adopted and adjusted to form the fictive CSR program. This method was used to establish a realistic program that was based on positively evaluated other programs. In addition, the program incorporated as many dimensions as identified by
Dalhsrud (2006) by including social and environmental concerns, interaction with internal as well as external stakeholders and emphasizing the voluntary basis.
The item measuring CSR support was “Would you support above CSR program if introduced by your company?” and was measured on a 7 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (definitely not) to 7 (definitely yes). Higher scores indicated more support for the CSR program (M = 5.8, SD = 1.15).
Covariates. Age, gender and religion were measured with single items. Education was measured as the highest level of completed education on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (high school or GED) to 7 (doctorate degree). In addition, to take the whole moral identity into consideration, the symbolization dimension of the moral identity was included as a control variable. This dimension taps the extent to what the nine moral traits are translated into actions in someone’s everyday life. Items measuring the symbolization dimension included “The kind of books and magazines I read identify me as having these
characteristics” and “I am actively involved in activities that communicate to others that I have these characteristics”. All five items were measured on a 7 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
A principal component analysis for the symbolization dimension of the moral identity revealed that the five items formed a single uni-dimensional scale. There was only one
component with an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue 2.83) which explained the variance of the five items for 56.63 per cent. The scree plot showed a clear point of inflection after this component. All items had a positive correlation with the first component and factor loadings ranged from 0.62 to 0.80. Reliability analysis showed that the five items form a reliable scale (α = 0.81). Higher scores on the symbolization dimension indicated a higher reflection of the moral identity into everyday life actions (M = 4.17, SD = 1.09).
The final covariates were measured on a 7 point Likert scale and included perceived CSR involvement of the employee’s organization and satisfaction regarding their
organization’s CSR involvement. Perceived CSR involvement tapped the degree to which an employee perceives their own organization to be active in CSR and was measured by the single item “My company is involved in CSR” (M = 4.15, SD = 1.83). Satisfaction regarding the respondent’s organization was measured by the single item “I am satisfied with how involved my company is in CSR” and measured the extent to which an employee is satisfied with the CSR involvement of their own organization (M = 3.86, SD = 1.59). Involvement and satisfaction were included as covariates to control for effects of a respondent’s own
organization’s CSR program when visualizing as if this existent program was replaced by the fictive CSR program.
Results
The statistical software program SPSS was used to perform two multiple regressions analyses. The first multiple regression served as a model to predict CSR support with the main variables internalized moral identity and CSR skepticism. The second analysis was used to examine whether there was an interaction between CSR skepticism and moral identity in their relationship with CSR support.
Main effects of moral identity and CSR skepticism on CSR support
The first analysis tested whether the internalized moral identity and CSR skepticism
influence CSR support. Control variables included gender, age, education, religion, perceived CSR involvement, satisfaction regarding CSR involvement and the symbolization of the moral identity. The analysis showed that the used regression model fits the data F(9, 110) = 5.08, p < .001. The variation in CSR support can be predicted by the internalized moral identity, CSR skepticism and the control variables by 29.3 per cent (adj. R2 = .24). The results of the analysis were used to identify whether employees’ moral identity and/or skepticism towards CSR activities affect their support for their companies’ CSR efforts (see Table 1).
Table 1
Regression Summary for Variables Predicting CSR Support
Variable B SE B β t p Gender .28 .22 .12 1.28 .20 Age .01 .01 .06 .71 .48 Education -.04 .06 -.05 -.63 .53 Religion -.06 .21 -.03 -.29 .77 Perceived CSR involvement .14 .07 .23 2.09 .04* Satisfaction CSR involvement -.16 .08 -.22 -1.98 .05 CSR skepticism -.03 .11 -.03 -.31 .76
Moral identity (internalization) .46 .14 .32 3.38 .00** Moral identity (symbolization) .12 .10 .11 1.15 .25 Note. N = 120. Gender (1 = male, 2 = female) and religion (0 = not religious, 1 = religious) were dichotomously coded. Adj. R2 = .24; F(9, 110) = 5.08***.
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
The first hypothesis suggested that the internalization dimension of employee’s moral identity has a positive relationship with their support for a CSR program. Results showed that this relationship is significant (b = .46, b* = .32, t = 3.38, p = .001). For every extra point on
the scale of the internalized moral identity, ranging from 1 (low moral identity) to 7 (high moral identity), CSR support increased by .46 (again on a 7-point scale). Thus, the higher someone’s moral identity, the more supportive they were of the CSR program. Hypothesis 1 is supported. The second hypothesis proposed a negative relationship between someone’s skepticism towards CSR activities, and their support for a CSR program. Contrary to expectations, CSR skepticism showed no significant effect on CSR support (b = .03, b* = -.03, t = -.31, p = .76). Thus, hypothesis 2 is rejected.
In addition, the control variable perceived CSR involvement showed a positive effect on employees’ CSR support (b = .14, b* = .23, t = 2.09, p < .05). For every extra point on the scale of perceived CSR involvement, ranging from 1 (low involvement) to 7 (high involvement), CSR support increased by .14 (again on a 7-point scale). Thus, the more employees perceived their company to be involved with CSR, the more they supported the CSR program. The remaining control variables, including the symbolized moral identity, showed no significant relationship with CSR support.
Interaction between moral identity and CSR skepticism on CSR support
The second multiple regression tested for interaction between the moral identity and CSR skepticism in their relationship with CSR support. The analysis examined whether the effect of CSR skepticism on CSR support is dependent on the level of the moral identity or whether the effect of the moral identity on CSR support is dependent on the level of CSR skepticism. The analysis revealed multicollinearity within both of the independent variables as well as within the interaction term. To control for this multicollinearity, a centered mean
methodology was used (Hayes, Glynn & Michael, 2012). Consequently, the multiple
regression analysis showed no collinearity issues, with VIF indicators ranging between 1.01 and 1.03. The results of the analysis showed that the model fits the data well F(3,121) =
identity, CSR skepticism and the interaction term of CSR skepticism and the moral identity (adj. R2 = .20).
As shown in Table 2, the effect of the moral identity on CSR support remains significant (b = .65, b* = .46, t = 5.73, p < .001). In line with the first multiple regression analysis as well, CSR skepticism does not have a significant relationship with CSR support (b = -.08, b* = -.06, t = -.78, p = .44). Regarding the interaction term, there was no significant interaction between CSR skepticism and the moral identity (b = -.01, b* = -.01, t = -.09, p = .93). Thus, there is no interaction between CSR skepticism and the moral identity in their relationship with CSR support.
Table 2
Regression Summary Interaction
Variable B SE B β t p
CSR skepticism -.08 .11 -.06 -.78 .44
Moral identity (internalization) .65 .11 .46 5.73 .00*** Interaction moral identity & CSR skepticism -.01 .15 -.01 -.09 .93 Note. N = 125.
Adj. R2 = .20; F(3,121) = 11.44***. ***p < .001.
Discussion
The aim of this study was to gain more insights in how employees perceive their
organization’s CSR efforts and what motivates them to be supportive of these activities. Given that CSR programs are based on moral issues, this study proposed that support of a CSR program would be related to an individual’s own moral identity. In addition, based on prior research discussing skepticism towards CSR, it was suggested that such skepticism would affect employees’ support for their organization’s CSR program. Since the moral
examined whether the moral identity and CSR skepticism influence support for a CSR program independently, or if these two variables interact in a way that impacts CSR support. A cross-sectional survey (N = 126) was used to explain employees’ support for a CSR program.
This study suggests that an employees’ moral identity is positively related to how supportive they are of an organization’s CSR program. This demonstrates that the higher an employees’ morality, the greater his or her support for the organization’s practices aimed at benefiting society and human welfare. No relationship was found between an employee’s skepticism and support for the CSR program. Also, no interaction effect was found between employees’ moral identity and their CSR skepticism in relation to CSR support. The control variable perceived CSR involvement did show a positive relation to employees’ CSR
support: the higher perceived CSR involvement, the higher an employee’s CSR support. The findings have three theoretical implications.
Theoretical implications
First, this study provides strong evidence that the internalization dimension of the moral identity has a positive influence on employees’ support of their organization’s CSR program, with a greater moral identity positively associated with increasing CSR support. Given that a CSR program is set up to not only benefit the organization and their in-group members, this finding is in line with prior research that related a stronger internalized moral identity to a greater moral obligation to help out-group members (Reed II & Aquino, 2003). Moreover, multiple studies have linked the moral identity to a variety of moral outcomes (Reed II & Aquino, 2003; Stets & Carter, 2006; Younis & Yates, 1999). Based on the data of this study, support for a CSR program – the positive perception towards ethical behavior – can be viewed as another moral outcome of the moral identity. The relationship between the moral
identity and CSR support can be explained by how people use their moral self-schemas to make sense of the world (Lapsley and Narvaez, 2004). Individuals use their mental
knowledge schemas, including moral schemas, to process situations and information which consequently helps them to respond to these situations and information. Due to the presence or absence of certain moral schemas, people have different compositions of their moral identity, which makes them respond differently to moral information such as their organization’s CSR program.
Second, in contrast to expectations, someone’s degree of skepticism towards CSR in general had no influence on support for the CSR program. This finding suggests that
skepticism affects internal stakeholders differently than external stakeholders. While
skepticism can cause negative attitudes towards an organization among external stakeholders (Forehand & Grier, 2003; Morsing, Schultz & Nielsen, 2008; Ellen et al., 2002), this effect does not show for internal stakeholders.
The absence of negative effects of employees’ CSR skepticism might be explained by organizations’ internal CSR communication. Given the fictive nature of this study, employees could not rely on their own organization’s CSR communication to assess the fictive program. Accordingly, no background knowledge about CSR motives were present. However, these CSR motives are found to be important among external stakeholders and can facilitate or mitigate skepticism (Ellen, Webb & Mohr, 2006; Forehand & Grier, 2003). In this study, the lack in CSR motives may have disabled any feelings of skepticism towards the fictive CSR program. Future research can control for this by conducting a similar survey study that examines existing organizations and their CSR motives. In this way, it can be identified whether employees’ CSR skepticism is influenced by CSR motives in relation to their CSR support.
In addition, Ter Hoeven and Verhoeven (2013) found that internal communication about CSR practices is the key factor in strengthening employees’ affective commitment. This can lead to more awareness about why the organization is involved in CSR. In turn, this can enhance CSR support. For employees, CSR awareness may remove skepticism towards their organization’s CSR program. To test why employees’ CSR skepticism did not affect their CSR support, future research should test the relationship between awareness, skepticism and CSR support. This could be done by setting up a longitudinal survey study in which CSR support and CSR skepticism are measured before and after employees receive internal
information regarding CSR efforts.
Third, there was no interaction found between CSR skepticism and the moral identity in employees’ support for the CSR program. This indicates that irrespective of how doubtful people are of CSR programs in general, their morals tend to dictate the outcome of how they perceive their own organization’s CSR efforts. This implies that employees’ morality
overrides their skepticism within moral matters such as their organization’s CSR program. However, since prior research found that external stakeholders’ perception towards an organization can be influenced by CSR skepticism, future work should examine an
interaction between external stakeholders’ morality and CSR skepticism in their perception of an organization.
Practical implications
The insights gained about internal stakeholders’ reactions to CSR are important for organizations, since it provides meaningful information that can help developing CSR
programs in line with all stakeholders, including their employees. In turn, employees can help the organization by conveying these moral norms and values to external stakeholders, which
will add credibility to why an organization is involved with CSR (Morsing, Schultz & Nielsen, 2008).
Organizations should be aware that their CSR programs address – in addition to normal business operations – a new perspective for employees to be a representative of. Therefore, in recruiting and selecting new employees, organizations should include
assessments that focus on someone’s moral values. In line with prior research, congruence between the moral values of an organization and its employees is important to reach a high person-organization fit (Ambrose, Arnoud & Schminke, 2008). A higher fit is found to be beneficial for an organization by for example improved organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Silverthorne, 2004). In addition, this congruence may be facilitated by training sessions in which CSR strategies and moral issues are discussed. Given that the moral identity is found to be a situational variable that changes over time rather than a determined personality trait (Hart, Atkins & Ford, 1998), these trainings should focus on developing the moral identity. In other words, organizations should not only focus on their own moral values, but also on their employees’ moral identity by matching these values during recruit and selection processes and develop and improve these moral values during training sessions.
Limitations
Although this study provides evidence that employees’ moral values can be an explanatory factor in support for CSR practices, there are several limitations which can be used as a starting point for future research. First, the setup of this study does not allow to interpret the relationships causally. Despite the many control variables included, the relationships were tested using correlations, which only gives preliminary insight in how the moral identity is related to CSR support. To control for the possibility that other – not included – variables influence this relationship, future work should conduct experiments where the moral identity
is manipulated, for example, by training sessions aimed at increasing the moral identity. In this way, the variance in CSR support can be directly traced back to the moral identity.
Furthermore, all respondents scored relatively high on the moral identity scale (average of 5.82 out of 7). This may be explained by the voluntary aspect of participation: willingness to voluntary participate may already be an indication of a relatively high moral identity. Although the minimal variance in respondents’ moral identity revealed a positive relationship with CSR support, future research should focus on obtaining a sample that also includes people that score lower on the scale of moral identity. Therefore, a similar study should be conducted within a more diverse group of respondents. For example, by giving people within heterogeneous environments such as supermarkets an incentive in the form of a free product or by making the survey compulsory at a university.
Finally, the survey included a number of single-item variables including perceived CSR involvement, CSR satisfaction and CSR support. These items were not adopted from previous research. Given the self-formulated nature of these single-item, it may be that they did not measure the whole concept it was created for. Therefore, future work should focus on developing reliable scales for these constructs.
Conclusion
In all, this survey study shows how employees rely on their own morality in their perception of moral efforts such as the CSR program of their organization. Although more research is needed to further explore this relationship, it is an important preliminary insight given today’s raise in awareness regarding organization’s responsibility in moral issues. In regards to Freud, this study has brought us one step closer to better understand the reasons for other people’s behavior, which is, that morality matters in CSR support.
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Appendix A Overview of nine moral traits 1. Caring 2. Compassionate 3. Fair 4. Friendly 5. Generous 6. Helpful 7. Hardworking 8. Honest 9. Kind
Appendix B Fictive CSR program
CSR program
- Incorporating employees’ thoughts:
- Obligatory team meetings twice a year to discuss what charities the company will collaborate with and/or donate to.
Educate children about ongoing environmental and social issues:
- The company sets up a LIFE-program for primary schools. This will educate children about climate change and promote intercultural learning by explaining cultural differences as an enrichment rather than a barrier.
Reducing waste, energy consumption and emission:
- Mandatory recycling within the workplace: separate food waste, paper, plastic, cans et cetera. - Energy saving: the company uses green energy and installs lights that only turn on by
movement.
- Reducing emission: the company promotes low emission company cars and sets up a carpool program.
Giving back to the community:
- All employees are encouraged to work two days a year for a community service of their choice: cleaning up parks or graffiti, work in an elderly home or work at a non-profit company. Participation is voluntarily and employees will be paid as a regular day. Donations:
- The company asks you to donate a bag of unused clothes, toys and books each year to be distributed to people in need by companies like Oxfam.
The company will communicate an annual report to all stakeholders with the results of above mentioned actions.
Appendix C Items wording
CSR support
- Would you support the CSR program? (CSR_support)
CSR skepticism
- Most statements made by companies about their CSR activities are true. (Skep1)
- Most statements made by companies about their CSR activities are intended to mislead rather than inform. (Skep2)
- Companies exaggerate their statements about their achieved CSR activities. (Skep3)
- Companies' CSR activities are serving the interests of the company, rather than the interests of the public. (Skep4)
Moral identity
- It would make me feel good to be a person who has these characteristics. (Moralintern1) - Being someone who has these characteristics is an important part of who I am (Moralintern2) - I often wear clothes that identify me as having these characteristics (Moralsymb1)
- I would be ashamed to be a person who has these characteristics (Moralintern3)
- The type of things I do in my spare time (e.g. hobbies) clearly identify me as having these characteristics (Moralsymb2)
- The kind of books and magazines I read identify me as having these characteristics (Moralsymb3)
- Having these characteristics is not really important to me (Moralintern4)
- The fact that I have these characteristics is communicated to others by my membership in certain organizations (Moralsymb4)
- I am actively involved in activities that communicate to others that I have these characteristics (Moralsymb5)
- I strongly desire to have these characteristics (Moralintern5)
Extra
- My company is involved in CSR. (Extra_csrinvolvement)
- I am satisfied with how involved my company is in CSR. (Extra_csrsatisfaction)
- I think my company would consider actually implementing the CSR program discussed in this survey. (Extra_csrimplementation)
Appendix D SPSS syntax
*Data cleaning process.
*Check whether age can be turned into numeric variable. FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=Age
*Filter employees only USE ALL.
COMPUTE filter_$=(Job_position = 2).
VARIABLE LABELS filter_$ 'Job_position = 2 (FILTER)'. VALUE LABELS filter_$ 0 'Not Selected' 1 'Selected'. FORMATS filter_$ (f1.0).
FILTER BY filter_$. EXECUTE.
*Missing values.
RECODE Gender Education Religion Job_position CSR_support Skep1 Skep2 Skep3 Skep4 Moralintern1 Moralintern2 Moralsymb1 Moralintern3 Moralsymb2 Moralsymb3 Moralintern4 Moralsymb4 Moralsymb5 Moralintern5 Extra_csrinvolvement Extra_csrsatisfaction Extra_csrimplementation (MISSING=99). EXECUTE.
*Check if values are okay.
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=Education Religion /ORDER=ANALYSIS.
*Check if values are okay.
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=Job_position CSR_support Skep1 Skep2 Skep3 Skep4 Moralintern1 Moralintern2
Moralsymb1 Moralintern3 Moralsymb2 Moralsymb3 Moralintern4 Moralsymb4 Moralsymb5 Moralintern5 Extra_csrinvolvement Extra_csrsatisfaction Extra_csrimplementation
/ORDER=ANALYSIS.
*Dummy variable religious versus non-religious.
RECODE Religion (1=1) (2=1) (3=1) (4=1) (5=1) (MISSING=99) (ELSE=0) INTO Religious. VARIABLE LABELS Religious 'Dummy for religious versus non-religious'.
EXECUTE.
*Recode skepticism.
RECODE Skep1 (MISSING=99) (1=7) (2=6) (3=5) (4=4) (5=3) (6=2) (7=1) INTO Skep1rec.
VARIABLE LABELS Skep1rec 'recoded: most statements made by companies about their CSR activities '+ 'are true'.
EXECUTE.
*Recode moral identity Internalization 3.
RECODE Moralintern3 (MISSING=99) (1=7) (2=6) (3=5) (4=4) (5=3) (6=2) (7=1) INTO Moralintern3_rec. VARIABLE LABELS Moralintern3_rec 'recoded: I would be ashamed to have these characteristics'. EXECUTE.
*Recode moral identity Internalization 4.
RECODE Moralintern4 (MISSING=99) (1=7) (2=6) (3=5) (4=4) (5=3) (6=2) (7=1) INTO Moralintern4_rec. VARIABLE LABELS Moralintern4_rec 'recoded: having these characteristics is not really important '+ 'to me'.
EXECUTE.
*Factor analyses.
*Filter employees only USE ALL.
COMPUTE filter_$=(Job_position = 2).
VARIABLE LABELS filter_$ 'Job_position = 2 (FILTER)'. VALUE LABELS filter_$ 0 'Not Selected' 1 'Selected'. FORMATS filter_$ (f1.0).
FILTER BY filter_$. EXECUTE.
*Factor analysis skepticism. FACTOR
/VARIABLES Skep2 Skep3 Skep4 Skep1rec /MISSING LISTWISE
/ANALYSIS Skep2 Skep3 Skep4 Skep1rec
/PRINT INITIAL CORRELATION KMO AIC EXTRACTION ROTATION /PLOT EIGEN
/CRITERIA MINEIGEN(1) ITERATE(25) /EXTRACTION PC
/CRITERIA ITERATE(25) /ROTATION VARIMAX /METHOD=CORRELATION.
*Factor analysis moral identity internalization. FACTOR
/VARIABLES Moralintern1 Moralintern2 Moralintern3_rec Moralintern4_rec Moralintern5 /MISSING LISTWISE
/ANALYSIS Moralintern1 Moralintern2 Moralintern3_rec Moralintern4_rec Moralintern5 /PRINT INITIAL CORRELATION KMO AIC EXTRACTION ROTATION
/PLOT EIGEN
/CRITERIA MINEIGEN(1) ITERATE(25) /EXTRACTION PC
/CRITERIA ITERATE(25) /ROTATION VARIMAX /METHOD=CORRELATION.
*Factor analysis moral identity symbolization. FACTOR
/VARIABLES Moralsymb1 Moralsymb2 Moralsymb3 Moralsymb4 Moralsymb5 /MISSING LISTWISE
/ANALYSIS Moralsymb1 Moralsymb2 Moralsymb3 Moralsymb4 Moralsymb5 /PRINT INITIAL CORRELATION KMO AIC EXTRACTION ROTATION /PLOT EIGEN
/CRITERIA MINEIGEN(1) ITERATE(25) /EXTRACTION PC
/CRITERIA ITERATE(25) /ROTATION VARIMAX /METHOD=CORRELATION.
*Reliability, mean indexes.
*Reliability skepticism. RELIABILITY
/VARIABLES=Skep2 Skep3 Skep4 Skep1rec /SCALE('ALL VARIABLES') ALL
/MODEL=ALPHA /SUMMARY=TOTAL.
*Reliability moral identity internalization. RELIABILITY
/VARIABLES=Moralintern1 Moralintern2 Moralintern3_rec Moralintern4_rec Moralintern5 /SCALE('ALL VARIABLES') ALL
/MODEL=ALPHA /SUMMARY=TOTAL.
*Reliability moral identity symbolization. RELIABILITY
/VARIABLES=Moralsymb1 Moralsymb2 Moralsymb3 Moralsymb4 Moralsymb5 /SCALE('ALL VARIABLES') ALL
/SUMMARY=TOTAL. *Mean index skepticism.
COMPUTE Meanindex_skep=(Skep1rec+Skep2+Skep3+Skep4)/4. EXECUTE.
*Mean index moral identity internalization.
COMPUTE Meanindex_moralintern=(Moralintern1+Moralintern2+Moralintern3_rec+Moralintern4_rec+ Moralintern5)/5.
EXECUTE.
*Mean index moral identity symbolization.
COMPUTE Meanindex_moralsymb=(Moralsymb1+Moralsymb2+Moralsymb3+Moralsymb4+Moralsymb5)/5. EXECUTE.
*Missing values after recoded and mean indexes – not necassery.
*Missing value recoded and mean indeces.
RECODE Skep1rec Moralintern3_rec Moralintern4_rec Meanindex_skep Meanindex_moralintern Meanindex_moralsymb (MISSING=99).
EXECUTE.
*Descriptives and frequencies. *Mean and SD for CSR support.
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=CSR_support
/STATISTICS=STDDEV MINIMUM MAXIMUM MEAN /ORDER=ANALYSIS.
*Mean and SD for moral identity internalization.
DESCRIPTIVES VARIABLES=Meanindex_moralintern /STATISTICS=MEAN STDDEV MIN MAX.
*Mean and SD for moral identity Symbolization. DESCRIPTIVES VARIABLES=Meanindex_moralsymb /STATISTICS=MEAN STDDEV MIN MAX.
*Mean and SD for CSR skepticism.
DESCRIPTIVES VARIABLES=Meanindex_skep /STATISTICS=MEAN STDDEV MIN MAX. *Frequencies of Gender, Age & Education.
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=Gender Age Education /NTILES=4
/STATISTICS=STDDEV MINIMUM MAXIMUM MEAN /ORDER=ANALYSIS.
*Frequencies for Religious versus non-religious. FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=Religious /NTILES=4
/STATISTICS=STDDEV MINIMUM MAXIMUM MEAN /ORDER=ANALYSIS.
*Multiple regression analyses.
*Filter employees only. USE ALL.
COMPUTE filter_$=(Job_position = 2).
FORMATS filter_$ (f1.0). FILTER BY filter_$. EXECUTE.
*Regression analysis, residuals normally distributed, homoscedasticity and collinearity. REGRESSION
/MISSING LISTWISE
/STATISTICS COEFF OUTS R ANOVA /CRITERIA=PIN(.05) POUT(.10) /NOORIGIN
/statistics=defaults tol
/DEPENDENT CSR_support
/METHOD=ENTER Gender Age Education Religious Extra_csrinvolvement Extra_csrsatisfaction Meanindex_skep Meanindex_moralintern Meanindex_moralsymb
/SCATTERPLOT=(*ZRESID ,*ZPRED)
/RESIDUALS HISTOGRAM(ZRESID) NORMPROB(ZRESID). *Creating interaction variable moral identity and skepticism.
COMPUTE Interact_moralintern_skep=Meanindex_skep*Meanindex_moralintern. EXECUTE.
*Interaction analysis with collinearity. REGRESSION
/DESCRIPTIVES MEAN STDDEV CORR SIG N /MISSING LISTWISE
/STATISTICS COEFF OUTS R ANOVA CHANGE /CRITERIA=PIN(.05) POUT(.10)
/NOORIGIN /statistics=defaults tol /DEPENDENT CSR_support
/METHOD=ENTER Meanindex_skep Meanindex_moralintern Interact_moralintern_skep.
*Collinearity too high, remove collinearity to reduce inflated p values.
*Calculate centered mean (mean of meanindex_skep). AGGREGATE
/OUTFILE=* MODE=ADDVARIABLES /BREAK=
/Mean_skep=MEAN(Meanindex_skep).
*Calculate centered mean (mean of meanindex_moralintern). AGGREGATE
/OUTFILE=* MODE=ADDVARIABLES /BREAK=
/Mean_moralintern=MEAN(Meanindex_moralintern).
*Calculated residuals using centered mean methodology to reduce multicollinearity - skepticism. COMPUTE Mean_skep_centered=Meanindex_skep - Mean_skep.
EXECUTE.
*Calculated residuals using centered mean methodology to reduce multicollinearity - moralintern. COMPUTE Mean_moralintern_centered=Meanindex_moralintern - Mean_moralintern.
EXECUTE.
*Compute interaction term with residuals around centered means.
COMPUTE interaction_moral_skep_centered=Mean_skep_centered * Mean_moralintern_centered. EXECUTE.
*Run interaction on residuals (the variation around the mean), residuals normally distributed, homoscedasticity and collinearity.
REGRESSION
/MISSING LISTWISE
/STATISTICS COEFF OUTS R ANOVA /CRITERIA=PIN(.05) POUT(.10) /NOORIGIN
/statistics=defaults tol
/DEPENDENT CSR_support
/METHOD=ENTER Mean_skep_centered Mean_moralintern_centered interaction_moral_skep_centered /SCATTERPLOT=(*ZRESID ,*ZPRED)
